Now that we know Larry Brown is no longer going to coach the Detroit Pistons, the already intense speculation surrounding the Knicks pursuit of Brown for their head coaching vacancy is likely to become uncontrollable. It will be an all-out media feeding frenzy. Which begs the question why? For both the Knicks and Brown.

Why would Isiah Thomas, who finally admitted the Knicks are — gulp — rebuilding, want to a hire a coach well known for his averseness to playing youngsters to oversee said project? Brown is rightfully regarded as a great teacher of hoops but as anybody that’s watched the pitiful progress of gifted 2003 lottery pick Darko Milicic under Brown’s tutelage can tell you, his best teaching days seem behind him. Considering that Thomas’s latest plan is to rebuild by the Knicks by getting “younger and more athletic,” one can’t help but wonder why Isiah thinks Brown is the man for that job.

The New York Sun’s outstanding hoops scribe John Hollinger thinks Brown isn’t for several very compelling reasons. While Larry’s Traveling Salvation Show doesn’t worry me as much as it does Hollinger — Brown’s a Brooklyn native who seems very comfortable in NYC — he correctly points out that hiring Brown would put an abrupt end to the nascent rebuilding project.

…But if Brown is the coach, rebuilding isn’t realistic. The Knicks won’t be paying him $10 million a year so he can go 33-49 and make two trips to the lottery while Channing Frye and Nate Robinson cut their teeth. Nor would it be acceptable to rein in the spending and try to get under the cap in two years, not when Brown’s tenure has only a 50-50 shot of lasting that long.

If the Knicks get Brown, they can’t even mention the “R” word. Instead, the goal will be to win immediately. And if that’s the case, the Knicks have to change strategies midstream. With a coach like Brown, there’s really no point in keeping Frye, Robinson, or David Lee, because Brown isn’t going to play them anyway. Few coaches have been more open about their preference for veterans over rookies — you can give Darko Milicic a ring if you don’t believe me.

The simple fact is that a team with seven power forwards, none of whom are legitimate NBA starters, and the gang that never saw a shot it didn’t like manning the perimeter, just isn’t ready to compete in an Eastern Conference that features the likes of the Pistons, Heat, Pacers (look for Ron Artest to be the MVP next season), and the reloaded Nets (who just came to terms with free agent power forward Shareef Abdur-Rahim, a former All-Star). With Brown as coach, the Knicks would probably improve just enough to earn the 7th or 8th seed in the playoffs and the right to get ignominiously swept out of the playoffs by one of those teams in the first round. As Hollinger wonders, that’s worth $10 million per? You don’t have to be Joe Dumars to know that it isn’t.

If this looks like the wrong move for the Knicks, one can only imagine how taking the Knicks job looks to Brown. In two words: Not good.

This man just spent two seasons coaching an NBA title contender that starred one of the NBA’s most fearsome defensive players, center Ben Wallace; one of it’s great crunch time performers, point guard Chauncey Billups; and one of it’s most active and accurate marksman, shooting guard Richard Hamilton. The Knicks are ostensibly built around Stephon Marbury, a point guard that has a preternatural ability to miss shots or turn the ball over in the waning moments of a game. They enter this season with a starting center, Jerome James, the off-season’s big free agent signing, who’s at best serviceable, and at worst, a waste of space. Instead of the efficient Hamilton, the Knicks have mad bombers Quentin Richardson and Jamal Crawford. Why would Brown want to coach those players?

Simply put, he wouldn’t. He doesn’t nor did he want to the Knicks job at this time. There isn’t enough money in the Sultanate of Brunei that could convince Brown to spend the next two years harping Marbury to play D and practice hard. When he isn’t doing that, he’d be busy chastising Richardson and Crawford for poor shot selection. He spent six years butting heads with Allen Iverson in Philly and I genuinely believe Brown, who’s 64 years old and battled health problems this past season, isn’t up for that sort of endeavor again.

I know that of all the things Brown did this past season, his telling the NY Post in January that “coaching the Knicks was his dream job,” seemed to upset Detroit’s well-regarded owner William Davidson more than any of Brown’s other flirtations with other teams and jobs. Brown said it but he didn’t mean it. At this moment at least, that is.

As inconceivable as it seems now, the time may come when the Knicks may have a roster that’s capable of competing in the East. With the way Nate Robinson’s played this summer, that day may come sooner than later. And when that day comes, there can be little doubt that Brown would like to be the man to lead them.

But now isn’t that time, which is why Isiah ought to finally make the enthusiastic and capable Herb Williams, who has handled Isiah’s very public search for someone to replace him with the grace of Miss Manners at afternoon tea in The Plaza, the Knicks head coach. Let Herb break in the young’uns and see how it goes. Who knows, it might just turn out that Herb’s the right man for the job now and five years down the road.