Why Warriors assistant coach Mike Brown could be among Sacramento Kings’ top candidates
Golden State Warriors assistant Mike Brown could be high on the Kings’ list of candidates as their coaching search moves forward this week with a first round of virtual interviews.
The Kings are not commenting on details of their search, so the timing of these interviews could remain a bit of a mystery. All seven known candidates have been involved in the NBA playoffs in some way, including Mark Jackson, who is calling games in his longtime role as a game analyst for ESPN.
Brown is as busy as anyone as Steve Kerr’s lead assistant and defensive coordinator, but he might have had time to connect with the Kings via Zoom earlier this week. The Warriors had Monday and Tuesday off before closing out their first-round playoff series with a 102-98 victory over the Denver Nuggets in Game 5 on Wednesday night at Chase Center in San Francisco.
The Kings will look closely at a diverse group of well known and relatively unknown coaches as part of what they said will be a thorough and comprehensive search. In addition to Brown and Jackson, the candidate pool includes Brooklyn Nets coaching consultant Steve Clifford; New Orleans Pelicans coaching advisor Mike D’Antoni; Milwaukee Bucks assistants Darvin Ham and Charles Lee; and Boston Celtics assistant Will Hardy.
Some are quite young. Some are a little older. Some have head coaching experiences. Others do not.
Brown might be considered one of the more optimal choices considering his age, experience and defensive know-how. He spent eight years as a head coach with six playoff appearances and one trip to the NBA Finals. He also comes from a Warriors culture the Kings would love to emulate as they seek to end an NBA-record 16-year playoff drought.
Brown, 52, was rumored early as a potential candidate after the Kings fired Luke Walton in November. His name quickly surfaced again when interim coach Alvin Gentry was relieved of his coaching duties on April 11. Brown declined to comment when The Sacramento Bee reached out to gauge his interest, but sources indicated Brown would likely consider the job even before the names on Sacramento’s list were revealed.
Brown amassed a record of 347-216 (.616) as a head coach over eight seasons with the Cleveland Cavaliers and Los Angeles Lakers. He coached six playoff teams to four conference semifinals, two conference finals and one NBA Finals, where the Cavaliers lost to the San Antonio Spurs in 2007. Brown was named NBA Coach of the Year in 2009 after the Cavaliers, led by LeBron James, went 66-16 to win the Eastern Conference. Brown was fired in 2010 when the Cavaliers failed to reach the NBA Finals for the third year in a row despite posting another 60-win season.
Brown went to Los Angeles to succeed Phil Jackson as head coach of the Lakers in 2011. He guided the team to a 41-25 record and a trip to the conference semifinals in the lockout-shortened 2011-12 season, but he was fired after going 1-4 to start the season in 2012-13.
Brown’s coaching staff that season included Ham and Clifford. D’Antoni was hired to replace Brown. The Lakers made the playoffs as the No. 7 seed, but they were knocked out in the first round despite a star-studded roster featuring Kobe Bryant, Steve Nash, Metta World Peace, Pau Gasol and Dwight Howard.
Brown returned to Cleveland in 2013 after James took his talents to South Beach to join the Miami Heat. Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert admitted it was a mistake to fire Brown the first time, but the reunion was short-lived. Brown was fired again in 2014 after the Cavaliers went 33-49 with then-rookie Kyrie Irving leading a team that featured Dion Waiters, Luol Deng, Spencer Hawes and Tristan Thompson.
Brown joined Golden State’s staff in 2016 when Luke Walton left to become head coach of the Lakers. Brown has served as acting head coach at times when Kerr was out due to chronic back pain, including a 12-0 record during the 2017 playoffs.
Brown has a longstanding reputation as one of the game’s sharpest defensive minds, but Kerr put him in charge of Golden State’s offense for years. Last summer, Kerr put Brown in command of the team’s defense, which finished second in the NBA this season in defensive rating (106.6), second in opponent field-goal percentage (.438) and third in opponent points per game (105.5).
“Mike is very, very prideful of defense,” Warriors guard Klay Thompson told the San Francisco Chronicle. “He’s like a secondary head coach. Coached us throughout that time in the 2017 playoffs. Coached the Cleveland Cavaliers to the Finals. He’s been around some of the greatest to play the game. This might technically be a new role for him this season. But really, it’s nothing he hasn’t done before.”
That could be appealing to a Kings team that finished 30th in defensive rating last season and 27th this season.
Brown explained the Warriors have gone away from a switch-heavy scheme that forced the ball to the middle of the floor in favor of funneling the action toward their help-side defenders.
“If you try to keep the ball on the sideline or baseline, that’s where help is built in,” Brown told the Chronicle. “To be able to send the ball to where your help is instead of allowing the ball to again get to the middle of the floor, that’s something that is very beneficial to our unit as a whole.”
This story was originally published April 28, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
