Philadelphia ? Our Larry is hurting.

Of this there is no doubt. Larry Brown suddenly looks 64.

For a very long time, he was dapper like your older Cousin Billy was dapper – remember, before Billy had all the trouble with the IRS – dressed in fine suits with beautiful cuff links and shined shoes, silver hair falling in line gracefully, and the body of the great athlete he had been in his youth.

Our Larry coaches in Detroit now, but he’s always going to be Our Larry, because he made the Sixers matter again, just as he has made the Pistons matter again. But now Our Larry looks older. The suits still fit, but the eyes give him away.

He has had physical problems all season in Detroit – internal issues. He had hip surgery in November, came back too soon, and had to have another procedure in March. For a while, he was not doing well at all, and while he has improved, he’s still hurting.

In Hollywood, that’s what they call the “back story,” the rising action that gets you to stay in your seat and munch on your popcorn. Because you grow to care about this person, you watch the rest of the movie. And most everybody in the NBA cares about Larry Brown.

Now comes the crisis.

The problem for Our Larry – simply the best basketball coach at any level walking the planet today – is, he’s always in the middle of a crisis. This week came word that Brown, or people speaking on his behalf, had contact with the Cleveland Cavaliers about their vacant basketball-czar position.

The Cavaliers haven’t mattered for a long time, but they have LeBron James and could have $25 million in salary-cap room this summer, and that would intrigue anybody, let alone a 64-year-old man getting tired of the coaching grind.

Instead of being tied to that job, why talk to the Cavaliers at all? Why not say, ‘I’m flattered, but I’m under contract.’ That way, there is no crisis. But that’s not what Our Larry does. People have wondered why for years, and it does no good.

The looks you saw among Pistons personnel Wednesday in Miami are the same looks you saw from Sixers people in 2000, or Pacers people circa 1995 – bemused, tight smiles. As ever among those who work with him, Brown is viewed as both arsonist and fireman, unable to stop setting fires that consume all those around him, then rushing in with the hose and ladder at the last second.

It doesn’t make him a bad person. Actually, he is one of the best people in the game, keenly sensitive.

It fits a pattern. Word gets out that Brown has interest in another job while he’s getting paid extremely well at his current job. Brown gets mad that word gets out, sort of denies it, and moves on. His players shrug their shoulders, and management rolls its eyes.

Brown says he will check into the Mayo Clinic when Detroit’s season is over, and that if he did not come out healthy, he was not going to coach anymore. But he also said he wanted to stay in basketball in some capacity if he could not coach – which would, presumably, cover positions like basketball czar in Cleveland.