Philadelphia ? Did you really think he was just going to fade away? Did you really think Larry Brown was going to take Jim Dolan’s $18.5 million and become a stay-at-home dad?

Turns out, Brown’s retirement was about as long-lived as the NBA’s flirtation with the composite basketball. Fired by the Knicks only seven months ago, Brown could – if he wanted to – have been holding court in the visitor’s locker room Wednesday night at Madison Square Garden as this past weekend he was named executive vice-president of the Philadelphia 76ers.

Brown was not at courtside Tuesday as his new team faced off against the Pistons, the team he led to a NBA championship three years ago, choosing to watch the game from the privacy of President Billy King’s skybox.

Yet, Brown’s larger than live presence seemed to be everywhere, especially in the Pistons locker room. The Pistons haven’t been the same the team since Brown left after the 2004-2005 season for one turned out to be a one-year stint with the Knicks. Yet, for at least one key player, any bitterness about Brown’s departure has now been replaced by something just short of nostalgia.

“Playing for Larry was the best two years of my career,” Billups said. “I love that old man. I love him to death. I know he’s touched a lot of people’s lives and careers like he’s touched mine. And I’m sure he’s not done doing that thing.”

The big question in Philadelphia is where he’s going to be “doing that thing” – from the front office or the bench. Brown, 66, has always been a coach, but when asked in a press conference if he planned to coach the team, he answered “at this moment, no.”

The bet here is Brown will be the head coach of the Sixers at the beginning of next season, that “at this moment no,” is Brown speak for “Adios, Mo Cheeks.” Brown may say he has a great relationship with Cheeks. But he also supposedly had a great relationship with Isiah Thomas, and we all know how that ended up.

Someone in Philadelphia is going to have to take the fall for this horrible Sixers team, and it isn’t going to be King.

The Sixers are Brown’s ninth NBA stop, and the only place he has returned and worked twice. And there are several reasons for his return. One is his family never wanted to leave Philadelphia when he was hired in Detroit. (Word around the press room is Brown’s wife tried but failed to buy back their former house when they returned this fall.) And the second is that Brown has to see an opportunity to keep his Hall of Fame coaching career from ending on a sour note.

For as bad as Philadelphia has played this season, there are some promising things on the horizon. For one, the Sixers have three first-round draft picks this years, including two acquired from Denver in the Allen Iverson deal. They are also working out a buyout with Chris Webber, who has one year left on his $22.3 million contract.

Brown is a rebuilding expert, and in his career, the Knicks are his only real failure. And Billups believes he could have succeeded there too.

“I think he could have turned it around there,” Billlups said. “You’ve got to have the right personnel and the right support. I look at (the Knicks) and they have a lot of great talent, but you have to have the right pieces. It’s like a puzzle. If you have 15 pieces, you can’t have 14 big pieces. They didn’t have the right pieces.”

With the Sixers, Brown doesn’t have a lot of great pieces either, but what he does have is a genuinely good working relationship with King – whom he brought into the Philadelphia organization. He also has the respect of the town, who still remembers how he built the Sixers team that went to the finals in 2001.

It will be interesting to see what Brown can do here, almost as interesting as it will be to see Brown’s first game coaching against the Knicks. The bet here is it will happen next fall.