Brown won't retire after 76ers' show of heart

Sporting News, The, June 25, 2001 by Dave D'Alessandro

Needless to say, that team we watched last week was one of the most memorable in NBA history. By now, you probably know the lineup by heart:

Small forward: broken left foot.

Point guard: right ankle chip fracture.

Center: broken pinky finger.

Sixth man: fractured right ankle.

Shooting guard: a 160-pound bruise.

In the end, the 76ers were squashed like a family of baby ducks waddling into the path of an 18-wheeler, but if broken bones were victories, they would have swept the Lakers in four. Instead, they joined the pantheon of June losers, and that is as irredeemable as the crack in the Liberty Bell.

Years from now, the circumstances contributing to their defeat will fade from memory because that's how it goes. Everyone likes big winners. The meek might inherit the earth, but they won't hold a press briefing to announce it during The Finals. Victory is rewarded with immortality; defeat is marked by footnotes.

Without question, the last five games were about Shaquille O'Neal--it was his postseason, his series, and it is his era, period--and anything else was just hype, futile attempts to manufacture sound and fury that ultimately signified nothing. But just the same, if you'd like to affix an asterisk to this series to denote how Sixers coach Larry Brown finished just three wins shy of a miracle, you won't get any argument here.

Take a look at the injuries again and ask yourself this: Was this the same Philadelphia team that tore through the Eastern Conference from November through March? Of course not. Aaron McKie wasn't the same player who won the Sixth Man Award. Eric Snow was two ankle fractures removed from being the top-10 point guard he had been. George Lynch wasn't the same player, though he takes the prize for breaking a foot and playing just 31 days later. Even Allen Iverson, the turbocharged Smurf, seemed to be running on fumes at the end because he had no healthy teammates left.

But they all played hard from tap to buzzer, and they lost to a better team. Yet I strongly suspect that they wouldn't have tried to play at all had it not been for the matter that they didn't want to disappoint their head coach.

Everyone is sick of hearing this by now--the injury issue was a subject raised daily during the conference finals, and it miffed the Bucks to no end. It also was mentioned hourly at The Finals. But the mere fact these guys attempted to play spoke highly of their coach, the man who all along was the index of their possibilities.

"Had we won, I don't know if I could be any more proud of my team than I am," Brown says. "I hated to go in the locker room after the game and get the medical report because I just didn't know how much we'd have left. From that standpoint, this is the most remarkable year I've ever experienced. I don't think I've ever been more in awe of a group than I am of these guys."

Given his resume--29 years in coaching, 18 in the NBA--you can't dismiss that as the usual coaching hyperbole. He meant every word of it.

The hardware eluded him this time, but it appeared Brown never was happier. He has had nine head coaching jobs in his career, and though he never stayed in one place very long, he never really sought anything more than a roster of players willing to show they care as much as he does.

He has that in Philadelphia now, which is why he isn't going to retire. He genuinely was moved by what transpired in the postseason. If there is one thing Brown needs more than most coaches, it is a close relationship with his players, and he clearly has that. Most coaches couldn't care less if their players like them. Every time you turn around, it seems Brown is acting on some pathological need to hug Iverson. Brown's friends often suspected this was the reason he used to go back to coach colleges occasionally: He was just trying to find somebody who would embrace him in return.

"He consistently wins, consistently makes guys better," Snow says. "I don't even want to think about him leaving, especially after what he's done for my career, this team and this organization."

So, because his coach needed him, Snow played with a broken ankle.

There were no broken hearts after it was over, but if Brown were to retire, the Sixers would lose their touchstone. At 60, he's going to spend the next few months on the beach, enjoy his two young children, get to know his new granddaughter, and talk it out with his wife. Then he'll come to the same conclusion he reached last Saturday: "When you ask so much from the team, it's hard to turn your back on these guys," he said. "I just need to rejuvenate. I'm whipped. I'll talk to my family and make a decision soon."

Nobody in Philly actually expects him to leave. One team executive said last week, "He thinks about quitting every year and then realizes there's nothing else he likes to do more than coaching. Maybe golf, but he's not too good at that."

As a teacher, however, he is without peer. And never has he had more willing pupils, who played the right way on cracked limbs just for the sake of testing their limits. For Larry Brown and the few coaches like him, no defeat ever can devalue such a rare and glorious victory.