Marc Spears - Kings fired Mike Brown because he refused to fire assistant coach?

[KingsFanSince85]

But no one else has been let go, which makes me really doubt this story. I can't imagine they were setting up.. Luke Loucks as the fall guy and then just keeping him on? "Yeah, we were gonna fire you, but decided to fire Brown because he wouldn't fire you. Oh btw, see you on Monday, you still have a job!"

I just know this. If Vivek told Monte McNair to fire Mike Brown, he’d do it or knowingly sacrifice his own job by defying the order.

Same goes for Mike Brown. If he was told by Monte McNair to fire one of his assistants and he defied that order — he should have fully expected the axe to come to him. And if that’s the case, I feel much less sorry for him than when the news first broke.

I personally don’t believe Vivek has been meddling in any of this. I believe whatever happened was between McNair and Brown. Perhaps Brown was given a choice of shaking up his staff and staying or refusing to do so and taking the fall himself. Who really knows for sure besides the names involved.

Like seemingly everyone else, I am highly skeptical of the Spears story as nobody else has lost their gig. So I’m clinging to the notion that McNair just decided it was time for Brown to go and allow an up-and-comer to try their hand at it.

Despite the COTY award in 2022/23, there were plenty of reasons to justify Brown’s firing. For one, this team started slowly in each of Brown’s 3 seasons. And the defense never improved or was consistent to the point that was expected. Except when Keon Ellis was starting games the 2nd half of last season. But then Brown went away from that this season and the team was among the worst at defending the 3 pt line.

More over, I think playing time for certain up-and-coming and developmental players (or the lack of it) also played into McNair’s decision.

 

[megapoxy]

If I had to make a theory myself, I would guess that it makes more sense for "Mike Brown wanted to fire an assistant" and "FO denies and gets him fired" instead of "FO wants to fire an assistant" and "MB denies so gets himself fired".
First because as mentioned above why couldn't FO fire a member of a staff itself and second if MB objected that much to that firing he could resign instead of getting himself fired. But then he wouldn't have the "free pension" for the next 2.5 years to enjoy.
Some months ago a former Kings player that had enough of MB bought out his contract from the Raptors to leave the NBA for good.

 

[megapoxy]

I haven't mentioned this but when I had courtside seats behind the visiting team's basket and every time there was a timeout Brown sort of walked under the basket by himself while whatever was happening happened. Sometimes he rejoined the group, sometimes he stood there by himself or with another coach. It really stood out to me and it was ... weird.

This was clear the current season for the first 10-20" the camera allows us to see what is happening during timeouts (cause afterwards they switch to arena activities or sponsors or whatever), but was it like that the year before and in his first season? Cause he seemed to be "mentoring" non stop at that time, doing things that DC does now, hugging a player, talking to them individually sometimes when they get subbed out or at the start of the timeout, talking to them non stop during the game action, all of those disappeared all of the sudden the current season with him enjoying the hands in the pockets attitude the whole time.

 

[pdxKingsFan]

I personally don’t believe Vivek has been meddling in any of this.

I don't know one way or the other but I'm also inclined to think that it was a group decision between Vivek, Matina and Monte. If Vivek wanted to do it he sought the counsel of the others. If Monte wanted to do it he needed their permission. And I am guessing Matina was only there as COO and possibly review the financials of the matter.

I could have sworn Vivek was at the Detroit game but all reports say he had gone to India before the game. According to the googles it is 6:45p as I type this and 8:15am in India (neat for the DST "compromise" folks that some locales apparently do split the difference, I did not know that) so if the decision was made around 11am PST that means Vivek was up past 1am doing it. We don't know what we don't know but seems if it was all Vivek it actually could have come down overnight so that might lend credence to Monte driving it and needing to get Vivek and Matina to sign off, with Matina probably being the one who slowed things down?

 

[Sluggah]

Gretchen, stop trying to make fetch happen

 

[SacTownKid]

But no one else has been let go, which makes me really doubt this story. I can't imagine they were setting up.. Luke Loucks as the fall guy and then just keeping him on? "Yeah, we were gonna fire you, but decided to fire Brown because he wouldn't fire you. Oh btw, see you on Monday, you still have a job!"

Especially when you consider the hesitation from the Kings to extend Brown in the first place. They were almost forced to through the media, gee, wonder where that push came from? lol.

 

[GWD]

How about this for a theory (if the report has any truth).
>Management was disappointed at the defense.
>Management told Brown to advance Christie to head defense coach. (Recall that Christie was forced on Brown as a condition of employment.)
>Brown refused to demote his preferred asst. coach and replace him with a management coach.
>Brown was fired for cause (insubordination).
>Christie / the FO kept the existing coaching members since Christie would be the major influence as head coach on the defense.

That would explain most of the events and non-events that happened.

 

[pdxKingsFan]

How about this for a theory (if the report has any truth).
>Management was disappointed at the defense.
>Management told Brown to advance Christie to head defense coach. (Recall that Christie was forced on Brown as a condition of employment.)
>Brown refused to demote his preferred asst. coach and replace him with a management coach.
>Brown was fired for cause (insubordination).
>Christie / the FO kept the existing coaching members since Christie would be the major influence as head coach on the defense.

That would explain most of the events and non-events that happened.

I actually buy all of those as highly likely except for insubordination, he was fired for results. If for cause they probably wouldn't pay his contract and that would be fun (and probably end in LOLKANGZ).

 

[ShastaKingsFan]

I actually buy all of those as highly likely except for insubordination, he was fired for results. If for cause they probably wouldn't pay his contract and that would be fun (and probably end in LOLKANGZ).

I don't know of any precedent where they can refuse to pay a head coach, if he didn't agree to fire or demote an assistant coach?

 

[pdxKingsFan]

I don't know of any precedent where they can refuse to pay a head coach, if he didn't agree to fire or demote an assistant coach?

"With cause" usually means you are attempting to invalidate a contract. It is rare that parties invoke this.