When it comes to being a head coach in the NBA, the phrase "what have you done for me lately" certainly seems to apply. Successes are quickly forgotten while failures pile up.
Just ask Tom Thibodeau who was fired by the Knicks after coaching them to their first Eastern Conference Finals in 25 years. Or Michael Malone who the Nuggets kicked to the curb two years after he led them to the franchise's first NBA Championship.
The Sacramento Kings are guilty of a similar mistake when it came to Mike Brown. After getting the Kings to their first playoff appearance in 17 years, he was turfed less than two seasons later. It's an error the Kings will keep paying for.
The cost of firing Mike Brown
Mike's tenure as head coach in Sacramento was incredibly short. He only lasted two seasons plus 31 games of a third season.
The problems he faced were huge. He was handed an off-balance roster that needed a ton of work and told to win with it immediately. The fact that he turned that roster into winner in one season earned him Coach of the Year honors. But there was still plenty of work to do.
It takes time for a head coach to build a stable, long-term winning team. The Kings' front office was too impatient and let him go too early. Not only did this cost them a head coach, it cost them a star player as De'Aaron Fox left specifically because of Brown's firing.
To borrow a term from baseball, those were two unforced errors.
The Kings are their own worst enemy
Fox is now playing with the Spurs and Brown is the head coach of the Knicks. The Kings setup two of their greatest assets to be picked up by their opponents.
This will be the first full season without Fox and Brown since everything went down in 2024-2025. It's hard not to get the sense that the Kings have kind of set themselves up for failure. Recovering from the losses of Fox and Brown is going to take time.
The problem is that the Kings' front office have already proven to not be particularly patient as well as incapable of building a strong contender. For their current head coach, Doug Christie, it's unlikely he will get the tools or the time to succeed.