The Sacramento Kings fired Mike Brown on Friday. He was just 31 games into his third season as head coach, and just two years removed from being named Coach of the Year after ending Sacramento’s 16-season playoff drought — as a third seed, no less — in 2022-23. . .
The Kings, after adding DeMar DeRozan this summer, in addition to the heightened expectations that come with a player of that caliber, are off to a 13-18 start and have lost five in a row, the last being a punch in the gut against Detroit when They coughed. gained a three-point lead in the final seconds on a four-point play.
That ended up being the last straw for Brown, as ESPN reported that Brown was informed in a phone call while heading to the airport to leave for Los Angeles, where the Kings are scheduled to play the Lakers on Saturday.
Many of Brown’s coaching compatriots expressed genuine shock at Sacramento’s decision to fire Brown. Pacers coach Rick Carlisle, who described Brown as “one of the standard bearers for the integrity of our profession,” and Warriors coach Steve Kerr called the Kings’ decision to fire Brown “shocking.” “, and it was clear in the comments made by other coaches. Tom Thibodeau, Jamahl Mosley and Jordi Fernández, who called Brown “one of the best,” say that virtually no one agrees with this decision.
But none of them made it as far as Nuggets coach Mike Malone, who was fired by the Kings in 2014, just 24 games into his second season as the team’s coach, and was completely swept away by his former employer (particularly owner of the Kings, Vivek Ranadive, although he did not name him directly) when asked about Brown’s firing.
“We are entering a [Nuggets coaches] meeting this afternoon… I’m not on social media. Sometimes I am not aware of what happens outside these walls. He’ll probably take six years off my life,” Malone began. “I walk into the meeting and the coaches say, ‘Have you heard of Mike Brown?’ I said, ‘why, what happened?’ They said they fired him.
“At first I was really shocked and surprised,” Malone continued. “Then I held back. I said, why am I shocked and surprised? [I’m not] for two reasons. One, because as an NBA head coach, you will ultimately be at fault. When [the Kings’ win, [the credit is] I’m going to go to [De’Aaron] fox and [Domantas] Sabonis, and when [they] lose, the [blame] will go to Mike Brown. That’s how it works.
“And two, who [Brown] works,” Malone concluded as he took his shot against the Kings. “So I’m not surprised that Mike Brown got fired, because I was fired by the same person. And what really pissed me off was the fact that [the Kings] I lost last night, fifth game in a row, I think. Tough loss, fouling a jump shooter. They had practiced this morning. He does his media, and he’s in his car going to the airport to fly to Los Angeles and they call him on the phone. [and tell him he’s fired]. Classless. No balls. “That’s what I’ll say about it.”
Malone clearly has some hard feelings about his time and the way it ended up in Sacramento, and he’s right. Yes, NBA coaches are, for the most part, hired with the expectation that one day, probably fairly soon, they will be fired. It’s not fair, but that’s how it works. The coach is the easiest variable to change when things go wrong. You can’t just get rid of players.
But there’s a more elegant way to do it than over the phone, especially after you let the guy practice and head to the airport to fly to the next game. The Kings were a disaster before Brown came along. If you want, you can blame it on the fact that Kevin Huerter and Keegan Murray have seemingly forgotten how to shoot for most of this season, or that the Kings have gone 3-11 in games decided by five points or less. , but Brown deserved to be spoken to face to face. From that perspective, it’s hard to argue with Malone’s point of view.
