Head c0ach Mike Brown was let go by the Sacramento Kings on Friday. Just two years after breaking Sacramento’s 16-season playoff drought and being named Coach of the year—as a No. 3 seed too, in 2022. In 2023 the team failed to make the playoffs, as they were ousted in the play-in tournament. Now just 31 games into his third season as head coach, they have officially fired Mike Brown and unceremoniously too.
Following the addition of DeMar DeRozan this summer and the increased expectations that come with a player of that caliber, the Kings have a 13-18 record and have dropped five straight games, the most recent of which was a gut punch loss against Detroit when they gave up a three-point lead on a four-point play in the final seconds.
That ultimately proved to be the final straw for Brown. During the postgame after the loss to the Detroit Pistons, coach Mike Brown was irate and called out his team hard. The following afternoon on Dec. 27, as he was about to board a plane to Los Angeles, they fired him over the phone. They couldn’t even bring him in for a face-to-face meeting. Brown’s fellow NBA coaches were quick to stand up for him.
Pacers coach Rick Carlisle, described Brown as “one of the standard bearers for integrity for our profession,” and Warriors coach Steve Kerr called the Kings’ decision to fire Brown “shocking.” Before becoming head coach of the Kings, Brown was an assistant coach in Golden State. Three coaches: Tom Thibodeau, Jamahl Mosley and Jordi Fernandez, all said similar things about the firing, calling Brown “one of the best.” All in all, it seems nobody in the NBA agrees with this decision, but nobody was more scathing of the Sacramento Kings’ organization than the head coach of the Denver Nuggets Mike Brown.
“We’re going into a [Nuggets coaches] meeting this afternoon … I’m not on social media. I’m not aware of what’s going on outside these walls sometimes. It’ll probably take off six years of my life,” Malone said to the media. “I go into the meeting and the coaches say, ‘you hear about Mike Brown?’ I said, ‘why, what happened?’ They said he got fired. At first I was really shocked and surprised,” Malone continued. “Then I caught myself. I said, why am I shocked and surprised? [I’m not] for two reasons. One, because as an NBA head coach, ultimately, you’re going to get the blame. When the Kings’ win, the credit is gonna go to [De’Aaron] Fox and [Domantas] Sabonis, and when they lose, the blame is gonna go to Mike Brown. That’s the way it works.”
Malone saved his harshest comments for last.
“And two, who Brown works for,” Malone concluded as he launched his shot at the Kings. “So I’m not surprised that Mike Brown got fired, because I got fired by the same person. And what really pissed me off about it was the fact that the Kings lost last night, fifth game in a row, I believe. 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 L.A. and they call him on the phone [and tell him he’s fired]. No class. No balls. That’s what I’ll say about that.”
