Popovich taught Brown about more than basketball
In 2002, while an assistant coach with the Spurs, Mike Brown was driving his two young sons to the airport when both boys broke down in tears. After visiting their father in San Antonio for only a couple of days, Elijah and Cameron Brown weren’t ready to return to their mother in Colorado.
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The timing was hardly ideal: The Spurs were about to fly to Chicago for a game and Brown had overseen the scouting report. Before he could finish telling his boss over the phone that he was running late, San Antonio head coach Gregg Popovich demanded Brown stay behind for more time with his sons. A few days later, after the Spurs returned home from that game
against the Bulls, Popovich reminded Brown to always prioritize family over basketball.
“Obviously, I worked for him, but he’s done a lot for me in my personal life, too,” Brown said recently of Popovich. “I look at him as more than a guy I worked for before, or a mentor. He’s a close friend, a really close friend of mine.”
Now, in his third week as Golden State’s acting head coach, Brown is preparing to host Popovich’s Spurs in Sunday’s Game 1 of the Western Conference finals. Though the Warriors — who have yet to lose this postseason — are heavily favored in the series, Brown is well-versed enough on the Spurs to not underestimate his next opponent. This is a franchise that, in an NBA landscape built for parity, has reached the playoffs in 20 straight seasons and won five championships since 1999.
The one common denominator — from David Robinson to Tim Duncan to Kawhi Leonard — is a sarcastic, fiery intellectual who, if not for a disagreement with the university president nearly three decades ago, might still be coaching at Division III Pomona-Pitzer. Overshadowed by his 1,150 career wins with San Antonio is the role Popovich played in helping bring Brown to Golden State.
Last June, after learning that lead assistant Luke Walton would take over the Lakers, Steve Kerr asked his longtime mentor for recommendations. Worried he might need to take another hiatus from the bench to deal with his chronic pain, Kerr wanted someone who could fill in as head coach if necessary. Popovich suggested Brown, who, after two seasons away from an NBA sideline, was eager to return.
“It seemed like a good fit,” Popovich said in October. “Mike is a great coach. But more importantly, he’s just a wonderful person.”
Brown was only 30 when Popovich hired him as an assistant in 2000. An admitted workaholic, Brown made himself indispensable with colorcoded practice plans and exhaustive scouting reports. In 2003, with the 37-year-old Kerr earning mop-up minutes as a reserve guard, the Spurs won their second NBA title in half a decade.
As Brown went on to become a head coach with the Cavaliers (2005-10, 2013-14) and Lakers (2011-12), he often reflected on his three seasons with Popovich. More than teaching Brown how to communicate with players and defend the pick-and-roll, Popovich helped him understand the importance of work-life balance. It is moments like that phone call in 2002, when Popovich threatened to fire him if he didn’t stay in San Antonio with his kids, that most resonate Brown.
Hungry to be around the game after a year digesting his second firing by Cleveland, Brown followed the Spurs much of last season. He sat in on coaches’ meetings, ate dinner with the team, watched practice and offered the occasional pointer. Thirteen years removed from last working with Popovich, Brown was amazed by his colleague’s ability to adapt.
For a 68-year-old coach, Popovich has a knack for relating to this generation of NBA players. It is the same sort of flexibility that has helped him reinvent his offensive and defensive schemes to stay competitive in an ever-changing league.
“To see how he has evolved, it was a very interesting experience,” Brown said. “The whole thing was very eyeopening for me.”
Since Brown took over for the ailing Kerr before Game 3 of the first round, the Warriors have won six games by an average of 15.2 points. It is a big opportunity for a man who has been fired three times despite winning 61.6 percent of the games he has coached.
By helping Golden State weather Kerr’s absence, Brown could put himself in the discussion for head-coaching vacancies this summer. There is also a chance that, if Kerr is unable to return, Brown would replace him as the Warriors’ head coach.
With easily his toughest test yet looming, Brown isn’t pondering what-ifs. Preparing for the Spurs will take so much of his attention that he isn’t even sure he’ll find the time for some lighthearted trash talk with Popovich.
“I haven’t set anything on my schedule or anything to talk to him,” Brown said with a smile.