Sacramento reportedly parted ways with coach Mike Brown amid the Kings’ five-game losing streak, and assistant Doug Christie will serve as the interim head coach.
The firing of Sacramento Kings coach Mike Brown shocked the NBA world on Friday. Count Warriors coach Steve Kerr as part of that group.
“I’m very disappointed to hear the news,” Kerr said to reporters in Inglewood ahead of the Warriors’ game against the Los Angeles Clippers. “Mike is a great friend, great coach. I talked to him and we all kind of know this is the nature of the business. But it just seems so shocking when a guy is a unanimous Coach of the Year a year and a half ago.”
Brown, 54, served as an assistant on Kerr’s coaching staff for six seasons, starting in 2016-17 and ending in 2021-22. The Warriors won three championships with Brown as an assistant and reached the NBA Finals four times. He then departed for the Kings’ coaching job after the Warriors won the 2022 title over the Boston Celtics.
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Immediately, the Kings found new success under Brown. In his first year at the helm, the Kings won 48 games in the 2022-23 NBA season, their most since winning 50 in 2004-05. They lost to the Warriors in the first round of the playoffs, pushing the reigning champions to seven games, and Brown unanimously was named NBA Coach of the Year.
Led by Brown, the Kings snapped a 16-season drought without a playoff berth, which was the longest streak in NBA history.
“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 continued. “I know they’ve been in a tough spell, but this is the NBA. We all go through tough spells.”
The Kings, after losing 114-113 to the Detroit Pistons on Thursday night in grueling fashion dropped to 13-18 on the season. They’ve lost five straight games, with all five coming at home. The losing streak dropped the Kings to the No. 12 seed in the West, two spots out of the play-in tournament.
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This past season, the Kings won 46 regular-season games and blew out the Warriors in the play-in tournament before then losing to New Orleans and missing out on the playoffs.
“I feel very fortunate to work in an organization that really values continuity,” Kerr said. “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.
“I feel terribly for Mike today.”
Kerr’s final season as a player in the NBA, the 2002-03 campaign, was Brown’s lone season as an assistant for Gregg Popovich with the San Antonio Spurs. He’s now in his 11th season as the Warriors’ head coach.
Only Popovich and Erik Spoelstra of the Miami Heat have been tenured longer than Kerr.
“It’s a fact of life, a fact of the business and we all know what we’re getting into,” Kerr said. “Some of us are luckier than others. Some of us get to coach Steph Curry and be in a place where there’s a chance for a nice long run. But that’s the exception, not the rule. The rule is, these are really short-tenured jobs. I think it’s the same in every sport now, especially every high-level sport, whether it’s the NFL, Premier League – the average length of tenure for coaches in professional sports is not very long.
“We kind of know what we’re getting into, and that’s all part of it.”
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