Just six months ago, De’Aaron Fox spoke to Sacramento media about how grateful he was to finally have something that had been lacking throughout his then-seven-year NBA career with the Kings.
Stability.
His comments came after Mike Brown, who entered the 2024-25 NBA season with one year remaining on his original Kings contract, signed a three-year extension to remain the man in charge through the 2026-27 season.
Instead, 163 days after signing that multiyear extension, Brown was fired following a 13-18 start to the season that reached a new low point with a 0-5 homestand and losing 12 of their last 17 games. And instead of that stability Fox raved about, he’ll now experience his fifth coach in eight years while Sacramento sees its eighth since Vivek Ranadivé bought the team in 2013.
No coach has lasted more than three years under Ranadivé’s ownership.
Something needed to change, there’s no denying that. A team with Fox, DeMar DeRozan and Domantas Sabonis should be better than the No. 12 seed in the Western Conference.
But that change – at least right now – should not have been parting ways with the man who brought winning basketball back to Sacramento for the first time in nearly two decades.
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Brown joined a Kings team that hadn’t been to the playoffs in 17 years. He left it almost two and a half years later with a 107-88 record, joining Rick Adelman (395-229) as the only two Kings coaches with winning records since the franchise moved to Sacramento in 1985. The team had 21 coaching changes in that span.
Brown's 107 wins also are the ninth most in franchise history.
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That wasn’t good enough, however, to Ranadivé and general manager Monte McNair.
But on the outside looking in, it seems the Kings don’t have a coaching problem – they have a personnel problem. Over the past two offseasons, they didn’t address their biggest concerns: Size and wing depth.
Keegan Murray has been the do-it-all wing the team has long dreamed of, but as a third-year 24-year-old, he needs some help. He has been tasked with defending some of the NBA's best players while also being asked to be an efficient scorer, shot-creator and playmaker on the other end of the floor.
Sacramento’s star center Sabonis is about as reliable and durable as they come, but at just 6-foot-10, he isn’t exactly threatening opposing offenses at the rim. The Kings need a big, like an actual big who can help take the load off Sabonis when needed.
These were both areas of obvious concern after Sacramento’s heartbreaking first-round NBA playoff loss to the Golden State Warriors in April 2023. Nothing was done. Then the concerns were raised again throughout the 2023-24 season. Nothing was done. OK. Enter the 2024-25 offseason. You land DeRozan in a franchise-moving acquisition. Great, but that still didn’t address the original concerns.
The point is, an artist can only work with the palette they are given. A mechanic can only fix what’s broken with the proper tools. When that palette lacks or those tools are missing, the outcome reflects that.
Brown worked with what he had, which, to be clear, wasn’t a horrible roster by any means. Again, this team is more talented than its record shows. But they undeniably need more to compete in the stacked West. And in no way, shape, or form was Brown perfect this season. He made several mistakes, as do many other coaches around the league and professional sports.
But Brown wasn’t the one committing careless turnovers on the floor. He wasn’t the one missing wide-open, well-executed 3-pointers. He wasn’t the one failing to close out games.
Hey, but it’s the business, right?
Regardless of where the fingers point, the easy way out always lands on the head coach. It’s an all-too-familiar theme that still struck several coaches to the core Friday evening after learning about Brown’s firing.
From Warriors coach and Brown’s former boss Steve Kerr to ex-Kings assistant-turned Brooklyn Nets coach Jordi Fernandez to Michael Malone’s fiery yet personal remarks, Brown’s firing was yet another unfortunate reminder that no job is safe, although Kerr acknowledged he might be in a unique situation with Golden State.
“When you think about where that franchise was before Mike got there, where they’ve been the last couple of years, the job that he and his staff have done – it’s just really shocking,” Kerr told reporters in Inglewood ahead of the Warriors’ game against the Los Angeles Clippers. “I know they’ve been in a tough spell, but this is the NBA. We all go through tough spells.
“I feel very fortunate to work in an organization that really values continuity. That allows our team and our staff to get through the rough patches. Every team in the league is going to face these tough stretches, like we’re going through right now.
“I know I’m probably the exception rather than the rule when it comes to organizational support and continuity. That doesn’t mean it’s going to last forever, but it means I’ve been very lucky to coach here and work for this organization, because it’s not easy. This job, this business, it’s pretty rough.”
