Sam Smith

This is what the David Stern-arbitrated Knicks' settlement with Larry Brown means: Some NBA coach should be scared.

Very, very scared.

Because someone is facing the Halloween TPing of his coaching season. That's right. It's just going to be wiped away.

Let's not forget this about Brown after a season in which the mutineers on the Knicks roster effectively threw him overboard. The supposed dream job was the nightmare everyone but Brown believed it would be. The pieces weren't there to, as Brown likes to say, play the right way.

Perhaps they still aren't. But Isiah Thomas, whom many speculated from the moment he took over the Knicks' presidency would one day coach, doesn't appear to be trying to fit the players' talents into his own philosophy. They can't guard a tree? OK, let's run around it.

Brown is a Hall of Fame level coach. He became so by executing his belief in basketball. You defend, rebound, stay in front of your man. No gimmicks, no zone. Take personal responsibility. Move the ball, take a good shot. Seems simple enough, but Brown has a way of being less than satisfied if perfection is not achieved in a sport in which making half the attempts is considered excellence.

So he'll never be truly happy. We know that. He knows that.

Brown's friends loves to tell the story of the way Brown for months begged then-Denver GM Carl Sheer to get George McInnis. One practice after Sheer did, Brown wanted him traded.

It was that kind of mercurial behavior the Knicks used to try to get out of their four-year obligation to Brown.

I don't know the details of the compromise reached late Monday night, but I'd say it was something like this:

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The Knicks had to pay Brown his four years remaining because he didn't violate his contract by calling around the NBA proposing trades as he'd done for the last 30 years. Forget the extra $13 million Brown was seeking for damages before the commissioner stops laughing. But because the Knicks had to pay Brown, he could not work for anyone but them for the next four years.

Often, when these kinds of arrangements occur, a coach moves to a new team and the team is relieved of the debt up to the amount or part of it the coach makes from his new team. That wouldn't work for the Knicks because with all the money Brown would be collecting from the Knicks and his previous buyout from the Pistons, he could take a deal far under market.

So I'm guessing Stern said no work for Brown for four years. There is no way Brown could agree to that as he's a coach. And forget all this nonsense about coaching in high school for the purity. Brown needs to coach the best because he is one of the best. And with medical problems in recent years as he's passed 60, there are not too many good coaching years left.

So would you take $25 million? I would have.

There has been lots of nervous tittering around the 76ers.

The Flyers fired coach Ken Hitchcock and accepted Bobby Clarke's resignation as GM last week after the hockey teams started 1-6. Comcast owns the Flyers and Sixers (who are for sale) with Ed Snider the chairman of both teams.

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One-and-six sounds like it could be a starting record for the 76ers. And though GM Billy King has said Brown will not be a candidate for the job, who believes that?

It came up when Brown this past summer moved his family back to Philadelphia. Perhaps a pending sale would preclude a change, but it's a mess of a roster and no one has had the success with Allen Iverson that Brown has had. It's also a team that needs someone to stand up to Chris Webber and make him go near the basket and get some rebounds and set some picks and forget running the offense when Iverson doesn't have the ball.

Who else besides Brown could do that — at least among those who might be available?

And they wouldn't even have to pay moving costs.

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After a relatively quiet season for coaching changes, 2006-07 could see perhaps a dozen teams looking for coaches.

Brown probably wouldn't want to replace one of his protégés in Atlanta. Not sure Danny Ainge would want him in Boston. Probably not Bryan Colangelo with offense on his mind in Toronto. Detroit and New York? Been there, done that.

Charlotte. Now there's a good one with Michael Jordan now part owner, Brown back close to his playing roots and Dean Smith, and a generally undisciplined team with talent.

Seeattle? Not yet with this arena thing and a change of ownership. Maybe Minnesota because of Kevin Garnett. Too much going on with a pending sale in Memphis.

So, let's say Philadelphia No. 1, then Charlotte and maybe Minnesota.

I'm not sure where, but before this season is over, Brown figures to be back.