Dr. Jack Ramsey- doesn't expect Brown to coach next year.

Larry Brown one of game's best teachers

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By Dr. Jack Ramsay
Special to ESPN.com


Larry Brown has hinted before at stepping down as head coach of the Philadelphia 76ers, so the news of his resignation is no great surprise.

A coaching icon, the 62-year-old Brown is one of the all-time best teachers of the game. While he's apparently ready to take a break, Brown will never stop coaching. He has said to me on many occasions that he will always coach somewhere -- whether again at the college level, where he won a national title with Kansas in 1988, or even at the high-school level. Brown loves coaching and excels at it.

There are certainly other NBA teams interested in having him as coach. His contract with the 76ers had two years remaining, and though it had a clause prohibiting him from coaching another NBA team during that time, Brown said Monday that the Sixers waived that condition. Still, my sense is that Brown wants to get away from the NBA game for a while, perhaps to a situation with less pressure. First, though, Brown will face the international pressure of coaching the the 2004 U.S. Olympic team.

I would be shocked to see Brown reappear in the NBA next season. He's best with younger players, although in the NBA he's also demonstrated the ability to help veteran players revive their careers (such as Derrick Coleman) and younger guys improve their games (such as Todd MacCulloch and Eric Snow). Snow saw no significant playing time with the Seattle SuperSonics, but he became a starter in Philly.

Moreover, Brown helped a talent like Allen Iverson become a much better team player. Brown lifts his players, enabling them to get the most out of their abilities.

In his 31 years of coaching, I've never seen a player who did not improve under Larry Brown. Another impressive element of his longevity is that he's had just three losing seasons at the college and professional level -- a 21-61 record with the San Antonio Spurs in 1986-87, a 39-43 showing with the Indiana Pacers in 1996-97 and a 31-51 record in his first season with Philly in 1997-98.

I first coached against Brown in 1976-77, the year the ABA and NBA merged. He was coach of the Denver Nuggets. This was toward the beginning of Brown's coaching career, about a decade after his college playing days under Dean Smith at North Carolina.


Brown
The Nuggets won the Central Division that season, led by David Thompson and a run-and-jump, pressing defense that they brought from the ABA. Brown's team fostered a frenetic pace and created turnovers that led to easy baskets. My Portland Trail Blazers met the Nuggets in the playoffs, and we won the series in six tough games. We went on to win the NBA championship, led by Bill Walton, Maurice Lucas and Co.

What I remember about Larry -- and this is something I still see in him -- is that he was always gracious to the opposing coach. He commented several times about how well we played and how well our Portland team was coached. That's uncommon, especially when a team loses. You rarely hear the losing coach praise the winning coach. That shows tremendous class.

The NBA coaching profession will miss Larry Brown. He's a coach's coach, teaching skills and team play -- and he won't back down from that. That's been good for the game and for the NBA.


Dr. Jack Ramsay, who coached the Portland Trail Blazers to the 1977 NBA title, is an NBA analyst for ESPN and a regular contributor to ESPN.com.