After A Long, Fraught Journey, Mike Brown Finally Wins An NBA Championship
In only his first year as head coach, Mike Brown coached the New York Knicks to their first NBA Finals championship win in 53 years.
Black News 
I’m not even from New York, but even I couldn’t resist cheering for the New York Knicks as they won their first NBA championship in 53 years. This is partly because I was happy to see former Phoenix Suns players Mikal Bridges and Landry Shamet get the ring that eluded them five years ago, and partly because I just love a good underdog story. Yet, I can’t talk about an underdog story without putting some respect on Knicks head coach Mike Brown’s name.
Mike Brown is one of only 10 Black head coaches in the NBA, and only the eighth to win an NBA championship. Brown’s nearly 30-year coaching career has taken him on a long, winding road to this crowning achievement.
Brown’s coaching career started in 1997 with a two-year stint as an assistant coach with the Washington Wizards. In 2000, he was brought on as an assistant coach with the San Antonio Spurs under head coach Gregg Popovich. His first NBA championship came during his tenure with the Spurs in 2003.
After a brief, two-year stint as an assistant coach with the Indiana Pacers, Brown’s first head coaching job came in 2005 with the Cleveland Cavaliers. It was here that Brown would begin his trend of turning around ailing franchises in his first season. Despite having a generational talent in LeBron James, the Cavaliers hadn’t made it to the playoffs in seven years. In his first year as head coach, the Cavaliers won 50 games, made it to the playoffs, and won their first-round series.
His tenure with the Cavs would also begin another unfortunate trend for Brown: abrupt firings. Despite being named coach of the year only the year prior, in 2010, Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert decided to fire Brown only hours before his $4.5 million contract was set to kick in. It was believed the move was made to keep LeBron in Cleveland, but we all know how that turned out.
The following year, Brown would go on to replace Phil Jackson as head coach of the Los Angeles Lakers. Brown only coached the Lakers for one full season. The Lakers started the 2012-2013 season with a 1-4 record, as a result of Brown implementing a new offense, and the team’s aging stars, such as Kobe Bryant and Steve Nash, dealing with injury. Feeling like time was of the essence, given the age of their stars and the deteriorating health of owner Jerry Buss, the Lakers fired Brown only five games into the season.
Brown’s greatest run of success as an assistant coach undoubtedly came during his time with the Golden State Warriors. Brown was an assistant coach for the Warriors from 2016-2022, essentially the entirety of their dynastic run. Brown would take on head coach Steve Kerr’s duties when he was out due to chronic back pain issues, even coaching during key games in the 2017 and 2022 NBA playoffs. Brown won three NBA championships during his tenure with the Warriors. Following the Warriors’ clinching the 2022 NBA championship, Brown left the team to become head coach of the Sacramento Kings.
His first season with the Kings was an undeniable success, with Brown once again turning around the prospects of an ailing franchise. Under Brown’s leadership, the team posted its first winning season in 16 years and ended its 16-year playoff drought, the longest in NBA history. While the Kings ultimately lost in the first round of the playoffs, getting there and taking it to Game 7 was a notable accomplishment in and of itself. The NBA agreed, as Brown became the first coach in NBA history to be named Coach of the Year in a unanimous vote.
Despite somehow doing the impossible and making the Kings actually look like a competent team during his tenure, Brown was fired in 2024, midway through his third year with the team. Adding insult to injury is the fact that Brown was on his way to the team plane for a flight to Los Angeles, despite signing a three-year extension with the team earlier that year.
While being fired on your way to work has to be a low point for any person, the firing revealed just how much love the NBA community has for Mike Brown. Several coaches and players spoke out about how poorly the Kings organization handled Brown’s firing.
“What really pissed me off about it was the fact that they lost [Thursday] night, fifth game in a row, I believe. Tough loss. … They had practiced this morning. He does his postgame media, and he’s in his car going to the airport to fly to L.A., and they call him on the phone,” former Denver Nuggets Coach Mike Malone said at the time. “No class, no balls. That’s what I’ll say about that.”
“We all kind of know, this is the nature of the business,” Kerr said. “It just seems so shocking when a guy’s the unanimous Coach of the Year a year and a half ago, and when you think about where that franchise was before Mike got there … really shocking.”
After firing former head coach Tom Thibodeau last year, the Knicks hired Mike Brown, and once again, he has turned around expectations for a long-suffering franchise in his first year as head coach.
So shoutout to Mike Brown. The road to greatness may have more twists and low points, but no matter what happens from here, Mike Brown is a championship-winning head coach, and no one can ever take that away from him.
SEE ALSO:
New York Knicks Win 1st NBA Championship In 53 Years
New York Knicks Win NBA Cup As Fans Celebrate Like It’s 1973
