The Kings’ Gambit: What the Kings are risking by extending Mike Brown

According to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, Mike Brown and the Sacramento Kings have finally come to terms on a big-money extension. After signing a four-year contract with the Kings ahead of the 2022-23 season, Brown was entering the final year of his deal with guaranteed money, the final year is a mutual option, and reports suggested Brown, the 2022-23 Coach of the Year, was seeking a contract with an average annual salary at or above $10 million per season. 

However, the Kings originally balked at such an asking price, tabling extension talks before coming to a compromise that evidently pleased both sides. Brown received two additional years, taking him through the 2026-27 season, and $21 million in new money, but the Kings will only have to pay him $8.5 million per season, below Brown’s asking price of $10 million. To get Brown to drop his per-season asking price, the Kings boosted his 2024-25 salary by $4 million to $8.5 million. 

The deal functionally acts as a two-year $10.5 million per year extension, which Brown was asking for, but spreads the new money over three years. The Kings get to save money down the line, while Brown locks in a higher annual salary more quickly. Brown was surely looking for a longer commitment, but if he continues to prove his value to the Kings, he’ll get to hit the market sooner and take advantage of the rapidly improving head coach marketplace. 

The fast-changing NBA head coach marketplace

$10 million per season used to be unthinkable for a head coach, but a flurry of new deals has completely changed the market for top-tier candidates. Monty Williams opened the floodgates in the summer of 2023 when he accepted a contract with an average annual salary of $13.1 million with the Detroit Pistons. Greg Popovich soon followed when the San Antonio Spurs handed him a deal that averages $16 million per season, then Erik Spoelstra landed a $15 million annual salary from the Miami Heat, Steve Kerr extended his contract with the Golden State Warriors at $17.5 million per year, Mike Bundeholzer secured $10 million from the Phoenix Suns, and, Ty Lue landed a five-year extension with the Los Angeles Clippers that averages nearly $14 million per season. 

And these are merely the reported deals. Michael Malone agreed to an extension in November of 2023 with the Denver Nuggets making him one of the highest-paid head coaches in the league. Rick Carlisle also agreed to an extension at the beginning of last season but details remain scant. For top-tier NBA head coaches, the new salary floor is $10 million per season, and each and every extension has reinforced this new reality. 

The Kings’ desire to play hardball with Brown is an interesting choice. Yes, they locked up their head coach for two additional seasons at a slightly below-market-rate deal, but that also means they’re going to have to go back to the negotiation table sooner. With where the head coaching market is headed, the Kings’ desire to save some money in the short term will cost them if they want to retain Brown past 2026-27. 

The way negotiations played out suggests the Kings aren’t nearly as impressed with Brown as they should be. If they truly believed he was a top-tier head coach, they would have ponied up the money now to lock him into a long-term deal. Instead, they decided to kick the can down the road with a contract that won’t anger Brown, but also won’t leave him feeling like he’s a franchise building block. It’s not the first time Brown hasn’t been treated with the respect he deserves, and it could cost the Kings more than just money. 

Mike Brown gets no respect

In Mike Brown’s maiden season with the Sacramento Kings, he led the franchise back to the playoffs for the first time since 2006-07, breaking an NBA record 16-season playoff drought, and followed it up with another winning season, producing the franchise’s first back-to-back winning seasons since 2004-05 and 2005-06. Those achievements alone should have been enough for the Kings to lock Brown up for the foreseeable future. What was once the laughingstock of the NBA, has become a solid playoff-caliber team under Brown’s watch, but even that doesn’t do him justice.

Brown’s resume outside of Sacramento is unheralded but remains incredibly impressive. He started as an assistant with the Washington Wizards in the late 90s before joining the San Antonio Spurs coaching staff under Greg Popovich and was a member of their 2003 title run. He then worked under Rick Carlise in Indiana, where he was a part of their franchise record 61-win campaign. His success as an assistant led to him landing the Cleveland Cavaliers job in 2005-06.

Over two stints as the head coach of the Cavaliers, he had a 492-305 record (.620 win percentage), two 60-win seasons, and a Finals appearance, winning Coach of the Year in 2008-09. He then coached the Los Angeles Lakers for 71 games, going 42-29 before being fired in favor of Mike D’Antoni. 

