Not even two years ago, Rick Carlisle publicly lauded Mike Brown for the job he did on the way to winning the NBA’s coach of the year award.
And on Friday, Carlisle was among the coaches reacting with dismay that Brown was fired.
The Sacramento Kings dismissed Brown on Friday, with the team off to a 13-18 start this season and mired toward the bottom of the Western Conference — despite back-to-back winning seasons, something that franchise hadn’t managed in nearly two decades.
“The firing of Mike Brown today was just shocking to me and I’m sure all the people in our profession — men and women,” said Carlisle, the Indiana Pacers coach and longtime president of the National Basketball Coaches Association. “I had the privilege of working with Mike when I was in Indiana coaching the first time. I view him as one of the standard bearers for integrity for our profession. And I’m just absolutely shocked that that decision was made.”
Carlisle — who offered those sentiments, unprompted, to open his pregame media session before the Pacers visited Boston on Friday night — wasn’t alone on that front.
Denver coach Michael Malone — who was fired by Sacramento owner Vivek Ranadive in December 2014, and Brown was the sixth coach to hold that job in the decade since Malone’s departure — did not hold back in his reaction to the news.
“As an NBA head coach, ultimately, you’re going to get the blame,” Malone said. “When they win, it’s going to go to (Domantas) Sabonis and (De’Aaron) Fox. And when you lose, it’s going to go to Mike Brown. That’s the way it works.
“They have practice this morning, he does his post-(practice) media, and he’s in his car going to the airport to fly to L.A,” Malone added. “And they call him on the phone. No class. No balls. That’s what I’ll say about that.”
Orlando Magic coach Jamahl Mosley said coaches understand that the job is often thankless, and that when a team underachieves there’s a risk of firings. He said it’s not his place to discuss another team’s decision-making — but made clear what he thinks of Brown as a coach and as a person.
“He compiled a record of 107-88 while he was there,” Mosley said. “He changed a bit of that culture in what he was doing. And I say these things not as a fellow coach. I say this as a close friend. He’s been a mentor of mine. And I know how good he is, and I know how he cares, and I know how he’s helped pave the way for so many of us that are in this game right now.”
Brown was the unanimous winner of the NBA’s coach of the year award in 2022-23, after his first season in Sacramento saw the Kings make the playoffs for the first time since 2006. All 100 voters from a panel of reporters and broadcasters had Brown atop their ballot that year.
Less than two years later, he was gone.
“You hate to see it,” said New York Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau, who, like Brown, is a two-time NBA coach of the year. “You know, it’s part of what we go through. Mike’s a terrific person and a great coach. It’s unfortunate.”
The change in Sacramento is the ninth head-coaching change in the NBA in 2024 alone — and the 300th in the NBA since Gregg Popovich, the league’s longest-tenured current coach, became coach in San Antonio in 1996. Popovich is currently away from the Spurs while recovering from a stroke.
Brown has had four different jobs in that span — he was head coach in Cleveland, then head coach of the Los Angeles Lakers, then returned to Cleveland, and until Friday had the job in Sacramento.
“He’ll certainly land on his feet,” Carlisle said. “But if you look at the job that he did and the turnaround that he had, it’s just really hard to believe that this decision was made. But teams have the right to do things like this, obviously. It’s their decision. But Mike’s a great man and a great basketball man. Really one of the pillars of our profession. Anyway. Onward.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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