May 09, (THEWILL) – The National Basketball Association’s Sacramento Kings have reached an agreement with Mike Brown, current assistant coach at Golden State Warriors and D’Tigers, to take over as head coach in the Californian club on a four-season deal, with no financial terms disclosed.
The 52-year-old comes to a franchise that has the negative active record of having not made the playoffs for 16 years in the NBA. This is even though Rick Adelman has had a good number of coaches with a short presence on the bench, including Dave Joerger, who spent 3 full years and was the one who achieved the most solidity as head coach.
Brown will face a significant challenge, but the Kings are putting their faith in a coach with a lot of experience.
Mike Brown has spent eight seasons as an NBA head coach with the Cavaliers (in two stints) and the Lakers, and will remain on the Warriors coaching staff until the end of the playoffs. His greatest achievement was making it to the Finals.
He also worked as an assistant coach with the Wizards, Spurs, and Warriors. That is, during Gregg Popovich’s (3-year) and Steve Kerr’s (2-year) tenures (the last 5 seasons).
The Kings’ market movement will be fascinating to watch. De’Aaron Fox and Domantas Sabonis are their two main references on the court today. The California franchise lost 4-2 in the first round to the San Antonio Spurs in May 2006, kicking off a 16-year trip through the desert that ended with a loss to the Golden State Warriors in the final game. This is officially the worst drought in NBA history.
Sacramento has gone through 11 coaches in the last 16 years, a remarkable amount of turnover in such a short time. None of the coaches have won more than half of their games, however the team around them may share some of the blame.
THEWILL recalls that Brown was appointed head coach of the senior men’s national basketball team of Nigeria, D’Tigers on February 5, 2020. Under his guidance, D’Tigers made an impression in exhibition games against the United States and Argentina before the Olympics.
However, the Nigerian team, made up mostly by NBA professionals, were unable to repeat their remarkable achievements at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, losing all three Group B games to Australia, Germany, and Italy, and therefore exiting the basketball competition in Japan.
Brown took the early exit painfully, given the logistics issues that hampered his team’s preparations but declared that he will coach Nigeria at the 2021 FIBA AfroBasket Championships event billed for Rwanda between August 24 and September 5, 2021. D’Tigers were to begin their campaign on August 25 against Mali..
However, it was another cycle of pain. D’Tigers, suffered a disappointing 68-80 loss to the Silverbacks of Uganda to exit the Championships earlier than conceived.
The unexpected defeat was not just shocking but, because it was part of the bracket play to remain in the championship, the 12-point loss effectively knocked the country’s representatives out of the competition. Coming so soon after the unmet expectations at the just concluded Summer Olympics in Tokyo this month made it all the more difficult to swallow.
Yet, the fact that the NBA contingent of D’Tigers squad was absent from the Nigerian side was hugely responsible for the low FIBA Power Ranking that Nigeria carried into the competition and the early exit that befell the team.
About the Author
Jude Obafemi is a versatile senior Correspondent at THEWILL Newspapers, excelling in sourcing, researching, and delivering sports news stories for both print and digital publications.
