Bad Franchise, Man.

Another O.A.B.: Sacramento Kings

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Most of you don’t know the name Vivek Ranadive because he’s not a player, and speaking just generally, we like players waaaay more than owners. But Ranadive is a name we have to utter right now, because he is an O.A.B. (owner acting badly), and we try to keep up on this stuff as best we can.

What happened just immediately was Friday’s firing of Mike Brown as the Sacramento Kings’ head coach. This is one of those mistakes that will become astoundingly clear in the months to come, but for now, suffice it to say that the move was received around the NBA as the kind of silly misstep that impetuous owners sometimes make.

Of course, Vivek Ranadive has owned the Kings for more than 11 years now, so perhaps this is a character trait that the 67-year-old Ranadive isn’t going to outgrow.

Eleven seasons in charge. Eight head coaches.

One playoff series.

O.A.B.

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Oh — they told Mike Brown he was fired while Brown was in his car, on his way to catching a team flight to L.A. to face the Lakers.

He’d just been at the Kings’ practice facility.

All morning.

Had a full session with the local media.

Spoke of the challenge of keeping things together with a team that had lost five straight, as teams sometimes do over the course of an 82-game NBA season, and a couple of them in true bonehead style.

Fired on the phone.

Fired after two winning seasons in two full seasons he had coached.

Only coach to get the Kings to the playoffs in, let’s see here, carry the one…18 years.

NBA’s unanimous-choice Coach of the Year for 2022-23.

Fired six months after signing a three-year contract extension, for which he’s still owed more than $20 million. Guaranteed.

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The consensus around the league was ridicule. In fairness, most of this came from other head coaches, who certainly have a vested interest in seeing their peers at least get due consideration. But that doesn’t mean they’re wrong.

“The firing of Mike Brown was just shocking to me and I’m sure all the people in our profession — men and women,” said Rick Carlisle, the Indiana Pacers coach, who worked with Brown with the Pacers previously. (Carlisle offered these thoughts unprompted before beginning his regular news conference.) “I view him as one of the standard bearers for integrity for our profession. And I’m just absolutely shocked that that decision was made.”

The Warriors’ Steve Kerr, for whom Brown was an assistant: “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.”

Denver’s Michael Malone: "I'm not surprised that Mike Brown got fired, because I got fired by the same person…And 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 [Friday] 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. No class, no balls. That’s what I’ll say about that.”

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Yes, Vivek Ranadive fired Mike Malone in Malone’s second year as head coach, after the Kings went 11-13 to start the 2014-15 season. (Sacramento was 13-18 as of Friday, when Brown got whacked.) Malone quickly got hired by the Denver Nuggets, rebuilt them in a year and has posted seven straight winning seasons, plus an NBA title in 2023.

But shoot, that was a million Kings coaches ago.

This time around, the word down the block is that Mike Brown and guard De’Aaron Fox weren’t getting along. Fox is eligible to be signed to a supermax long-term deal in the off-season. His agent was conspicuous by his presence in town last week, and people are nervous (I guess) that Fox won’t stay.

On Thursday night, with his Kings team up by three points on Detroit and finally looking ready to break its losing streak despite playing without star Domantas Sabonis, De’Aaron Fox almost inexplicably failed to cover the Pistons’ three-point threat Jaden Ivey in the final seconds of action. Fox then rotated way too late and fouled Ivey as he shot. Ivey’s trey was good. The and-one was good. Pistons win by a point, thanks to a truly absurd four-point defensive catastrophe.

Mike Brown didn’t shy from noting Fox’s mistake postgame. Fox said this: "We gave ourselves a chance to win going into the fourth quarter and we didn't do a good job. We gave up 40 points...Everything that could've gone wrong in the fourth quarter, did...I don't know [what has to change]."

Now, this is the moment when a different owner steps in and aggressively mediates the situation. He’s got a really good coach, a player who has another level of performance within his grasp, and a team that needs all this to work together in order to win. A different owner understands that every road is a crooked one, and gets to work on smoothing that surface, since he can’t control the winding part.

The Kings have an O.A.B., so Mike Brown got fired and the team’s general manager was trotted out to announce it. They sure hated the part about it being on the phone, though, they said. Tried to avoid that. Tough one.

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