The Kings Let Mike Brown Run Practice And Speak To The Media Only To Then Immediately Fire Him Right Before The Team Flight

Thearon W. Henderson. Getty Images.

The Sacramento Kings are having what I would call a pretty weird season. Their record is mostly terrible on the surface, with the Kings sitting at 13-18 overall and 12th in the West, trailing the final Play In spot by 3 full games. They're just 6-12 at home, 7-13 against teams .500 or better, an NBA worst 6-13 in clutch time games. At the same time, they have a positive scoring differential at +1.1 which is currently better than two teams in the West's Top 10 (LAL is a -2.5 and PHX is -1.3).

Even with the addition of DeMar DeRozan this offseason, things just haven't taken off the way I'm sure many of the Kings' brass expected. If anything, this has been a step backwards from what we've seen out of SAC these last few seasons, where things truly did look like they were on the up and up and the old days of the KANGZZZZZZZ were a thing of the past.

Well, then today happened

I'll admit, even with the struggles this season I'm not sure this is totally on Mike Brown, but this is how things work in the NBA. You underachieve like that, someone has to pay and it's not going to be the GM who put the roster together. Maybe the players were tuning out the coach, maybe the front office no longer believed in Brown's system, maybe they were just covering their own ass, who knows. But for a guy who just won Coach Of The Year and was just given a new extension, kicking him to the curb was a little surprising, especially with so much of the season left.

Then we got the details around the firing, and it looks even worse

What a disaster. You clearly knew you were going to fire the guy before that practice started. So instead of maybe hitting him up earlier in the day, perhaps well before practice started, you instead let him conduct an entire practice, speak to the media after, and then can him right before the team flight? Does that even remotely sound like the behavior of a competent organization? Especially to a coach that helped finally break your playoff drought? 

I'll be honest, I thought the Kings were done with doing shit like this. If you wanted to fire the guy, fine! Fire him! But at least treat him with an ounce of respect while you do it. The culture of a franchise starts at the top, at the ownership level. Don't expect things to not be dysfunctional with your team if you operate in a dysfunctional manner. The fact that SAC seemed to be doing the opposite lately is what made their turnaround so exciting! It felt like they finally figured out how not to run their team like a complete mess, and now here we are.

Unfortunately for the Kings, chances are this changes absolutely nothing. To put all their issues on Mike Brown is stupid, even if he wasn't perfect. Their roster is still the roster and their issues are still going to exist even with Doug Christie now calling the shots. Let's also not forget that De'Aaron Fox already said he's in no rush to sign an extension and can leave after next season for nothing. 

This is all to say that while things finally looked up for the Kings for a few seasons, it now suddenly looks like time is a flat circle and they are the same old circus they used to be