His final stop before joining the Kings was as the lead assistant to Steve Kerr for the Golden State Warriors where he won three titles. Over the course of his career, he has won four titles as an assistant, made the Finals as a head coach, won 60.7 percent of his games, been named Coach of the Year twice, and coached under three of the most respected head coaches in the league. 

On resume alone, Mike Brown is as deserving as any coach to be a franchise pillar. Yet, the Kings seem to think he’s a tier below that level, with Marc Stein reporting the Kings' lack of playoff success was a significant stumbling block in negotiations. While the Kings eventually decided to keep the situation civil, their initial pause and eventual extension suggests this may be a marriage of convenience. This raises the question, is Mike Brown just an expensive placeholder?

Have the Kings actually come up short under Mike Brown?

The Kings’ concern over Brown’s playoff disappointments has the tinge of a red herring. First, the Kings have only made the playoffs once over the past 18 seasons and were ousted in a dramatic seven-game series against the defending champion Golden State Warriors. If that counts as a disappointment, then you’re setting yourself up for disappointment. 

The next is that the Kings’ 2022-23 season, where they broke their playoff drought and secured the third seed in the Western Conference, was a mirage. The Kings record of 48-34 (.585 win percentage) was an 18-win improvement from the previous season, but it wouldn’t have earned a team the three seed in the Western Conference in any other season between 1986-87 and today. On top of being a historically weak three-seed, the Kings enjoyed incredible health and were magnificent in clutch situations (league-best 128.6 offensive rating and plus-10 net rating). The Kings were clearly a playoff-quality team, but they were far from a lock to win a series. 

Health and clutch performance are notoriously fickle year-to-year, and a confluence of great breaks powered the Kings to 48 wins, but expecting that to continue would have been foolish. In all sports, teams that make a massive leap in one season, usually don’t follow it up with another step forward, and that becomes even more likely if they’re incredibly clutch and healthy. The fact that the Kings only slipped to 46 wins in their follow-up season is a testament to the stability Brown has brought to the franchise. 

Unfortunately, 46 wins in 2023-24, which still would have earned the Kings the three seed in 2022-23, was only enough to tie for the ninth-best record in the Western Conference and a showdown in the play-in against the Golden State Warriors. The Kings would avenge their first-round loss to the Warriors, winning 118-94, before losing to the New Orleans Pelicans 98-105 in the final Play-In game, who they struggled with all season. 

On a superficial level, the Kings had a disappointing season, but only a modicum of analysis shows they largely held serve, which is impressive in its own right. They retained largely the same roster and were just about as good as they were the season before even as the competition improved and their health and clutchness regressed to the mean. However, coaches need to be held accountable for what happens on the court, and the Kings did see sizable changes under Brown in year two. 

The Kings’ growing pains

The league’s best offense powered the Kings’ breakout season in 2022-23. Their offensive rating of 119.4 was the best in league history (until it was blown by this season), and it made up for the 25th-ranked defense. The offense-over-defense approach worked to a net rating of plus-2.6, the third-best in the Western Conference, but it made it unlikely the Kings would ever go on a deep playoff run. For the Kings to take the next step, they needed to improve their defense, and while they did, they couldn’t maintain their offensive excellence. 

The Kings’ offensive decline

There are rumors that the Kings’ drop from the league’s best offense at 119.4 points per 100 possessions to 13th and 116.9 points per 100 possessions was one of their main concerns over handing Mike Brown a massive contract extension. It’s an understandable gripe, considering the roster stayed largely the same, but it ignores significant context. 

A primary driver of the Kings’ league-best offense was the success of their handoff-oriented offense and how it got the best out of both De’Aaron Fox and Domantas Sabonis. In 2022-23, the Kings achieved an impressive feat by leading the league in handoff frequency (9.1 percent) and effective field goal percentage (57.2 percent), according to NBA.com tracking statistics. Brown’s decision to utilize a novel offensive playtype (league-wide, handoffs are used on around five percent of possessions) not only got the best out of his two most talented players but also made them incredibly difficult to gameplan for. 

The NBA season is a grind and practice time is limited. With so many offenses built around the pick-and-roll, teams simply don’t afford the time to design coherent game plans to counter handoffs. The benefit of the Kings’ novelty act was the league’s best offense, but it was unlikely to hold as teams got more reps against it, and it didn’t. 

