I get the sarcasm but I think most people are wanting a coach who wasn't handed wins the easy way. A guy like McMillan who shows up and almost always makes the team better the minute he gets there would be an easy read for most people since his success in improving teams is very obvious.
Brown is a big question mark to many. Basically every coach has won with Lebron so it's difficult to judge what he did in Cleveland. The Lakers had a significant downtick in performance the year he took over but they also didn't have Odom that year. Either way, they won 16 less games with the same amount of losses as the previous year under Jackson so Odom doesn't account for 16 extra wins. Not the best look there.
The Warriors have consistently been one of the better defensive teams with Brown as an assistant but they also have the Lebron James of defense on that squad as well. Hard to tell but the Warriors players seem to go a bit above and beyond the call of duty when it comes to complimenting his coaching style so there has to be something there.
Lots of question marks with him but they certainly could have done worse.
I've been stumping for Nate McMillan as the next coach of the Kings for at least 10 years but he's already got a gig. We can only hire a coach who is currently available. My preference was to go with one of the top assistants, but there's just as much uncertainty there. Mike Brown is himself a top assistant, he just also happens to have been a head coach before
and he was good at it.
He wasn't handed an already good Cavs team, they had just gone 42-40 the year before and LeBron was only 21 years old. Many top prospects have floundered trying to translate their individual brilliance into team success early in their career. The only reason Mike Brown was fired from that job is that he helped get them to the Finals in his second year and then couldn't get them back. As Kings fans we should already understand how unrealistic expectations from ownership can sink a coaching staff.
Also, coaching Kobe's Lakers for one season after Phil Jackson retired is hardly indicative of anything. Kobe probably hand-picked him because of his reputation as a hard-nosed defensive guy and then undermined him every step of the way. The following season they added Steve Nash and swapped Andrew Bynum for Dwight Howard in his prime and somehow got even worse (Brown was fired after just 5 games).
I think if you look at who is available
right now, you can make a strong argument that Mike Brown was the best NBA head coach available. It's possible one of the top assistants will ultimately be better but we don't know that right now and they could just as easily be worse. Even a lot worse.