‘Great friendship’: Kings coach Mike Brown, Bucks’ Mike Budenholzer and Dick’s Last Resort
Kings coach Mike Brown and Milwaukee Bucks coach Mike Budenholzer can trace their friendship back more than 20 years to their early days as NBA video coordinators and a place called Dick’s Last Resort on the San Antonio Riverwalk.
Brown and Budenholzer got to know each other well as young assistants with the San Antonio Spurs, where they worked under NBA coaching legend Gregg Popovich. Budenholzer was an assistant with the Spurs from 1996-2013. Brown was there from 2000-03. Both were part of the staff when the Spurs won the NBA championship in 2003.
Brown and Budenholzer spoke at length about their relationship Wednesday before the Bucks beat the Kings 126-113 at Fiserv Forum to end Sacramento’s three-game winning streak. The mutual respect was very apparent.
“Great, great, great guy,” Brown said. “Had a good time with him. Back then, the staffs were a lot smaller, so we did all the scouts. We split the scouts in half and I remember the system that we had was a lot different. … We basically did all the grunt work for the staff.
“I just remember, if it was my scout, trying to get the scout faxed to Pop’s house by 7 o’clock the night before the game, and then Pop going through the scouting report, he used to look through our scouting reports with a red pen, and he used to, if we forgot to cross a T, he’d cross the T, and if we forgot to dot an I, he’d dot an I. We’d talk about Pop just between the two of us because we were scared to say anything to his face, so we bonded because of that.”
The Brown-Budenholzer relationship actually predates their time together with the Spurs. Brown said he was still a video coordinator with the Denver Nuggets when he formed a strong friendship with Budenholzer.
“I’d fly into San Antonio after the game,” Brown said. “They used to get these cards where they can go get free food from, I think it’s Dicks Last Resort, and so after the game, I’d tell Bud to wait for me because he had the card. That’s actually how he met his wife — his ex-wife. ... After a game, he waited for me, and we went to Dick’s Last Resort, and she was a waitress there at the time. We had a lot of good nights together. He’s a good man.”
Budenholzer said the feeling is mutual, referring to his relationship with Brown as a “really great friendship”
“Just one of the best guys I’ve ever been around,” Budenholzer said. “He’s got incredible strength of character. (Los Angeles Lakers head coach Darvin Ham) was just here a few days ago, and there are some similarities in those guys. Just willing to have very honest, very direct, hard conversations, but still people love them and still people respect them. And he’s not afraid of any moment or any situation, and he has a confidence that, to be honest with you, he helped me as a young coach.
“It’s funny. I think we were both young then. I don’t like to think of myself as old now, but just a great friend and a great coach. I have so much respect for him, the work he did with Tim Duncan defensively, just everything. Great, great coach. I’m happy to see him back as a head coach, and watching some tape, following him, he’s got this (Kings) team cooking.”
Budenholzer was asked to elaborate on how Brown helped him early in his career.
“He has an uncanny or unabashed way of talking to people about things and being very honest and very direct,” Budenholzer said. “I don’t know what my personality was or is today — I’m still trying to figure it out, probably — but he was very honest, very direct with people, and I think that’s what players appreciate and respect.
“I saw it a lot, obviously, from (Popovich), but it’s different when you’re an assistant coach. Mike had a way of carrying himself and communicating and working with players as an assistant that was powerful, and, again, we were pretty young then, and he was a great influence on me. When you work side by side with somebody and you watch them do their job, you learn from it.”
