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<\/p>\nThe New York Knicks aren\u2019t exactly a burning house, but Mike Brown is the coach you hire when you need an extinguisher.<\/p>\n
Having coached LeBron James and Kobe Bryant and been on Steve Kerr\u2019s staff in Golden State, he\u2019s been around the torchbearers and doesn\u2019t seem to buckle under the lights. Brown changed the culture in Cleveland his first time around and in Sacramento more recently, learning from Kerr about loosening up a bit. He even joked he carried around pen and paper when Kerr delivered his messages to the Warriors team because they were simple yet effective.<\/p>\n
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He doesn\u2019t have a checkered track record, being a two-time NBA Coach of the Year, but after his initial stint in Cleveland from 2005-10, he hasn\u2019t lasted long in his next few situations. That could all just be a product of weirdness from front offices and ownership groups \u2014 coaching the Lakers for one season and five games of the next one before being shockingly fired in 2012, going back to Cleveland in 2013-14 for a 33-49 season \u2014 the year before LeBron James returned to Ohio \u2014 and then two-and-a-half seasons in Sacramento.<\/p>\n
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All eyes will be on Mike Brown in New York. (Photo by Lachlan Cunningham\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n
(Lachlan Cunningham via Getty Images)<\/p>\n
It seemed like organizationally the Kings were out on Brown even after two successful seasons of 48 and 46 wins, and being fired after a 13-18 start this season was the Kings being the Kings.<\/p>\n
But managing up is a key component when having a job like this. Not just because Knicks president of basketball operations Leon Rose hasn\u2019t held a news conference in years, meaning Brown will have to be the spokesperson for everything Knicks while he\u2019s there, but Rose and senior adviser William \u201cWorldwide Wes\u201d Wesley are comfortable with him dating back to Brown\u2019s days in Cleveland.<\/p>\n
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Yet Brown will also have to manage the relationship with owner Knicks James Dolan. Dolan was never a Tom Thibodeau fan, sources told Yahoo Sports, and was the key component behind Thibodeau\u2019s dismissal \u2014 even after the Knicks\u2019 run to the Eastern Conference finals for the first time in 25 years.<\/p>\n
Dolan was drawn to Brown\u2019s success as a head coach, relative to other candidates like Timberwolves assistant Micah Nori, former Memphis coach Taylor Jenkins and former Charlotte coach James Borrego.<\/p>\n
Whether it\u2019s ingratiating himself with Dolan or knowing what he wants, that\u2019s the extra element of this job, beyond the challenges of New York and the franchise itself, and the belief the conference is wide open due to all the catastrophic injuries to the top teams.<\/p>\n
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The first time the Knicks go on some three-game losing streak, the crowing will begin about Mark Jackson or Michael Malone or Jeff Van Gundy, or even the coaches the Knicks didn\u2019t receive permission to talk to, like Jason Kidd.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not an easy job, but it\u2019s rife with opportunity, if he can navigate the tricky waters beginning with Dolan. Rose doesn\u2019t seem like the type to have a short fuse, so there will be time to massage that relationship, especially as the Knicks operate around the fringes of the roster.<\/p>\n
Thibodeau famously didn\u2019t play his bench, but there were only so many good options there. Perhaps he would\u2019ve played Jordan Clarkson if he were on the Knicks roster this past season, along with Guerschon Yabusele \u2014 two additions in recent days. Clarkson battled plantar fasciitis last season, limiting him to just 37 games, and he\u2019s a classic gunner off the bench. Yabusele was solid in his first full season of meaningful run with the 76ers at age 29, so he\u2019ll add frontline depth behind the oft-injured Mitchell Robinson and Karl-Anthony Towns.<\/p>\n
Maximizing the Towns-Jalen Brunson combination \u2014 which failed in the conference finals against the Indiana Pacers \u2014 should be high on Brown\u2019s docket. When the two are on offensively, the Knicks can overwhelm opponents because Brunson is relentless and Towns is a matchup problem.<\/p>\n
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Defensively, though, that\u2019s a critical problem. Not only is it difficult for a team\u2019s two best players to be defensive sieves, but the issues are at the rim and the point of attack, which means neither can hide.<\/p>\n
For all of Thibodeau\u2019s defensive wizardry, that was something not even he could solve, and the Knicks could only elevate to a middle-of-the-pack defensive team.<\/p>\n
Managing the players comes with its own elements, because it\u2019s the NBA. Brunson was a Thibs loyalist, but rocking the boat isn\u2019t something he\u2019s been known for. Mikal Bridges came forward with complaints about the starters playing too many minutes during the regular season \u2014 an obvious issue to anyone with working vision \u2014 but it feels like Brown will come into the year with a clean slate, and he didn’t have a reputation for overworking his players with the Kings.<\/p>\n
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Perhaps Brown was stubborn and inflexible, which was the word out of Sacramento when he was fired last season \u2014 and that was the same tune everyone sang about Thibodeau during his entire coaching tenure.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a challenge as much as it is an opportunity for Brown, with land mines and unreasonable expectations all around \u2014 but it all starts with Dolan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The New York Knicks aren\u2019t exactly a burning house, but Mike Brown is the coach you hire when…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":34378,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[12775,5229,2625,24109,13593,28462,22724,1267,28456,24846,24115,28459,28457,8604,3363,6540,28460,7195,24282,28461,405,403,3122,5226,5225,5228,5227,22875,18767,28458,6273,6541,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-34377","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-76ers","9":"tag-america","10":"tag-brown","11":"tag-brunson","12":"tag-cleveland","13":"tag-golden-state","14":"tag-guerschon-yabusele","15":"tag-indiana-pacers","16":"tag-james-dolan","17":"tag-jordan-clarkson","18":"tag-karl-anthony-towns","19":"tag-kobe-bryant","20":"tag-lachlan-cunningham","21":"tag-lakers","22":"tag-lebron-james","23":"tag-leon-rose","24":"tag-mark-jackson","25":"tag-mikal-bridges","26":"tag-mike-brown","27":"tag-mitchell-robinson","28":"tag-new-york","29":"tag-new-york-city","30":"tag-new-york-knicks","31":"tag-newyork","32":"tag-newyorkcity","33":"tag-ny","34":"tag-nyc","35":"tag-sacramento","36":"tag-steve-kerr","37":"tag-the-knicks","38":"tag-timberwolves","39":"tag-tom-thibodeau","40":"tag-united-states","41":"tag-united-states-of-america","42":"tag-unitedstates","43":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","44":"tag-us","45":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34377"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34377\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}