NEW YORK - Larry Brown has met with both the owner and the president of the New York Knicks. Next up is dinner with interim coach Herb Williams, and then it's all up to Brown.

The pursuit of Brown moved up the Knicks' corporate ladder Sunday, with owner James Dolan of Cablevision and team president Isiah Thomas visiting Brown's summer home in East Hampton, N.Y.

"I'm not going to comment on how it went," Brown said afterward, though he did disclose he plans to meet with Williams and Thomas in New York on Monday night.

The Knicks had not formally offered the job to Brown as of Saturday, but the implied message from Thomas was clear: The job is Brown's if he wants it. The pursuit figures to draw to a conclusion in the next few days, and Brown's public comments have left the impression he's leaning toward accepting.

"How many opportunities like this present themselves? My family is here, my older kids have family here, I have an opportunity to work with someone in Isiah who's a special friend and a super person. There's a lot of real positive things," Brown said.

Brown had wanted to speak to Williams before speaking to Dolan, but Williams was out of town for the weekend and Dolan was in the Hamptons.

Williams, who has been asked by the Knicks to stay publicly silent, didn't return a call to his cell phone.

The first time Brown spent any quality time with Williams was last summer at a clinic in Memphis that Brown conducts annually to help find assistant coaching jobs for his many friends in the business.

Williams spent 18 years in the NBA, including seven with the Knicks, and was one of New York's captains the last time the franchise reached the NBA Finals in 1999. He coached the Knicks for the final 43 games last season after Lenny Wilkens was forced to resign.

"Everybody I've ever talked to thinks the world of him," said Brown, who recalled first crossing paths with Williams in 1980 when Brown, coaching UCLA, defeated Williams' Ohio State team.

Brown met with Thomas on Thursday night, then spent parts of the next three days discussing the pros and cons of coaching the Knicks with his wife, Shelly, and his young children, T.J. and Madison.

Brown said health problems related to his bladder will not prohibit him from coaching, and he has tried to assure his wife that he'll get the rest his doctors have been ordering during the months of August and September before training camp opens.

First, of course, the Knicks would have to formally offer the job and then work out contract details with Brown's agent. And before Dolan offers a contract, he wanted a face-to-face reading with the nomadic coach who parted acrimoniously with his last two owners - Detroit's Bill Davidson and Philadelphia's Ed Snider.

Dolan has signed the paychecks of Williams, Wilkens, Don Chaney and Jeff Van Gundy during his tenure as head of the team's ownership group.

Each of those coaches had varying levels of comfort or discomfort with Dolan, and Brown's lasting impression from Sunday's meeting should go a long way toward determining whether this process will continue moving forward.

Already anxious to see it conclude are Brown's neighbors, whose street has been staked out by television crews, photographers and reporters. Brown said he was angered Sunday night when a television crew rang his doorbell after Dolan and Thomas had left.