The Kings’ five-game skid at Golden 1 Center came at the hands of the Denver Nuggets, Los Angeles Lakers (twice), Indiana Pacers and most recently (and painfully), the Detroit Pistons. The Detroit game Thursday night was one Sacramento was up by as many as 19 points in and as many as 10 with three minutes left in the game.
But an inexcusable defensive blunder by Fox with 10 seconds left cost them the game. Big-picture-wise, that single play didn’t lose them the game because the Kings should’ve never been in that position in the first place. But it perfectly portrayed the kind of mental mishaps a team full of veterans shouldn’t be having.
In the end, the Kings lost that game. Less than 24 hours later, Brown lost his job.
Change felt imminent. But the question is: Why now? Will Doug Christie, the interim head coach, or whoever they hire full-time afterward magically bring them the wing or center depth they’ve desperately been needing? Will the root of the struggles suddenly change with Brown out the door?
The timing simply doesn’t make sense. And maybe it doesn’t need to make sense right now, maybe time will tell. But that still doesn’t explain why Brown woke up Friday morning, coached an entire practice at the Kings facility, spoke to the media for over 16 minutes and then, bam, the basketball world collectively gasped at their phones as they read the report from ESPN’s Shams Charania of Brown being fired.
Maybe he knew as he spoke to reporters. Maybe he didn’t. But one response can be listened back to while scratching your head and digging deeper.
“That's part of it. That's why I get paid the money that I get paid,” Brown said in response to the pressure building on a coach after a tough stretch. “But at the end of the day, you also know when you go through adverse times, you know who was truly there for you. People will jump off the bandwagon quick. The support, wherever it may come from, may not always be there. But that's part of what I have to deal with. Not just for myself but holding everybody together. And that's what I'm going to do.
“And I'm OK with anybody criticizing me because, again, I get paid to handle that. I get paid to get us through this. But when it's anybody that's close -- whether that's staff, players, friends, family -- you'll be able to tell who jumped off when you had some trying times. And you just always remember that as you go forward because you know who's truly in the foxhole with you and who's not.
“But at the end of the day, you best believe I'm going to handle all the smoke. No matter where that smoke comes from.”
That candid presence was who Brown was as a coach and is as a person. He’s honest. Straightforward. Accountable. It’s one of the main characteristics he implemented since stepping foot into Sacramento, and accountability always was a two-way street with his players and him.
He pushed players, challenging Fox, Murray and Malik Monk in ways they never had been before, unlocking a glimpse of their true NBA potential.
After Brown secured his 400th career regular-season win last November, Murray spoke highly of Brown’s impact on his young career with words that hit harder after the coach’s exit.
“He's always pushing me,” Murray said of Brown. “Even last year he didn't treat me like a rookie. He treated me like a guy who's been in the league for five, six years. That's all I could have really asked for my rookie season.
“So he's going to be a guy that I'm always going to remember at the start of my career and hopefully through my career as a coach that's had a big impact on me.”
Brown left a lasting impact off the court, too.
He loves the game of basketball, but he loved this team and probably more than anything else, loved the city. He always was everywhere in the community supporting local college or high school sports, shouting out Sacramento athletes by name or sporting school gear during media scrums and press conferences.
But none of that matters in the grand scheme of things when your team is losing and underachieving. Brown isn’t the reason the Kings are 13-18, but he took the hit. The Kings now will turn to Christie to help salvage whatever other uncertainty lies ahead for Sacramento over the next few months.
In-season coaching changes typically don’t end well, except for a very few. For now, fans can cherish what Brown brought back to a deserving basketball-loving city, and wait patiently for the rest to play out.
Of course, the question now turns to what this means for Fox, whose future already seemed to be at an uncertain place with Sacramento. Just a few days ago, Fox went on Draymond Green’s podcast to discuss his future and basically said all he wants to do is win at a high level. Since then, the Kings have: Continued to lose, reportedly met with Fox’s agent to discuss what’s next, and, just hours ago, parted ways with a coach he loved and respected.
We keep brushing this off like ‘We’ll get there when we get there,” but, in a rapid turn of events, it seems we’ve gotten there.
Now what?
