For as long as I can remember Sacramento media by and large (Ailene Voisin was a notable exception) have been more than happy to reheat and re-serve whatever purple-colored narrative that the Kings front office wants to sell them. I'm 98% certain that 29 other franchises would have signed Mike Brown to that same extension after the job he did in his first two seasons and the reactions we're getting from other NBA coaches are entirely reasonable reactions to have outside of the Sacramento bubble. Historically, Kings fans have their own logic about these things. For example, it's tough to explain now, but there was only a tepid level of unrest in Sacramento when Rick Adelman wasn't re-signed in 2006. A sizable chunk of fans had bought into the "we can do better" narrative.
I don't think the disconnect between Kings fan logic on this Mike Brown issue and pretty everyone else in the NBA orbit is because everyone else is clueless, let me put it that way. This might sound like a put-down but I don't intend it that way. Sacramento is a one team market forever in the shadow of some very very big intra-state rivalries which extend beyond sports. The level of hyper-focus, the psychic weight imparted by how well the team is playing at any given moment, and the unique penchant for second, triple, and quadruple guessing which flow out of this fanbase all evince to me a highly irregular fan ecosystem which exists in very few other places that I've encountered. That level of passion can be very uplifting but it does come with a dark side.
There are structural roster problems which have not gone away with this coaching change and will continue to crop up throughout this season if Monte isn't able to make any trade deadline moves. Any way you slice it, 6 games is too small of a sample to draw sweeping conclusions about the next 40 games. As for "heart" and "fight" or whatever other cliches folks want to credit to Coach Christie, it was mostly this same group of players who went 5-1 in OT games last season and 4-1 in OT games the year before that. And I don't think there's any question that the ego-management part of this job got a lot tougher with Fox quite visibly looking toward his next paycheck, Monk looking to solidify his on-court role now that his long-term future is decided, DeRozan bringing in his All-Star / All-NBA pedigree and hoping for a long playoff run to ossify that Hall of Fame resume, and Keegan trying to keep pace with what's expected from a top 5 pick.
Yes there were apparent cracks in the foundation which are not easy to explain away. Why did Mike Brown stop calling quick timeouts? Why did he stop high fiving players on the sideline as they came out of the game? Why did he appear to come down harder on some player mistakes than others? Was there playful pushback from the players toward his "give me just a little bit more" coaching ethos or had that pushback turned in a more sinister direction? I've been telling people for the last 20 years that Doug Christie was my favorite Kings player so I'd love to join in the lovefest being showered upon him right now but I think he's mostly benefitting from the glow-up of being "not that guy". Mike Brown had simply become the most convenient scapegoat for a group which was not winning and had lost their "us against the world" swagger which is typically what has carried this franchise through similar streaks in the past.
Given all of the reasons I listed above for why none of this team's on-the-court leaders would be willing to take on the burden of personal responsibility this time, it was just a perfect storm of a notoriously impatient owner putting the heat on his front office to do something about all of this right now and the financial calamity of this current CBA tying the front office's hands (along with most other franchises) and making it very difficult to accomplish that directive. The real wizard behind the curtain of Mike Brown's firing here is all of the chatter about other teams wanting to swipe Fox away from us if we don't transform into a contender in the next 3 weeks. Which is ironic because those same talking heads who stoked the flames of Fox thievery which got Mike Brown fired now get to clap back at his firing as more evidence that Sacramento is a disaster which Fox needs to escape from ASAP. See how this works?
Balancing all of this out I see two potential silver linings: (1) Getting Devin Carter healthy was a big plus for Doug Christie's rotations -- as the only other defensive wing on this roster besides Keon and Keegan, the rotations never quite made sense in the early part of this season without him. His activity level on defense and on the boards is already paying dividends even if on offense he's quite clearly a rookie and will need time to grow into a balanced NBA level skillset. (2) Regardless of the circumstances which led to Coach Christie taking the reins, his stint on the bench started before Mike Brown was hired so any immediate loss of continuity has been mitigated. And NBA players throughout time immemorial have responded better to coaching which comes from former NBA players, especially when those players were parts of winning teams in the past. The timing couldn't have worked out better with Doug taking over just as defensive glue-guy Devin Carter was ready to join the rotation. Now Doug's reputation as a player and Devin's skillset get to reinforce each other on a team which was absolutely desperate for another long-limbed mobile wing who can help to control the 3pt line.
