Sacramento is still getting to know Kings coach Mike Brown as he enters his first season at the helm, but his reputation precedes him after decades of service in the NBA.
Los Angeles Lakers coach Darvin Ham and four-time MVP LeBron James have watched Brown work from various vantage points over the years. Most recently, they found themselves on the short end of two blowout losses to the Kings as Brown led Sacramento to a 4-0 preseason record, including 30- and 47-point victories over the Lakers.
“I expect this franchise to make a turn for the better,” Ham said. “Mike is relentless. He’s not going to stop. I think Mike is going to do some wonderful things with this franchise.”
There is renewed hope in Sacramento as Brown prepares the Kings for their season opener against the Portland Trail Blazers on Wednesday at Golden 1 Center. The Kings seek to end an NBA-record 16-year playoff drought, the longest active streak in North American professional sports. Ham believes Brown is the right man for the job.
Ham was a rookie with the Denver Nuggets when he first met Brown in 1996-97. In 2011, when Brown was coaching the Lakers, he hired Ham as an assistant, giving him his first NBA coaching job.
“Mike and I go back,” Ham said. “Mike was with me my rookie year when he was a video coordinator for Bernie Bickerstaff in 96-97 with the Denver Nuggets. Just to see him and the way he has grown as a coach. Started from humble beginnings. He was the first head coach to give me a job.
“Mike is a great ambassador for the game and a great coach in his own right. He’s really exceptional. I can only imagine him in practice, making sure they’re detail-oriented, making sure they’re consistent. He’s a guy that’s passionate, but not emotional. There’s a difference. He doesn’t wear his feelings on his sleeve. … At the end of the day, he’s going to make sure he has all of his resources in order, his numbers, his film, everything to reemphasize why they should be doing exactly what he’s asking of them to do.”
After six years as Steve Kerr’s lead assistant with the Golden State Warriors, one thing Brown won’t do is call a lot of plays for the Kings. He is implementing a read-and-react motion offense that is more free-flowing and less predictable.
“It’s hard to guard a team that can move, pass, cut, space, all those things, without a play call,” Brown said. “Once you start calling plays, as well as teams scout you, the defense knows what’s coming. They will scheme against it and gameplan against it … so we won’t have many plays. We’ll play conceptual basketball.”
Brown’s fixation on details has come up repeatedly during training camp in Sacramento as he works to fortify a defense that has been among the worst in the league in recent years.
“There’s been a lot of attention to detail, especially on the defensive end,” Kings point guard De’Aaron Fox said.
Brown’s new players have seen it. His former players have seen it, too.
Brown and James spent five seasons together when Brown coached the Cleveland Cavaliers from 2005 to 2010. The Cavaliers made five consecutive playoff appearances under Brown, including a run to the NBA Finals in 2007.
“He’s someone that, if you don’t defend, you won’t get on the floor,” James said. “When he came to Cleveland, we became one of the best defensive teams in the league every single year. That gave us a chance to win every single night. Offensively, some nights we weren’t that good, but we were always in games because we defended.”
Kings guard Matthew Dellavedova played for Brown during Brown’s second stint with the Cavaliers in 2013-14.
“I was lucky enough to have him my rookie season, and he really taught defensively so well and really gave me a great base understanding of how to play NBA defense,” Dellavedova said. “I think that’s really helped me throughout my whole career to have that great start, because not a lot of coaches are so detail oriented, and to be able to get that right at the beginning provides a solid base, so I think that’s the biggest thing I probably took from him my rookie season.”
Now, Brown has brought his teachings to Sacramento, where the Kings finished 27th in defensive rating (114.8), 28th in opponent field-goal percentage (.479) and 29th in opponent points per game (115.8) last season. There were obvious signs of improvement during preseason play as the Kings led the league in defensive rating (85.9), opponent points per game (89.8) and opponent field-goal percentage (.372).
Brown was recently asked what his staff has done to get the Kings to commit at the defensive end of the floor.
“A lot of it starts with the players,” Brown said. “It starts with their buy-in, their hunger to learn and get better, but more importantly their competitiveness with each other every single day.”
Individual defense is important, but team defense is Brown’s biggest emphasis.
“Although we want everybody to bring it defensively as an individual, it’s not one guy guarding the ball,” Brown said. “It’s five guys guarding the ball, so we want to see five guys on a string. We want to communicate. We don’t want to give up the middle of the floor. Our whole thing is, we want to keep the ball on the sidelines, so we want to do what we can to keep that thing over there without giving up the middle of the floor or blow-bys.
“We want to be physical without fouling. We also want ball pressure. And then we want to give multiple efforts out there, because when you defend for 24 seconds, it’s not about doing one thing and relaxing. You’ve got to guard the pick-and-roll and then you’ve got to sink to help out and then you’ve got to box out and then you’ve got to tag the cutter and then you’ve got to finish the play by going and getting a rebound, getting a 50/50 ball or whatever. Those are some of the things which are staples that we want to see on the defensive side of the ball, but the biggest thing is competing.”
