Mike Brown has shifted into three different roles this week: Warriors assistant coach, head coach of the Sacramento Kings and acting head coach of the Warriors.
It wasn’t pretty, but Brown coached Golden State to a 101-98 win over the Memphis Grizzlies on Monday to take a three-games-to-one lead in the Western Conference semifinals while Steve Kerr is out with COVID-19. They will now look to close out the series in Memphis on Wednesday and advance to the conference finals.
And while Golden State is focused on the now and not thinking about anything else other than getting to their sixth NBA Finals in eight seasons, one thing is certain about the Warriors’ offseason.
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When the Warriors’ season ends, whenever that may be, Brown will be gone. And Warriors general manager Bob Myers knows the team will miss him.
“Yeah, he’s fantastic,” Myers said on 95.7 The Game’s “The Morning Roast." “He’s got equity on our team, too. You can't just do that on day one with guy, you have to earn that, you have to get to know them. And Mike’s really good at that. He’s got a great way of communicating. He’s got really good leadership skills and those people are hard to replace. He’s got a ton of experience in the NBA as head coach, assistant coach, I mean he’s coached LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, coached in the Finals, that’s a hard thing to replace so we will miss him.”
Kings general manager Monte McNair named Brown the team’s new head coach on Monday.
He spent six seasons as an assistant coach with Golden State, helping guide the team to back-to-back championships in 2017 and 2018.
Golden State Warriors
His leadership and mentorship will be missed in the Bay.
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“We’ll miss his acumen, we’ll miss his personality,” Myers said. “It’s not easy to walk in there as an assistant. People joke the hardest moving sports is those 12 inches from assistant coach to head coach. It’s true, especially when you have no time to prepare for him. Mike didn’t show up that night with any inclination that he was going to be coaching the team.”
But he did, managed to pull out a win and is ready to do it all again on Wednesday in Memphis, and then hopefully in his new role next season with the Kings to help them turn things around in Sactown.