Who might the Knicks get in Mike Brown? Two-time Coach of the Year is still evolving

A movie session became an intervention.

In the future after a disappointing loss this previous fall, the Sacramento Kings gathered to assessment the sport tape. Head coach Mike Brown wasn’t happy. The Kings had not introduced sufficient effort the earlier evening, Brown decided, and it was time to inform them about it.

Brown scanned the room, gamers seated in entrance of him, and regarded to All-Star level guard De’Aaron Fox.

“In the event you don’t play arduous each possession, we’re not gonna win,” he introduced to Fox.

The group sat and listened as he scrolled by means of the highest of the roster. Subsequent, he turned to a different All-Star, Domantas Sabonis, declaring that if the large man didn’t go all out each play, the Kings wouldn’t discover success. Comparable phrases for an additional All-Star, DeMar DeRozan, adopted.

“You guys are the engine that makes this group run,” Brown informed the group. “In the event you don’t play like each possession issues, how can we count on (the position gamers) to do the identical?”

This was not a second of self-discipline. Brown is infamous for holding gamers accountable. However he doesn’t do it in a Bobby Knight-ish method. As an assistant coach who as soon as labored beneath him mentioned, “He didn’t yell a lot. It’d be from a spot of disappointment.”

This event, as he stood earlier than his group, was no exception. Brown didn’t increase his voice. There have been no punishments, no threats. It was a lecture, a hopeful wakeup name for a group that hadn’t performed its finest ball to start the season. The coach hoped to vary that.

Now, Brown is on the verge of a brand new job. The 2-time NBA Coach of the 12 months is finalizing a deal to turn into the subsequent head coach of the New York Knicks, league sources confirmed to The Athletic on Wednesday. His potential new employer is betting on his persona and diligence greater than the rest.

In some methods, Brown’s defining traits are much like these of his predecessor, Tom Thibodeau, who constructed large success in New York till his controversial firing a month in the past. The choice to oust Thibodeau got here just a few days after the Knicks misplaced within the Japanese Convention finals, the deepest playoff run they’d made in 25 years.

Brown, like Thibodeau, believes the movie speaks info. If it’s exhibiting questionable effort, then he should query effort. He’s defense-obsessed, although he additionally has organized the opposite aspect of the ball, which incorporates a few of his time as an assistant with the dynasty Golden State Warriors. He leans towards dimension when making an attempt to get stops and may turn into pissed off with defensive gamblers who danger throwing coverages out of whack by jetting for steals.

He loves follow. A few many years in the past, when he was the pinnacle coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers, his first lead gig, he confronted allegations of being too inflexible — the same arc to Thibodeau’s.

Brown’s defining trait is available in his consideration to element. He’s notoriously organized. After he picks up his mail at residence, he stacks up the envelopes, dividing every into totally different classes earlier than opening them. His workplace is all the time “immaculate,” mentioned Warriors assistant Bruce Fraser, who overlapped with Brown for six seasons in Golden State.

He shade codes his performs, usually carrying varied pens — a crimson one, a blue one, a black one, and many others. — in order that he can diagram them as clearly as potential. When he was with the Warriors, he would categorize pens in his locker by their colours. Simply to mess with him, different coaches would swap them round, eradicating a crimson pen from its intuitive group and place it among the many blues. Brown would discover rapidly and restore order.

Brown is a copious be aware taker. At any given second across the group, he may very well be holding an enormous folder that incorporates all his scribbles.

“It’s like his basketball bible,” Fraser mentioned.

The coach will discover an attention-grabbing tidbit one other group has added or consider a play and jot it down with out hesitation. Later, simply to make Marie Kondo jealous, he’ll return and reillustrate his diagram, ensuring to create a color-coded model.

He expects the identical consideration to element from these round him, from the gamers to the coaches to the remainder of the franchise.

At morning shootarounds, when groups define their sport plans for upcoming opponents, he focuses on nooks and crannies, not a lot totally different than Thibodeau’s goals. Gamers would describe Thibodeau’s practices and shootarounds as extra exhausting mentally than bodily. He wouldn’t run guys into the bottom, however individuals must be taught after which retain every factor of a protection.

But, Brown goes about his enterprise in his personal manner. He’ll leap right into a drill to indicate gamers that every tiny motion has a function.

For instance, the Kings wouldn’t simply rehearse the place to go whereas making an attempt to ship a ballhandler over a display. If Brown felt one factor of the protection was imperfect, he would intervene, crouching right into a defensive stance and exhibiting what the defender ought to do together with his fingers. He would clarify which leg goes the place as he ventured to the right spots on the court docket. As soon as he completed, he would dart to a different space of the ground, mimicking one other Kings participant and displaying how these edits would have an effect on what the assistance defenders had been purported to do.

