In what I hope will be a pre-emptive strike on Capt. Pat Murphy, let me be the first person in this publication to state that the National Basketball Association’s Philadelphia 76ers are for real.

Aside from front-man Allen Iverson, a better group of fine upstanding men has never been assembled in league history.

No one outside of the Philadelphia metropolitan area may know any of their names, yet coach Larry Brown seems to have again molded a contender out of a mix of young talent and veteran experience.

The question is can Brown finally lead a pro team to a championship -- the one thing missing from his impressive coaching resume.

Philly took their 13-game road unbeaten streak into Tuesday’s game at Toronto and followed up Thursday with another road tussle at Madison Square Garden against the New York Knicks. Going into the game Tuesday against the Raptors, Iverson and company stood at a league-best 34-10 on the season, a full seven games ahead of the Knicks in the Eastern Conference’s Atlantic Division.

Iverson may actually be a better basketball player than rap-singer, after all.

His MVP-type numbers include a 28.9-point-per-game scoring average, good for third best in the league.

The fifth-year product out of Georgetown also leads the NBA in steals per game with 2.5.

Iverson and center Theo Ratliff will both represent the Sixers in the NBA All-Star game at the MCI Center in Washington Feb. 11, as will their coach, who will lead the Eastern squad.

Brown has once again used his coaching touch to bring together a collection of talent and turn them into winners.

He did it in the college ranks when he coached the Kansas Jayhawks and Danny Manning to a NCAA championship in 1988. In the NBA ranks, he took the Indiana Pacers and made them into winners before Larry Bird took over and eventually led them to the finals last season.

That has been Brown’s one flaw in the pros. He hasn’t been able to take a professional team to the finals. He always improves them but doesn’t come away with a ring.

These Sixers, though young, may be able to give him that ring as no other team in the east seems up to the challenge.

Out west, the reigning champion Los Angeles Lakers don’t seem to be as, ah, focused as they were last year.

But back to the Sixers.

Brown and Iverson have a volatile relationship. It may not work in the long run, but so far, it has turned the Sixers, despite a slew of injuries, into a tough, road-savvy team.

Brown’s tenure as a head coach stretches all the way back to the 1972-73 season, when he led the American Basketball Association’s Carolina Cougars to a league-best 57-27 record. His team lost in the second round of the ployoffs that year.

Since then, he has had successful coaching stints in both the college ranks and the pros in cities such as Denver, East Rutherford, Los Angeles (twice), Lawrence, San Antonio and Indianapolis before settling in as the Sixers coach three seasons ago.

Brown even had success as a player when he was known as a playmaking guard out of the University of North Carolina. His talent earned him a spot as a member of the gold- medal winning U.S. Men’s basketball team in 1964.

In the pros, he has been able to make bad teams good. He even dragged the hapless Los Angeles Clippers to a .500 record and the playoffs in 1992-93. But he has yet to take a pro team the finals.

This Sixers team may be the answer to his quest.