The Kings have been extraordinarily tight lipped under Monte and all the leaks are making them look incompetent and cheap. Pretty safe they aren't the ones leaking unless there is a rat on the inside.
Brown's not trying to escape, but he's got his own option for year 4 and is underpaid by recent contract standards so he's got the Kings in a bit of a vice.
Yeah but opting out of an option because the market has adjusted higher
and your performance relative to your peers warrants a raise isn't unethical at all, it's the point of the option. If he had stunk up the place then the team doesn't pick up the option for next season. If he's worth more than the option amount (which is already the case) than he
should opt out next season and ask for more.
As far as leaking / not leaking of contract offers, I'm sure that's an agent-driven decision and people who can afford to have agents have them to do the financial negotiations on their behalf so they can just focus on what they're being paid to do.
Whether going into this final season without an extension in place is a good idea or not depends on your point of view. Monte wasted no time in locking up Sabonis to a new contract instead of waiting for his current one to expire and has already made an offer to Fox. If, by contrast, Mike Brown is in the "wait and see" camp that feels to me like he's not being valued as a franchise building block on par with our star players and from my point of view, that would be a mistake. We've had star level players before and gotten nowhere because of terrible coaching.
$10 million a year in a world where a star player can make up to $80 million a year isn't a tall ask for a proven coach who has worked with hall of fame players throughout his career, is well liked in Sacramento, and has the team playing well. This season was a little disappointing in comparison but everything that happened in year one -- the team winning 48 games, breaking the no-playoff streak in spectacular fashion by finishing the season with the 3 seed and taking a 2-0 series lead on the defending champs (before injuries altered the circumstances), and Mike Brown being voted unanimously the Coach of the Year --
already warrants the dollar amount he's asking for.