Brown has been round Corridor of Fame ballers and coaches all through his profession. He assisted San Antonio Spurs legend Gregg Popovich and Indiana Pacers mastermind Rick Carlisle earlier than main the primary group of his personal. He coached LeBron James’ Cleveland Cavaliers from 2005-10.

From there, he bounced to the Los Angeles Lakers, the place he stayed for a bit of greater than a yr. He then returned to the Cavs for one season. Brown didn’t land one other head teaching job till eight years later, when he took over the Kings, who he led to the playoffs in 12 months 1, ending the NBA’s longest postseason drought. He helped the group win 46 video games the next season however accepted an surprising and roundly criticized firing, which occurred after a 13-18 begin this previous December.

Brown is a product of his experiences. The offense throughout his first yr in Sacramento — a league-leading offense that revolved round motion, slicing and downhill actions off Sabonis dribble handoffs — was unrecognizable in comparison with the old-school ones with the Cavs. Folks with the Kings describe him otherwise than those that as soon as labored with him in Cleveland. Coworkers from his earlier days check with him as fingers on, somebody with a agency grip. Some in Sacramento describe one other administration fashion.

The Knicks sought out a substitute for Thibodeau who may excel as a collaborator, league sources mentioned. However such a buzzword, “collaboration,” doesn’t apply simply to working with the entrance workplace or listening to out the gamers. It extends throughout the teaching employees, too.

In Sacramento, Brown would discipline suggestions from his assistants enthusiastically, although they needed to put together first. The teaching employees understood any suggestion to Brown would include follow-up questions — not for the sake of defiance however as a result of their boss needed to check their preparation. He expects the identical consideration to element from his employees that he requires from himself.

Whereas Thibodeau would usually take the reins to guide practices, which isn’t widespread for NBA coaches, Brown delegates to the assistants in these situations. He has spoken extensively about how his six years beneath Warriors coach Steve Kerr, one of many league’s most famously collaborative leaders, modified him. This appears to be a type of methods.

For now, his assistants in New York are nonetheless unsure, although the Knicks may convey again varied coaches from this previous season’s employees, league sources mentioned. Rick Brunson, the daddy of All-NBA level guard Jalen Brunson and who was the lead assistant beneath Thibodeau final season, will stay on the bench.

Like Thibodeau, Brown is a veteran of abrupt firings. That was true in Cleveland, the place Cavs proprietor Dan Gilbert let him go, later admitted doing so was a mistake, re-hired him after which fired him once more lower than a yr after bringing him again.

… And in Los Angeles, the place he coached the Lakers for a lockout-shortened 41-25 season and made it solely 5 video games into the subsequent season earlier than a 1-4 begin led to his demise.

… And in Sacramento, the place he led the Kings to their first successful file in 17 years, posted a 46-win season the next yr after which suffered the implications of a 13-18 begin after that.

Now, he’ll take over the Knicks.

Throughout interviews with Brown and different teaching candidates, New York targeting how potential coaches may change the substitution patterns, league sources mentioned. At instances this season, Thibodeau used solely a seven- or eight-man rotation. He didn’t experiment a lot with lineups.

The Knicks hoped to seek out somebody who may stability competitiveness with the event of youthful, non-rotation gamers on the fringe of the bench. Candidates introduced methods on easy methods to deal with such conditions.

In fact, competitiveness doesn’t come within the type of regular-season wins alone. This can be a franchise with formidable objectives.

“Our group is singularly targeted on successful a championship for our followers,” group president Leon Rose mentioned in a ready assertion launched along side the Thibodeau firing. “This pursuit led us to the troublesome choice to tell Tom Thibodeau that we’ve determined to maneuver in one other route.”

In different phrases, the Knicks imagine they’ve a championship roster, however they didn’t think about Thibodeau the one that may get them there — even after the coach rebuilt a once-crestfallen franchise and fell solely two wins in need of the finals this previous season.

Brown has spent greater than a decade as an NBA head coach however has by no means gained a title, although he went to the finals with the 2007 Cavs. His historical past doesn’t scream that he’s an elite playoff adjuster. He’s principled in ways in which could sound acquainted to New Yorkers. This previous season, amid cries from the fan base to play sparkplug guard Keon Ellis extra, Brown went the opposite route, transferring the 25-year-old to the perimeter of the rotation, a choice that stemmed from Ellis’ overzealous gunning for steals, which damage the protection extra usually than it helped.

However Brown can be a brand new voice with a observe file of racking up victories, a person with a .599 profession successful proportion who shares lots of Thibodeau’s constructive traits and deviates somewhere else.

Now, New York has dedicated to him, hoping a seasoned, detail-oriented, collaborative-yet-still-evolving coach can take the Knicks to their first ring in additional than 50 years.

(Picture of Mike Brown: Kelsey Grant / Getty Photographs)