The Sacramento Kings have fired head coach Mike Brown the team announced on Friday. Brown, who was named NBA coach of the year with the Kings back in 2022-23, will be replaced by assistant Doug Christie who has been with the organization as a coach since 2021-22.
The Kings are currently riding a 5 game losing streak, and sit outside the playoff picture in the Western Conference at 13-18. The club currently sits 3 games back of even a play-in-tournament spot as the calendar prepares to flip to 2025.
The 54 year old bench boss wraps up his time in Sacramento with a .549 winning percentage, and sports a lifetime 454-304 record across tenures with the Kings, Cavaliers, and Lakers. In his first two seasons, the club won 48 and 46 games respectively, while also ending a 16 year playoff drought in his first season with the franchise.
The Kings management team evidently thought highly of Brown, having signed him to a 3 year extension just this past June. However, after going 0-5 on their recent homestand, and blowing a 19 point lead to the Pistons (whom they lead by 10 points with under 3 minutes left to play), was apparently the final nail in the coffin for Brown’s time out west.
According to reports, Brown ran practice for the team on Friday, and even conducted a media availability afterwards. It was only as the team was preparing to board their plane that news of his firing eventually broke.
The team, who will take on the lakers in a 10:30pm ET Saturday showdown, will have their work cut out for them to claw their way out of the early season hole they’ve dug.
Photo: Keith Allison. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.