Warriors’ Brown seeks next headcoaching gig
Warriors assistant Mike Brown makes sure to bring a notepad and pen to team meetings so that he can jot down whatever head coach Steve Kerr tells the players.
Later, when Brown has some free time, he reviews the specific messaging Kerr chose. This is a routine Brown developed in his first season with Golden State four years ago — not just because he appreciates Kerr’s oration, but because he someday would like to emulate it.
Brown, who accumulated a combined record of 347216 leading the Cavaliers ( 200510, 201314) and Lakers ( 201112), recently reemerged as a popular candidate for NBA headcoaching vacancies. Within the past several months, he interviewed for openings with the Knicks, Pacers and Clippers.
Though Brown’s sitdowns with executives from New
Within the past several months, Warriors assistant Mike Brown interviewed for openings with the Knicks, Pacers and Clippers.
York and Indiana were merely over Zoom, he flew to Los Angeles this month to meet with the Clippers’ brass for a day and a half. After having dinner on a Saturday night with general manager Michael Winger and president of basketball operations Lawrence Frank, Brown spent Sunday talking with team owner Steve Ballmer and the rest of the organization’s highranking executives.
The conversations spanned everything from detailed tactical questions to queries about Brown’s childhood. Two days later, he navigated another hourlong interview, this time over Zoom. The Clippers decided to hire Tyronn Lue — an assistant under Doc Rivers last season and a championshipwinning head coach with the Cavaliers — last week, but Brown was pleased to have made it so far in their search.
Brown has been open about his desire to become a head coach again, and Kerr is optimistic that his friend and colleague will get that opportunity. Long known as a dogged worker with a borderline obsessive attention to detail, Brown, 50, has learned the importance of being flexible during his nearly halfdecade with the Warriors.
When Kerr took a hiatus from the sideline during the 2017 playoffs to deal with chronic back pain, Brown guided Golden State to an 110 record. This past season, he had to get creative with his substitution patterns as Warriors players missed nearly 300 games combined due to injury.
“I don’t think I’ll ever lose my attention to detail and my want to have things be organized, but what being here has showed me is that, if it’s not that way, it’s not the end of the world,” Brown said. “You try to get the best out of the moment, knowing there’s going to be another time or date to circle back if you need to. Just keep it moving.”
Kerr, whose wrinkled Tshirt and sweatpants at practice are in stark contrast to Brown’s meticulous ensembles, has been instrumental in helping his top assistant understand that winning is about far more than colorcoded practice plans and 200page playbooks. During their time together, Brown has come to value Kerr’s ability to connect with players from varying backgrounds and consistently deliver the right pregame message.
Meanwhile, Kerr credits Brown with helping him become more organized and detailoriented. Seldom does Brown let Kerr overlook a rotational nuance or facet of the scouting report.
“It’s like ‘ The Odd Couple,’ ” Brown said with a chuckle. “We feel like we’re the new generation of ‘ The Odd Couple,’ and it’s worked really well.”
Brown called working under Kerr “the best job I’ve ever had,” which is high praise, considering that Brown’s resume includes a Finals run with the LeBron Jamesled Cavaliers and a stint as the head coach of Kobe Bryant’s Lakers. But over the past year, as Brown filled more and more notepad pages with Kerr’s speeches, he sometimes wondered how he’d handle a headcoaching job differently than he had in previous stops.
Instead of being beholden to those colorcoded practice plans, perhaps Brown would make room for the flexibility that Kerr makes a priority. One thing Brown knows for certain is that he won’t ever be as precise in his messaging as Kerr — regardless of how many notes he takes.
“I’ll never be as good as he is,” Brown said. “I’ll watch him in front of the group, and I’ll just say to myself, ‘ Man, I can try to be just like Steve, but there’s no way I’ll be quite at his level.’ ”