Fortunately, the Sacramento Kings were able to figure out contract extension talks with Mike Brown early in the offseason, agreeing on a deal that will make him one of the highest paid coaches in the NBA.
But how good of a gig did Brown just agree to continue through the 2026-27 season? Obviously, by nature, coaching basketball for millions of dollars is an awesome job. But how good is the Kings' head coaching position relative to the other 29 spots in the NBA?
My good buddy Sam Quinn (a great Twitter follow) just did a piece at CBS where he tackled this very question. In that article, he ranked the Kings as the 19th most desirable head coaching position in the NBA. Here is an excerpt from the section he wrote on them:
""Few teams have been as volatile from a coaching perspective as the Kings. Vivek Ranadive bought the team in 2013 and has employed six full-time coaches since. Some deserved to be fired. But Michael Malone lost his job because of a losing streak that came when DeMarcus Cousins had viral meningitis, and Dave Joerger lost his job despite posting the best season the Kings had seen in over a decade. Couple those firings with the tense extension negotiations between the Kings and Mike Brown and, well, it certainly seems as though Ranadive considers coaches to be somewhat disposable.""Sam Quinn, CBS
Quinn went on to say that, outside of the team's history of not being polite to head coaches, the job was otherwise relatively promising, citing the strong foundation provided by De'Aaron Fox and Domantas Sabonis as the main reason why. However, he did also mention that the ceiling of a team headlined by those two players is a tad bit limited.
Quinn called the Kings job more desirable than that of the Phoenix Suns, Brooklyn Nets, Los Angeles Clippers, and Los Angeles Lakers. Meanwhile, he ranked the position behind teams like the Milwaukee Bucks, Houston Rockets, Utah Jazz, and Golden State Warriors. The Bucks one is especially interesting considering they just fired their coach in the middle of the season (a season where he went 30-13).
While I will quibble with a spot or two (I really think you'd prefer to coach the Kings over the Bucks at this point), for the most part, I agree with Quinn.
Unless the Kings have a damn near perfect offseason, get some significant improvement from Keegan Murray, and have Fox/Sabonis level up from borderline All-Stars to top 15 players, I have a hard time seeing Sacramento graduate into serious contender status.
And while fans may be happy to just have a consistent playoff contender right now, that smell will eventually grow old. When it does, look for Brown, or whoever is captaining the ship at the time, to start feeling the wrath of the fanbase.