In 2023-24, the Kings again led the league in handoff frequency (10.2 percent) but saw their efficiency drop to an effective field goal percentage of 52.4 percent. The drop from 1.07 points per possession to 1.00 appears minuscule, but over 100 possessions that’s a loss of seven points, which was the difference between the Celtics’ league-leading offensive efficiency of 123.2 and the 13th-ranked Kings at 116.9. 

With the degradation of the Kings’ pet action, the offensive impact of their two best players was muted. Both Sabonis and Fox saw their effective field goal percentage decline, despite Fox having the best 3-point shooting season of his career. The impact was most noticeable within the arc, where Sabonis went from shooting 63.9 percent on 2-pointers to 61.3 percent and Fox went from a career-best 58.4 percent to 52.2 percent. The smoking gun of their decline was their inability to get to the rim and finish like they had the season before. 

Layups remain the best shot in basketball. The massive increase in 3-point shooting over the past decade is as much about the additional point those shots provide as it is about how they increase a team’s ability to get to the rim through spacing. The 2022-23 Kings were one of the best teams in the league at converting shots from zero to three feet from the basket. While only 24.3 percent of their shots came three feet or closer to the rim, ranking 18th, they converted 74.1 percent of those shots, which ranked third. However, in 2023-24, they saw their percentage of shots in that region drop to 20.6 percent (27th), and their efficiency drop to 71.5 percent (12th), and Sabonas and Fox bore the brunt of that decline. 

The drop in volume and efficiency saw Sabonis go from averaging 8.8 points per game on shots 0-3 feet from the basket on 11.9 total field goal attempts per game to 8.5 points per game on 13 field goal attempts, and Fox went from 5.0 points per game on 18.2 total field goal attempts per game to 4.0 points per game on 20.9 field goal attempts. In total, the Kings lost 1.3 points per game from Sabonis and Fox on those shots despite them taking 3.8 more shots per game. The knock-on effect of the Kings having difficulty getting to the rim was a decrease in free throw attempts, going from a .284 free throw attempt rate to .229, and a drop of 2.5 percent in 2-point field goal efficiency. 

While it’s easy enough to diagnose the Kings’ offensive decline, assessing blame is far more difficult. Should Mike Brown have drifted away from their handoff-heavy attack as teams became more adept at defending it, or were his hands tied? De’Aaron Fox is a solid scorer in the pick-and-roll and isolations but is hardly elite. And Domantas Sabonis isn’t a lob threat, even if he posted a solid 64th percentile point per possession figure as a roll man. 

The Kings finished 28th in both pick-and-roll ball handler (13.8 percent) and roll man (4.7 percent) frequency, but were sixth in roll man points per possession (1.23) and 13th in ball handler points per possession (0.92) in 2023-24. In all likelihood, the Kings' scoring efficiency would have declined in the pick-and-roll if they ramped up their frequency, but it’s a valid criticism to say they should have leaned into the play more to generate baskets and potentially improve their handoff actions. 

The offensive downturn the Kings suffered was more pronounced than expected, but expecting Fox and Sabonis to continue to score at such efficiency was wishful thinking. Career years are a real thing, and it’s quite possible the Kings benefitted from career years from their two best players in 2022-23. Mike Brown can tinker with lineups and playtypes all he wants, the Kings’ offense will only be as good as Fox and Sabonis, and they were just a tad worse in 2023-24. 

The Kings’ defensive improvements under Mike Brown

While the Kings’ offense declined in year two of the Mike Brown era, their defense did see sizable improvement. In 2022-23, their defense was 2.0 points per 100 possessions worse than the league average, but in 2023-24 they improved to 0.1 points per 100 possessions better. Relative to the league average, the Kings’ defense improved by 2.1 points with largely the same roster that finished in the bottom third. 

What spurred their improvement was their ability to limit shots around the rim (0-3 feet) and defensive rebounding. They went from allowing 23.8 percent of opponent field goals zero to three feet from the basket to 21.1 percent and went from seventh in defensive rebound rate at 77.2 percent to first at 78.4 percent. By limiting opponent shot quality and cleaning up the glass, the Kings overcame an opponent free throw to field goal attempt rate that jumped from .203 (10th) to .213 (25th). 

