This is how good Larry Brown is as a coach. He's able to make up for the mistakes of his general manager. And no matter that Brown also is the team's de facto general manager.

Carl Sheer, who was Brown's general manager with the Denver Nuggets, likes to tell a story that somewhat explains Brown's once peripatetic nature and the ceaseless desire for excellence that helps enable his teams to excel.

	Despite his problems with Allen Iverson, left, Larry Brown has stayed put in Philadelphia.

Brown was something of a boy wonder with the old Nuggets of the ABA, coaching them to back-to-back 60-win seasons at 25 years old and then going into the NBA and winning 50 games. But as the team began to falter, Brown continued to look for more talent. It was 1978 and Brown had to have George McGinnis, the rubbery, high-scoring forward who starred for Indiana in the ABA and now was averaging 20 and 10 every season for the Philadelphia 76ers. There always had been questions about McGinnis' toughness and desire, but Brown was insistent. Every day, he'd badger Sheer. He had to have McGinnis. Calls day and night.

Finally, Sheer pulled off the trade, acquiring McGinnis in exchange for Bobby Jones. After McGinnis' first practice with the Nuggets, Brown went to Sheer and demanded he trade McGinnis, who wouldn't play the way Brown demanded.

There wasn't much more Brown could do to right the staggering Nuggets franchise, but he soon turned up in New Jersey, San Antonio, with the Clippers, then Indiana and Philadelphia, and always the teams improved dramatically. Coincidence? Not five times in a row.

Which brings us to Larry Brown in his sixth season with the 76ers. No more are the jokes about Suitcase Larry. Only four coaches in the NBA -- Rudy Tomjanovich, Flip Saunders, Pat Riley and Jerry Sloan -- have a longer tenure with their current team than Brown. Not that this has been smooth. Not that it's ever smooth with Brown. Even without Allen Iverson.

But the 76ers are something of a surprise this season battling at the top of the Atlantic Division after a sixth-place finish last season and first-round playoff ouster after going to the Finals in 2000-01. So Brown, and general manager Billy King, made some changes. Gone was defensive presence Dikembe Mutombo for Keith Van Horn, a player not known for much defensive presence, and former 76er Todd MacCulloch. Let go was tough guy Matt Harpring, defensive reserve Corie Blount and speedy Speedy Claxton. Journeyman Brian Skinner and Greg Buckner came aboard along with Monty Williams, who has been injured.

No, these are not your son's Philadelphia 76ers, not the ones who went to the NBA Finals against the Lakers. They are not nearly as good. But Brown is, so they are.

The NBA is a player's league, and Brown has one heck of a player in Iverson, if not one heck of an expert in shot selection. But in Iverson, Brown has his equal as a competitor, if not someone to discuss the leanness of pastrami at the local deli.

So they fight some, but that is one of the key elements of Brown's success and the success of his teams. There are no special rules with Brown teams. It's like what was once said about Green Bay Packers coach Vince Lombardi: He treats all the players the same -- like dogs.

There is a star pecking order in the NBA, and Lakers coach Phil Jackson, who has had the biggest stars of the last 15 years in Michael Jordan and Shaquille O'Neal, has explained it. Guys are treated differently. That's life. You know, the pretty girl gets kissed.

Everybody defends for Brown and everybody sets screens and everybody stays in defensive position and everybody moves the ball. Simple tenets. Just basketball. It's also why some of Brown's worse relationships have been with his stars, such as David Robinson, Reggie Miller and Danny Manning. Because it didn't matter that they had to do all the scoring, the all-around play and all the interviews. They better do all those other things, and if they didn't do them, they'd hear about it from Brown, who didn't care if everyone else knew it.

I remember talking with Brown some years ago about one of the stars on his team. The guy was great. He did everything. Brown was ripping him up and down. I asked if the guy deserved some slack for all he meant to the franchise. Brown looked at me like I doubted Dean Smith.

	This is to say Brown can make deals that make a team less than it was and get more out of that same team. That is what he's done with this season's 76ers.

This is to say Brown can make deals that make a team less than it was and get more out of that same team. That is what he's done with this season's 76ers. Forget last season. That was a classic case of a team putting so much into one season that it had nothing left to give. Most of the key players missed at least 20 games each, especially early when they fell into a 12-18 hole through December that was impossible to recover from.

But let's go back to 2000-01. That was the ultimate Brown team, and the ideal team to set up around Iverson -- one guy to shoot and four guys to go get the ball. That 76ers team, really, was at its best the first part of the season when Theo Ratliff was on his way to being named Defensive Player of the Year. That team opened with 10 straight wins and was breezing along at 34-10 just before Ratliff was traded. It was a fortuitous deal for the 76ers since Ratliff went on to sit out the next season and a half and Mutombo became a reliable defensive player.

But Mutombo didn't have the mobility Ratliff had to challenge shots away from the basket and recover. That was a tough 76ers team. It had George Lynch and Tyrone Hill up front, two bruisers who battled offensive players on every step and for every rebound. MacCulloch came off the bench.

The current 76ers are good. But they aren't nearly as tough. They scared teams back then, taking them out of their offense and challenging everything. It was a team that best reflected Brown. This 76ers team doesn't quite as much. Van Horn is a terrific player, and a better offensive player than anyone else Brown had in 2000-01. Toni Kukoc might have been, but Brown told him he needed to play more like Lynch. Kukoc looked at him like Brown was from Serbia (Croatians don't much like those Serbs). Van Horn is trying. MacCulloch isn't Brown's kind of center. He tries, but he mostly lumbers around and hardly reminds anyone of Ratliff. He seems more like Theo from the old Cosby show. Nice guys both.

Eric Snow and Aaron McKie still are there, and Iverson is still firing away, shooting his usual 41 percent and launching about 26 shots a game. But it's not as tough a team or as synchronized.

Still, the team is good. It has been healthy and it has been playing Larry Brown's style. Which is simple. But effective. Ask their opponents.

Sam Smith, who covers the NBA for the Chicago Tribune, writes a weekly column for ESPN.com.