‘The potential is off the charts.’ Mike Brown officially introduced as Sacramento Kings coach

From the moment the Sacramento Kings fired Rick Adelman after the 2006 NBA season, coaching turnover has been the norm.

Eleven different head coaches have walked through the doors in Sacramento since the team’s last playoff appearance. On Tuesday afternoon at Golden 1 Center, the Kings formally introduced their next coach in Mike Brown.

The Kings hope Brown will break the spell of bad coaching hires and help return the team to the playoffs.

Brown, 52, was hired in May but wasn’t introduced until nearly a month and a half later. The reason is Brown was finishing his role as Steve Kerr’s lead assistant on a Golden State Warriors team that beat the Boston Celtics in six games to win the NBA Finals.

Prior to Brown spending six seasons in Golden State, he had stops as a head coach with the Cleveland Cavaliers and Los Angeles Lakers. In eight seasons as a head coach, Brown compiled a 347-216 (.616) record with six playoff appearances.

“The potential is off the charts,” Brown said, explaining why he left the Warriors for this job. “It gets me excited thinking about it. Trying to maintain my composure and excitement while going through what we went through and experienced the last couple of months was tough for me. Being around 30 years, you can feel like you can find a great balance to do different things at different times. The players here, I’m excited about.”

Brown added, “The fans, I’m excited about interacting with them. They’re extremely passionate and knowledgeable and I look forward to be around them. I’m excited about the arena. This is a world-class arena. ... I’m excited about this team. One of the main reasons I was brought here was to bring some of the leadership in a lot of different areas. I have been with a lot of different teams in my 30 years. I have experienced what I believe is something that can get organizations over the top. Not just in one year, but year in and year out. And that’s having a winning culture. My job is to lead in that area.”

While Brown was busy helping the Warriors win an NBA championship, he was working double-duty establishing relationships with his new team. Brown said after the Warriors beat the Dallas Mavericks in the Western Conference finals, he jumped on a plane on his day off to fly to San Diego to watch De’Aaron Fox workout. The two went to lunch afterward.

Once Brown got to the airport to head back to San Francisco, he jumped on a Zoom call with Richaun Holmes and his agent.

“I’ve been heavily involved,” Brown said. “I talked to every single player on multiple occasions. Some of them I talked to in person and some I talked to over Zoom. Same with the staff that is still around, talked to them on the phone multiple times.”

Brown in his news conference revealed he has a history with Fox dating back to when he was in high school. Brown said he helped coach Fox at an Adidas Nations camp.

“I walked away (from that camp) that I was impressed with his speed,” Brown said. “... There is going to be a lot of pressure on him from me, not anybody else, to get back to what I know he can do on this level night in and night out.”

Kings general manager Monte McNair said the team conducted a thorough coaching search before deciding on Brown.

“We conducted in the front office here a very robust, thorough and comprehensive process,” McNair said. “We wanted to ensure we found the right coach. We did a lot of research and it came down to three key things for us. Experience; successful head coaching experience. Relationships; he ability to build relationships across the organization. And leadership as a coach and everything that we are trying to do here. We certainly met with some qualified candidates, but coach Brown’s pedigree stood out.”

The first big task McNair and Brown will take on together is deciding whether to choose a player with the No. 4 pick in Thursday’s NBA draft or trade the pick.

“We have a great staff,” McNair said. “A lot of them are here putting in the hours here in our front office. Mike has unfortunately been tied up with some other stuff and we’ve stayed in touch almost daily on what’s going on here. We talked about the alignment and making sure that alignment is there every day on what we are planning with this team as we are trying to get back into the playoffs.”

This story was originally published June 21, 2022 at 3:10 PM.