Kings coach Mike Brown spent seven seasons as Steve Kerr's top assistant on the Warriors' staff.
During a recent interview on the "All the Smoke Podcast," Brown shared the most significant lesson he learned from Kerr during his wildly successful tenure with the Warriors from 2016-2022.
"Steve Kerr is one of the best messengers I've ever been around," Brown said. "As a young coach, I was fortunate, blessed, whatever you want to call it to be able to be a coach at a young age. And I was all about hard work, hard work, hard work. If you work hard and outwork everybody, everything else will fall into place. But it's more to it than that, especially as the head coach. And Steve's ability to message to the group on a daily basis was unbelievable."
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Brown revealed that Kerr's messages to the team were often so powerful that they inspired the Kings coach to carry around a pen and paper to jot down the more resonating statements.
"Every day, I used to carry a little notebook pad of paper in my pocket and a pen because when he talked to the team, I was like, 'Dang, that is on point,' and it's simple, but it's on point," Brown shared. "And if you message correctly to your group, as well as have a feel for what their strengths and weaknesses and try to play to that, then the belief that you instill in everybody as a whole can be off the charts."
Brown then shared how his time with the Warriors helped him discover how powerful the daily messaging from a coach to their players can be, often leading to a level of connectivity that can take even a less talented squad to heights that were previously unimaginable.
"You may not be as talented as the next team, but that belief and that connectivity, that is partly to do, or a lot to do with that messaging on a daily basis, that can take you places you can't imagine going," Brown added. "So that was probably the biggest thing I learned, is the messaging aspect to the team, how important it is. Because I didn't take it as seriously as I do now, and that's something I learned from Steve as well as a few other things."
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Since taking the head coaching job in Sacramento before the 2022-23 NBA season, Brown has led a total transformation in an organization that hadn't been in the postseason for 16 years before his arrival.
Whatever Brown's message to this Kings team might be, it clearly has resonated with a talented but young roster that has the city of Sacramento buzzing in a way that hasn't been felt in decades.