The New York Knicks All-Star big man dishes on the veteran head coach in the latest episode of Network with Rich Kleiman.
As fresh faces continue to climb the head coaching ranks in the NBA, Mike Brown stands as one of the veterans of the group. He first got his feet wet with a few assistant gigs, including a stint learning under Gregg Popovich from 2000 to 2003 in San Antonio, before going on to hold head coaching positions with the Cleveland Cavaliers (twice), the Los Angeles Lakers, and the Sacramento Kings. In between, he spent six seasons with Steve Kerr at Golden State, playing a pivotal role in the team winning three titles in that span.
In Sacramento, Brown helped turn around a Kings franchise that hadn’t won 40 games since 2005 by going 48-34 in the 2022-23 season, going on to win the NBA Coach of the Year Award for the second time in his career (the first coming with LeBron James and the Cavaliers in 2009). Despite winning 40-plus games the following two seasons, the Kings decided to move on from Brown.
But he wasn’t done coaching.
After the New York Knicks pulled off their own surprising move by moving in a different direction from their veteran head coach, Tom Thibodeau, Brown saw an opportunity to lead one of the league’s most storied franchises. Having coached the likes of LeBron, Kobe Bryant, Stephen Curry, and more, his experience and pedigree won over team owner James Dolan and president Leon Rose, leading to the team bringing in Brown as the organization’s 32nd head coach.
Whether or not Brown is the man to push the Knicks over the hump and into the NBA Finals remains to be seen, but for All-Star big man Karl-Anthony Towns, he wasn’t even concerned with basketball when he first got working with his new head coach.
“First thing I told him was, ‘We don’t got to talk no hoops. I just want to get to know you, your family, what’s some things that you feel that in the summer you like to do most?’ Towns said on the latest episode of Network with Rich Kleiman. “And kind of just meet him there. Understand each other as people, and we’ll have a bunch of time to get to basketball, so let’s start off with a good foundation.”
Be sure to catch the full conversation between Towns and Kleiman at Boardroom’s YouTube channel here, as well as on Yahoo Sports’ podcast pages on Apple and Spotify.
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