{"id":114353,"date":"2024-12-27T17:27:46","date_gmt":"2024-12-27T22:27:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=114353"},"modified":"2024-12-27T17:39:07","modified_gmt":"2024-12-27T22:39:07","slug":"kings-fire-head-coach-mike-brown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/12\/27\/kings-fire-head-coach-mike-brown\/","title":{"rendered":"Kings Part Ways With Two-Time Coach Of The Year"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: left;\">In an effort to avoid a complete collapse, the Sacramento Kings have decided to part ways with head coach Mike Brown, per ESPN senior insider Shams Charania.<\/p>\n<h2>Kings Part Ways With 2023 Coach Of The Year Mike Brown<\/h2>\n<p>A two-time Coach of the Year, Brown was riding on a high after ending the team\u2019s 17-year playoff drought in 2023. Even after the Kings\u2019 tendency to play down to their competition led to them missing the 2024 NBA Playoffs, Sacramento signed him to <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/06\/01\/kings-head-coach-agree-to-three-year-extension-mike-brown\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">a three-year contract extension<\/a>. However, the Kings are <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/12\/23\/the-kings-are-failing-to-light-the-beam-far-too-often\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">now on a path<\/a> that would see them missing the playoffs for the second straight season.<\/p>\n<p>There are myriad factors that have contributed to Sacramento\u2019s underwhelming play, such as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/f\/foxde01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">De\u2019Aaron Fox<\/a>\u2019s decision-making and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/m\/murrake02.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Keegan Murray<\/a>\u2019s decline. Nonetheless, Brown is the one that has to fall on the sword. Fox is an All-NBA-caliber player. Murray\u2019s in just his third season.<\/p>\n<p>Fox\u2019s recent comments only made it more likely the front office <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/12\/23\/heat-headline-kings-deaaron-fox-trade-fits\/\" target=\"_self\">would make a drastic change<\/a> soon.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Kings fire Mike Brown in the midst of a five-game losing streak, 12 of last 17, and have lost an NBA-high 13 clutch time games this season. Brown won Coach of the Year in 2022-23 when he led the Kings to the postseason, snapping a U.S. sports-record 17-year playoff drought. <a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/xAgdCYU16F\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/t.co\/xAgdCYU16F<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ShamsCharania\/status\/1872760447251956028?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">December 27, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>If there\u2019s one issue that falls solely on Brown though, it\u2019s his treatment of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/e\/elliske01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Keon Ellis<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h3>The Keon Ellis Question<\/h3>\n<p>Despite Sacramento\u2019s perimeter defense arguably being their biggest weakness, Ellis has been demoted multiple times.<\/p>\n<p>First he was a starter, then he was moved to the second unit. Soon enough he was struggling to even get off the bench. In the first four games of December, he average 13.4 minutes. In his last four contests, he\u2019s averaging 13.4 minutes per game. With the 24-year-old shooting 40.7 percent from three, his utilization is even more questionable.<\/p>\n<p>That being said, it\u2019s hard to believe the Kings fired Brown for not playing Ellis. More problematic than that is the possibility that his team has tuned him out, as evidenced by them <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/12\/27\/kings-rookie-devin-carter-cleared-nba-debut-imminent\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">ignoring his instructions<\/a> during their loss to the Detroit Pistons. Perhaps Sacramento just needs a a new voice in the locker room. If so, the truth will be revealed soon enough.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Doug Christie is expected to be the Sacramento Kings\u2019 interim head coach, sources tell ESPN. Christie has been an assistant with the Kings since 2021-22 and played in Sacramento for five of his 15 NBA seasons. <a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/FukvFNTHRN\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/FukvFNTHRN<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ShamsCharania\/status\/1872772208684413389?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">December 27, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Per Charania, assistant <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/c\/chrisdo01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Doug Christie<\/a> will be the team\u2019s interim head coach. The 15-year NBA veteran was four-time All-Defensive team selection in his playing days.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In an effort to avoid a complete collapse, the Sacramento Kings have decided to part ways with head coach Mike Brown, per ESPN senior insider Shams Charania. Kings Part Ways With 2023 Coach Of The Year Mike Brown A two-time Coach of the Year, Brown was riding on a high after ending the team\u2019s 17-year [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5008,"featured_media":114360,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[29,1608,62,3],"tags":[664,4624,3717],"class_list":["post-114353","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-kings","category-basketball","category-nba","category-news","tag-deaaron-fox","tag-keon-ellis","tag-mike-brown"],"modified_by":"Quenton S Albertie","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114353","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5008"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=114353"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114353\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":114365,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114353\/revisions\/114365"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/114360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=114353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=114353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=114353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}