http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/sports/14595687.htm

By David Aldridge
Inquirer Columnist

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And you think the 76ers have problems?

Sadly, Our Larry is about to alight for another city desperate for his particular brand of basketball genius. (The genius part is the millions L.B. pockets before the job is, let's say, actually completed.)

The New York Post and New York Daily News both reported Sunday that Knicks owner James Dolan was ready to sever ties with Brown.

Dolan is reportedly sick of Brown's bad-mouthing his players in the Gotham newspapers and tired of the infighting between Brown and team president Isiah Thomas, and wants Thomas to take over this mess next season as head coach.

Which makes sense, considering Thomas believed in players such as Stephon Marbury much more than Brown ever did. And the Knicks can't trade most of the players who currently make up their bloated, $135 million payroll.

Once these things are leaked to the papers up there, they already have been in motion for days, maybe weeks. So you can bet that Brown has seen the last of the coach's office at Madison Square Garden.

That will leave the Knicks with only one plan - Thomas. Thomas' three-year coaching record in Indiana, 131-115 with three first-round playoff appearances, wasn't nearly as bad as his critics would have you believe. But it wasn't nearly as sterling as he would have you believe.

But Thomas has said, correctly, that he doesn't think one person can do both the personnel job and the coaching job in New York. So, if Thomas returns to the bench, which he has been aching to do for years, the Knicks will need a front-office guy.

Let me point you in a direction. It will be called mindless speculation in a day or so.

Speculation, it is. Mindless, it ain't.

It's time for Dolan to call Jerry Colangelo.

Colangelo, as you no doubt know, is still the chairman of the Phoenix Suns. But that's just a title. The new owner, Robert Sarver, has all the juice in Phoenix these days. Sarver made that painfully clear to Colangelo when he quickly clashed with Colangelo's son, Bryan, the team's former president and general manager.

When Bryan Colangelo wanted an extension, Sarver showed him the door, and Bryan Colangelo wound up in Toronto.

But Jerry Colangelo - one of the league's true power brokers for more than 30 years - still is playing out the string in the Valley of the Sun, waiting for another challenge.

He has spent the last year and a half trying to rebuild Team USA's men's international basketball program. He was given carte blanche to do whatever he had to do to avoid another embarrassment like the U.S. team's bronze-medal finish at the 2004 Olympics in Athens. (A team coached by, um, Brown.)

It was Colangelo who picked Duke's Mike Krzyzewski to coach the current team. It was Colangelo who quickly persuaded superstars such as Kobe Bryant to drop whatever they would be doing in the summer of 2006 and commit to the team. It was Colangelo who laid down the rules - no entourages, no families - for the team's trip to Japan this August for the world championships.

And it was Colangelo who once again made being a member of that team a thing worth doing, and sacrificing for. But that work is mostly done.

Let's speculate that Colangelo is now itching for another mountain to climb. There are mountains, mind you, and then there are mountains, and the belief here is that New York, to Colangelo, is Everest, the only hill worth climbing.

Colangelo could have been a good buffer between Brown and Thomas, someone who could put the function back into that dysfunctional relationship.

As we all know, Brown does his best work with blinders on, when he's coaching and not dabbling in personnel. So he could take his complaints about the roster to Colangelo, who could filter out the crazier notions and present a distilled version to Thomas.

Now, it's even easier. If Brown is out of the picture and Thomas is coaching, the Knicks have to have a real architect in their front office, someone with vision. Most importantly, the Knicks have to once again be credible, with somebody with a proven track record running things.

That someone is Jerry Colangelo.

As for Brown, he will soon be free to take his act to a new town: a town that is desperate to have its team matter again; a town with front-office personnel comfortable with his constant requests; a town with a star who is familiar with Brown's methods and won't chafe at Brown's incessant demands to play the game the right way; a town whose team has to improve defensively, and right quick.

A town...

Don't even go there.

that would be ideal... bring in a guy who has an actual HISTORY of rebuilding teams successfully... someone w/Vision is what we need here... if Isiah is going to coach this team, bring Colangelo to come in so that we at least know there's someone w/a clue working in our front office... this situation is a joke... we need someone w/legitimacy brought in if we're going to fix this mess.

Why would he want to come to this mess? Maybe if we give him an gigantic contract he'll do it.

IT should be in charge of Drafting.

Jerry Trades.

Brown Coaching.

Save Larry!

Larry is horse meat here, it's ova'.

Which town do you think DA was alluding to as next for Brown? Gotta be Philly.