BROWN IN DUMPS
DON'T BELIEVE LARRY'S ACT


June 2, 2006 -- NOBODY loves me. Everybody hates me. I think I'll go in the Garden, and dig up worms.
First you cut their heads off. Then you suck the goo out.

Then you throw the skins away.

Nobody in our Hollis, Queens, cub-den of denigration was allowed to feel sorry for himself for more than a mil-a-moment. As soon as someone started sniveling for sympathy, the rest of us would croon our favorite little nursery rhyme.

Since I've been unwilling to tear myself away long enough from the mesmeric NBA playoffs to attend Larry Brown's regularly scheduled, roadside rendezvous with the gang of Knicks' roving reporters, I'd like to take this occasion to sing him a couple of choruses.

Here is a man who has earned countless millions of dollars while coaching countless millions of teams over the past three decades; a man who has high-tailed it out of millions of towns and left Lurch in a lurch; a man who has sent out resumes apropos his next payday on his employer-for-that-moment's stationery; a man who has brokered buyouts or bye-bye outs en route to conjuring up another paradise to kiss goodbye.

Yet here he is crying on the hard shoulder on a daily basis and portraying himself as a victim.

And getting away with it!

I guess the gang of roving reporters is so relieved the Greenburgh police haven't made any arrests and pleased as punch the Knicks' outgoing coach is granting drive-by interviews he's allowed to represent any way he wants.

"I feel like a dead man walking," Brown whimpered the other day down the road a piece from the "rim of silence" at the Knicks' Special Victims' Westchester Unit.

Between that training facility and headquarters at 2 Penn Plaza, in the wake of owners James Dolan and Steve Mills putting team president Isiah Thomas in charge of the Knicks asylum, already there are enough casualties piled up for several seasons' worth of episodes. Off the top, I can name Brendan & Michael Malone, Scott Layden, Anucha Brown-Sanders, Shandon Anderson, Frank Murphy, Joe Favorito, Mike McCarthy, Don Chaney, Mike Saunders, Jeff Nix, Dick Helm, Lenny Wilkens, Willis Reed and Dr. Norman Scott, with many more real and imagined martyrs to be fingered later.

It's being banished to Limbo that's buggin' out Brown more than anything. Because not a single superior has told him not to believe what he's read in the papers regarding his inescapable eviction, he knows his days are numbered.

It's also making Brown crazier than usual that he isn't being loved unconditionally by his bosses. He never has handled the most minor rejection from players and the media all that well, and this conspiratorial cold shoulder by the organization's hierarchy far out-distances any of that.

Does Thomas deserve to be fired for creating a capsized, 23-win monstrosity and a polluted atmosphere throughout the Garden where paranoia and job insecurity run amuck?

As Shaquille O'Neal would say, "Don't even ask such a dumb question!"

But Brown deserves worse punishment for demonstrating abject disloyalty to the person responsible for furnishing him with his "dream job" and establishing him as the highest-paid coach ($55 million for five years) in NBA history.

From almost the split second training camp opened in Charleston, S.C., Brown complained about the roster Thomas had provided. Almost the first words out of his mouth once the season began were pot-shots taken at Stephon Marbury.

It's not as if Brown was clueless about the roster he inherited. It's not as if he thought the players remotely resembled the championship-caliber ones he guided to the NBA Finals two straight seasons in Detroit. It's not as if he could fake surprise when his Knicks didn't perform like the regal role players he assembled in Philly to surround Allen Iverson.

The more Brown sounded off, the more misfits Thomas added to his puzzling puzzle.

In four decades of scrutiny, I've found Brown can be remarkably loyal and disloyal, as well as neurotically generous and disingenuous. In most cases, I'm convinced he can't help himself from acting one way or the other.

Only this time, before the Knicks pay him X amount to vanish, he's going to pay big time, too, for throwing Thomas on the third rail. Though one might suspect the blather coming from Brown's newly repaired bladder might be mollified once he's cut ($40 million) or the two sides cut a deal ($25 million?).

There's certainly no rush to see Brown stop squirming. Thomas has been waiting all year to get even. It's not as if the Knicks have to worry about hiring someone before another team does. Brown's replacement is the team president. Thomas is banking on Brown blinking before the other available jobs get taken and leave him with nothing.

Personally, I have my fingers crossed the Knicks and Brown remain an item - and not just because I'm a hopeless romantic. To me, Camp Cablevision and Brown are the perfect pairing: The former is stealing money from its customers while the latter is stealing money from the former.

peter.vecsey@nypost.com

one question, where exactly is he getting away with it?

vescey, o'connor, and berman have been on lb for a while now. so has greg anthony on espn. so has SAS on espn - national outlets. so what exactly is he getting away with?

ULTIMATEKNICKS.COM

I find myself isolated when it comes to LB, who are the others DJ ??

There is a lot more to the undercurent of who needs to go more Brown or IT then just basketball, and I'll just leave it at that.

Posted by simrud:

There is a lot more to the undercurent of who needs to go more Brown or IT then just basketball, and I'll just leave it at that.

For atleast your part.

Posted by buddapaw:

Stands up:
I am anti-Larry Brown (for not doing his job)
I am also anti-pukebury (for being a moron)

what about anti-Zeke and anti-Dolan?

Posted by OngBok:

I find myself isolated when it comes to LB, who are the others DJ ??

I hate Larry for the con job he put on this franchise. I wish they would just fire his ass. Him talking to reporters saying he feels like a deadman walking sealed it. How is he dead with a 40 mill payday coming his way regardless?

I just wish they would fire him already...then all the Knick fans can consentrate on bashing Isiah and Marbury again.

Pobrecito Larry! Master manipulator and self-aggrandizing soul. Good riddance my friend, there is a major stain on the resume.