ORLANDO, Fla. – Denver Nuggets coach Michael Malone didn’t hold back in his response to the news of the firing of Sacramento Kings head coach Mike Brown, criticizing the team and owner Vivek Ranadive for showing “no class.”
Brown was fired on Friday, sources told ESPN’s Shams Charania, with the Kings starting 13-18 this season and finishing in 12th place in the Western Conference.
Malone is no stranger to the Kings, whom he coached for two seasons. He was fired by Ranadive in December 2014 and Brown was the sixth coach to hold that job in the decade since Malone’s departure.
Malone said Brown’s firing did not surprise him because of “who he works for.”
“I’m not surprised Mike Brown was fired because I was fired by the same person,” Malone said. “And what really pissed me off about it was the fact that they lost [Thursday] tonight, fifth game in a row, I believe. Heavy loss. …They had practiced this morning. He’s doing his postgame media, and he’s in his car on the way to the airport to fly to LA and they’re calling him on the phone.
“No class, no balls. That’s what I’ll say about that.”
Malone was one of several NBA coaches who reacted with dismay to the news of Brown’s firing.
Indiana Pacers coach Rick Carlisle spoke to open his pregame media session before his team visited Boston on Friday night. He called the dismissal “shocking to me and I’m sure all people in our profession.”
“I had the privilege of working with Mike when I first coached at Indiana,” said Carlisle, who is also the longtime president of the National Basketball Coaches Association. “I consider him one of the standard bearers of integrity for our profession. And I’m just absolutely shocked that that decision was made.”
Orlando Magic coach Jamahl Mosley said coaches understand that the job is often thankless and that when a team underperforms they run the risk of being fired. He said it’s not his place to discuss another team’s decision-making, but made it clear what he thinks of Brown as a coach and as a person.
“He compiled a 107-88 record while he was there,” Mosley said. “He changed a little bit of that culture in what he did. And I don’t say these things as a fellow coach. I say this as a good friend. He’s been a mentor of mine. And I know how good he is, and I know how he cares, and I know how he helped pave the way for so many of us who are in this game now.”
Brown was the unanimous winner of the NBA Coach of the Year award in 2022-2023 after his first season in Sacramento helped the Kings reach the playoffs for the first time since 2006. All 100 voters on a panel of reporters and broadcasters ranked Brown at the top. their mood that year.
Less than two years later he is gone.
“You hate to see it,” said New York Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau, who like Brown is a two-time NBA coach of the year. “You know, it’s part of what we’re going through. Mike is a great person and a great coach. It’s a shame.”
Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr said he understood the Kings have been struggling lately, but still expressed disappointment that Brown — his former assistant and a longtime close friend — was let go. “We all know that’s the nature of the business,” Kerr said. “It just seems so shocking when someone is unanimously named Coach of the Year a year and a half ago, and when you think about where that franchise was before Mike got there… really shocking.”
The change in Sacramento marks the ninth head coaching change in the NBA in 2024 alone — and the 300th in the NBA since Gregg Popovich, the league’s longest-serving current coach, became coach in San Antonio in 1996. Popovich is currently away from the NBA. Traces during stroke recovery.
Brown has had four jobs during that period: he was head coach in Cleveland, then head coach of the Los Angeles Lakers, then returned to Cleveland and until Friday had the job in Sacramento.
“He’ll land on his feet for sure,” Carlisle said. But when you look at the work he did and the turnaround he had, it’s just really hard to believe that this decision was made. But teams obviously have the right to do things like this. It’s their decision. But anyway, Mike is a great man and a great basketball guy.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.