Is it Larry Brown's handling of Allen Iverson that has turned the tiny terror into the NBA's most lethal weapon?

	Philly has moved a number of star players who didn't mesh with Iverson.

Is it the psychological gamesmanship that has brought the wild Iverson to Brown's heel, caused Iverson to do his bidding? Is this the reason Philadelphia owns the best record in the NBA and could make the tumultuous trade for Dikembe Mutombo bring a sense of total immediacy to this season?

Maybe.

Certainly, Brown has been masterful with Iverson, showing discipline and easing up, reminiscent of the way he changed defenses as a college coach at Kansas and UCLA.

On the other hand, Iverson's first NBA coach and two of his former teammates say the cause and affect run far deeper than Iverson's tempestuous relationship with his coach. Do not look away, they will tell you, from Brown's and general manager Billy King's genius in surrounding the NBA's leading scorer with the right players.

Down in Orlando, Magic assistant coach and former NBA guard Johnny Davis will tell you he has great respect for the way Brown has tamed his wild young star. But Davis spent a season tutoring Iverson, his rookie year. And while 1996-97 may not have been pleasant as the Sixers limped in at 22-60, Davis has a view of Iverson that differs from his public persona. Davis also believes he could have been successful give the same chance to change the team that Brown and King have dramatically altered.

"You have to understand that when I had Allen he didn't have all the trappings around him. He wasn't a 'star' then and the people who came around later weren't there, yet," Davis said. "Allen was very raw. He'd only been in school [at Georgetown] two years when he came out. He had some problems that come with immaturity, but he certainly wasn't a bad kid. He's never been a bad kid. And you could see he would be a great player. He averaged 23.5 points for me, had four, five games in the 40s."

Davis recalls Iverson being late "12 or 13 times, which isn't that bad from the first day of October to late-April. And I'm talking about a few minutes here and there, nothing major. Once, he was late coming in for a game. That was it. The problems Allen had on the court were more team problems than his own because we weren't very good."

	“	Allen was very raw. He'd only been in school [at Georgetown] two years when he came out. He had some problems that come with immaturity, but he certainly wasn't a bad kid. He's never been a bad kid. And you could see he would be a great player. ”
		— Johnny Davis

In his first stint as a head coach Davis says he saw readily that Iverson could not coexist with Jerry Stackhouse. "They both did the same things. For Allen to be the point guard didn't make sense, but with Jerry at shooting guard, where else could Allen play? We knew that had to be broken up, but the day Pat Croce walked into my office and said that he was going to make [a coaching] change, it was out of my hands."

Brown walked out of Indiana and went to Philadelphia having the stature to demand change. He found a patsy in Detroit's Doug Collins who did not care for Theo Ratliff and was willing to ship him to Philly with Aaron McKie for Stackhouse and Eric Montross. Suddenly, the 76ers had a terrific shot blocker who would become a key to his turnaround and an important role player as a bonus.

Brown acquired Eric Snow and installed him as the point guard, freeing Iverson to score. He brought in George Lynch to play a supporting role at small forward.

The table was set for Iverson and he was good enough, eventually disciplined enough to bring it off.

But Brown also made his mistakes, among them a deal for Toni Kukoc, whom he instantly disliked because he is not Lynch, then rewarding Kukoc with a $29 million contract, anyway.

Kukoc needs the ball in his hands to be truly effective. "There was no place for me in that system," Kukoc said. He was told to go stand in the corner where he would get a few shots. "Sometimes, you don't see the ball for a long time. Sometimes, the game comes to you, but not for long," he said. "It wasn't a good place for me."

When the versatile 6-11 forward walked into the Hawks offices they hastened to tell him: we don't want you to be George Lynch. We want you to be Toni Kukoc.

Nazr Mohammed spent his first 2 3/4 seasons in Philadelphia. He learned two things.

"Like everyone else on the team I learned to love Allen. If he's your teammate you have to love him for the way he plays so hard every night. The other thing I learned is that Allen has to have the ball. But not because he's selfish. I don't think Allen cares if he scores. Truly I think that. He's as happy for his teammates when they score the points as he is when he does it, maybe happier. But the way the team is put together, Allen has to have the ball so he has to score."

That's because Brown and King deliberately surrounded Iverson with role players. To truly fit in with the 76ers you have to focus on playing defense, boxing out, making the extra pass. You have to be willing to settle for garbage points. Mohammed also has found opportunity in Atlanta where he enjoys Kukoc's expanded role and is himself averaging 11.8 points in six games. But he says that this does not mean he was not happy in Philadelphia at this early stage of his career.

"We all felt were part of something really special. We were winning and we were winning the right way. It didn't matter that Allen scored 40 a game, it really didn't. We cheered for him and supported him because he had his role to fill on the team and he is doing it really, really well."

That's the genius in the system, Davis said.

"They really built the team around Allen. They took all his strengths and then they surrounded him with players who could complement his many talents. If you're not playing against them on a particular night, it's a beautiful thing to watch because it's great basketball."

Jeffrey Denberg, who covers the NBA for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, is a regular contributor to ESPN.com.