Mike Brown was always known as a defensive coach, and the Kings’ improvements on defense were impressive, especially considering the lack of defensive talent on the roster. As he did with the offense in his first season, he doubled down on his team’s strengths, and in the aggregate, it made them a stronger unit. Unfortunately, the Kings’ improved defense might have come at the cost of their offense. 

On March 12, 2024, Mike Brown made a dramatic change. Until then, the Kings had an offensive rating of 117.4 and a defensive rating of 117.1. While an offensive rating of 117.4 wasn’t nearly the level they were at the season before, it would have been tied for 11th over the whole season. However, their 117.1 defensive rating would have seen them finish 22nd. Regardless of their offensive and defensive standing, the Kings needed to improve, and the solution to their defensive woes was inserting the little-known Keon Ellis into the starting lineup. 

From March 12th on, a total of 19 games, Ellis started all but two games, and the Kings closed the season with a 108.4 defensive rating. However, their offensive rating dropped to 115.3 over that span. While seeing their offense sink further was undoubtedly a disappointment, going from a plus-0.3 net rating to plus-6.9 made the trade-off well worth it. At the end of a game, it doesn’t matter how you outscore your opponent, it just matters if you do. 

The Kings’ gambit

The Sacramento Kings are taking a risk by only extending Mike Brown for two additional seasons. The franchise was the butt of jokes for close to two decades and decided to play hardball with the first coach to bring them a modicum of respectability. If the Kings’ brain trust came into the 2023-24 season expecting their team to continue to break offensive efficiency records, that was a significant error in judgment. 

They were a team with considerable regression markers, and when they hit, as should have been expected, the result was only a drop of two losses. If the West had remained as weak as it had been in 2022-23, the Kings would have been the three-seed, but the rest of the league improved, while the Kings stayed pat. Stability isn’t sexy, but it’s the marker of excellent leadership. 

Mike Brown might not be at the level of Erik Spoelstra or Ty Lue, but he has had incredible success with an imperfect roster. De’Aaron Fox is excellent, but he’s arguably not even a top-10 point guard (he ranked 13th in BPM among players listed as point guards, and that doesn’t include Ja Morant due to injury and Kyrie Irving and Donovan Mitchell are listed as shooting guards). And while Domantas Sabonis is a sensational offensive hub for a center, he has no outside shot and is a poor overall defender, dramatically limiting his schematic versatility. 

The Kings simply don’t have the requisite talent to realistically make it to the second round of the Western Conference playoffs every season, and no coach can change that. What great coaches do is squeeze every last ounce of defensive ability out of their roster and tailor the offense to their stars’ unique skill sets, and that’s exactly what Mike Brown has done. 

Brown has proven his worth to the Kings and their decision to intentionally create a situation where he will seek a new extension in two seasons is the type of thanks you offer to an interim head coach. While the Kings ultimately made the right decision keeping Brown in the fold, the extension they handed him suggests they’re open to moving on. 

It’s difficult for markets like Sacramento to attract top-tier head coaches, and Mike Brown has demonstrated he belongs in that conversation. He could have been locked up for the next five seasons, but instead, he’ll be asking the Kings for another top-of-the-market extension in a couple of summers. The Kings opted for a short-sighted short-term extension that sets up Brown to make even more money down the line. 

With each passing season, the baseline compensation for NBA head coaches continues to rise. While Brown doesn’t have a championship ring as a head coach to flash in negotiations, he has one of the best resumes of any non-champion head coach. Spending $10 million to keep Brown in 2025-26 might feel expensive today, but come 2027-28, it’ll be a bargain for a coach of his quality. 

The Kings were a mess for two decades for a reason, and the way Mike Brown’s extension played out suggests they haven’t learned a thing. Relationships matter. Continuity matters. Reading the market matters. And the Kings decided to play hardball with Brown because they’re either cheap or unconvinced of his acumen. Both would be mistakes. The best-case scenario is it only costs them a ton of money on his next deal, and the worst-case scenario is the fuses have already been ignited and they’re flickering towards the bridge. 

The Kings should desperately want to be in the Mike Brown business for as long as possible, but they’ve made it abundantly clear that they’d rather keep their options open. To that, I’d say, “What options?”