We'll see what happens when this season ends... If Doug is out and someone from outside the organization comes in looking to impart their own personal coaching philosophies (which of course they would) then I would expect a significant dismantling to follow in the near future. A lot is riding on this current swell developing into a tide and sustaining itself for the next 40+ games.
I don't think the disconnect between Kings fan logic on this Mike Brown issue and pretty everyone else in the NBA orbit is because everyone else is clueless, let me put it that way. This might sound like a put-down but I don't intend it that way. Sacramento is a one team market forever in the shadow of some very very big intra-state rivalries which extend beyond sports. The level of hyper-focus, the psychic weight imparted by how well the team is playing at any given moment, and the unique penchant for second, triple, and quadruple guessing which flow out of this fanbase all evince to me a highly irregular fan ecosystem which exists in very few other places that I've encountered. That level of passion can be very uplifting but it does come with a dark side.
There are structural roster problems which have not gone away with this coaching change and will continue to crop up throughout this season if Monte isn't able to make any trade deadline moves. Any way you slice it, 6 games is too small of a sample to draw sweeping conclusions about the next 40 games. As for "heart" and "fight" or whatever other cliches folks want to credit to Coach Christie, it was mostly this same group of players who went 5-1 in OT games last season and 4-1 in OT games the year before that. And I don't think there's any question that the ego-management part of this job got a lot tougher with Fox quite visibly looking toward his next paycheck, Monk looking to solidify his on-court role now that his long-term future is decided, DeRozan bringing in his All-Star / All-NBA pedigree and hoping for a long playoff run to ossify that Hall of Fame resume, and Keegan trying to keep pace with what's expected from a top 5 pick.
Yes there were apparent cracks in the foundation which are not easy to explain away. Why did Mike Brown stop calling quick timeouts? Why did he stop high fiving players on the sideline as they came out of the game? Why did he appear to come down harder on some player mistakes than others? Was there playful pushback from the players toward his "give me just a little bit more" coaching ethos or had that pushback turned in a more sinister direction? I've been telling people for the last 20 years that Doug Christie was my favorite Kings player so I'd love to join in the lovefest being showered upon him right now but I think he's mostly benefitting from the glow-up of being "not that guy". Mike Brown had simply become the most convenient scapegoat for a group which was not winning and had lost their "us against the world" swagger which is typically what has carried this franchise through similar streaks in the past.
Given all of the reasons I listed above for why none of this team's on-the-court leaders would be willing to take on the burden of personal responsibility this time, it was just a perfect storm of a notoriously impatient owner putting the heat on his front office to do something about all of this right now and the financial calamity of this current CBA tying the front office's hands (along with most other franchises) and making it very difficult to accomplish that directive. The real wizard behind the curtain of Mike Brown's firing here is all of the chatter about other teams wanting to swipe Fox away from us if we don't transform into a contender in the next 3 weeks. Which is ironic because those same talking heads who stoked the flames of Fox thievery which got Mike Brown fired now get to clap back at his firing as more evidence that Sacramento is a disaster which Fox needs to escape from ASAP. See how this works?
Balancing all of this out I see two potential silver linings: (1) Getting Devin Carter healthy was a big plus for Doug Christie's rotations -- as the only other defensive wing on this roster besides Keon and Keegan, the rotations never quite made sense in the early part of this season without him. His activity level on defense and on the boards is already paying dividends even if on offense he's quite clearly a rookie and will need time to grow into a balanced NBA level skillset. (2) Regardless of the circumstances which led to Coach Christie taking the reins, his stint on the bench started before Mike Brown was hired so any immediate loss of continuity has been mitigated. And NBA players throughout time immemorial have responded better to coaching which comes from former NBA players, especially when those players were parts of winning teams in the past. The timing couldn't have worked out better with Doug taking over just as defensive glue-guy Devin Carter was ready to join the rotation. Now Doug's reputation as a player and Devin's skillset get to reinforce each other on a team which was absolutely desperate for another long-limbed mobile wing who can help to control the 3pt line.
We'll see what happens when this season ends... If Doug is out and someone from outside the organization comes in looking to impart their own personal coaching philosophies (which of course they would) then I would expect a significant dismantling to follow in the near future. A lot is riding on this current swell developing into a tide and sustaining itself for the next 40+ games.
I am also one of those people that believes that coaches have input in their rosters and this team is a reflection of what Mike Brown wanted on the court.
