‘No class, no balls’: NBA coaches react to Kings firing 2-time coach of the year Mike Brown

Just two years ago, Rick Carlisle publicly praised Mike Brown’s work on his way to winning the NBA’s Coach of the Year award.

And on Friday, Carlisle was among the coaches who expressed regret that Brown was fired.

The Sacramento Kings fired Brown on Friday, leaving the team at the bottom of the Western Conference after starting the season 13-18. Despite having back-to-back winning seasons, this franchise has failed to manage for nearly 20 years. .

“Today’s firing of Mike Brown was a real shock to me, and I think it’s important to remember that this firing, both men and women,” said Carlisle, coach of the Indiana Pacers and longtime president of the National Basketball Coaches Association. I think it was shocking for everyone in the profession.” “I had the opportunity to work with Mike during my first coaching stint at Indiana State. I view him as one of the standard-bearers for integrity in our profession, and I am honored to have made that decision. I’m really shocked.”

Carlisle, who made that sentiment unprompted at the beginning of a pregame media session before the Pacers’ visit to Boston on Friday night, wasn’t alone in that regard.

Denver coach Michael Malone was fired by Sacramento owner Vivek Ranadive in December 2014, making Brown the sixth coach to hold the job in the 10 years since Malone left. But he didn’t hold back in his reaction to the news.

“As a head coach in the NBA, you ultimately have a responsibility,” Malone said. “If they win, it goes to (Domantas) Sabonis and (De’Aaron) Fox. And if you lose, it goes to Mike Brown. That’s how it works.”

“They had practice this morning, he’s doing post-(practice) media, and he’s in the car heading to the airport to fly to Los Angeles,” Malone added. “And they call him. No classes. No balls. I’ll say that.”

Orlando Magic coach Jamal Mosley said coaches understand that the job is often thankless and that they risk being fired if the team underperforms. He said it’s not his place to discuss other teams’ decisions, but he made it clear what he thinks of Brown as a coach and a person.

“He had a record of 107-88 during his stay,” Mosley said. “He changed that culture a little bit with what he did. And I’m not saying these things as a fellow coach, I’m saying this as a close friend. And I know how good he is, and I know how much he cares and how much he cares for a lot of people who are in this game right now. I know how you paved the way.”

Brown was the unanimous winner of the NBA’s Coach of the Year Award for the 2022-23 season after the Kings reached the playoffs for the first time since 2006 in his first season in Sacramento. All 100 voters on the Committee of Reporters and Broadcasters ranked Brown at the top. their ballots for that year.

Less than two years later, he was gone.

“You don’t want to see that,” New York Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau said. Like Brown, he is a two-time NBA Coach of the Year. “That’s part of what we’re going through. Mike was a great guy and a great coach. It’s disappointing.”

Sacramento’s head coaching change will be the ninth head coaching change in the NBA in 2024 alone. He will be the 300th player in the NBA since Gregg Popovich, the league’s longest-serving current coach, took over as San Antonio’s coach in 1996. Popovich is currently away from the team. Spurs is recovering from a stroke.

Brown has held four different jobs during that span, serving as head coach in Cleveland, then head coach of the Los Angeles Lakers, then returning to Cleveland and working in Sacramento until Friday.

“He’s definitely going to rise up,” Carlisle said. “But when you look at the work he’s done and the way he’s turned around, it’s really hard to believe that this decision was made. But obviously the team has the right to do something like this. It’s their decision. But Mike is just a great guy and a great basketball player.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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