"It's hard to say who's faster, Tony Parker or De'Aaron Fox": Mike Brown looks ahead to Kings' 2023-24 NBA season (Exclusive)
What he once considered a luxury turned into a nightmare.
In his first year as the Sacramento Kings’ head coach, Mike Brown led the franchise to its first playoff appearance since 2006 only to lose in a seven-game series against the Golden State Warriors.
It seems accurate to trace the reason back to why Brown won three NBA championships as the Golden State Warriors’ lead-assistant coach. After collecting four NBA titles and shattering numerous scoring records, Stephen Curry posted a post-season career-high 50 points in a Game 7 win in Sacramento. Yet, Brown has taught a different lesson plan to his players on how they can rectify that first-round exit in the 2023-24 season.
“A lot of people say that Steph’s 50-point performance was Game 7 was our downfall. But Steph is a great player. It’s going to be hard to stop Steph,” Brown told Sportskeeda. “I’ve been a part of many NBA championships with Steph knowing that everybody is gameplanning to stop him. He still goes and gets his. Where we lost that series is the rebounding department. Kevon Looney has a heck of a series. In that Game 7, if we could’ve controlled the boards, even with Steph’s 50, I thought we would’ve had a much better chance of winning the game.”
What are the chances of the Kings building off of a promising season? Brown spoke to Sportskeeda about his championship expectations, if De’Aaron Fox is the most athletic player, Domantas Sabonis’ strengths and weaknesses, Keegan Murray’s growth and more.
Editor’s note: The following 1-on-1 conversation has been edited and condensed. Please credit Sportskeeda and Mark Medina whenever you cite this article.
What reasons give you optimism you can be a serious contender given the rest of the NBA landscape?
Brown:
“We’re a deep team. You have to give [general manager] Monte McNair and [assistant general manager] Wes Wilcox credit with the team they assembled. I like our group. The depth should help us going forward this year in a lot of different ways. I also like our players’ renewed focus on the defensive end of the floor and their ability to understand that we can take a big jump in that area. Not only do they want to do it. You can feel it by the way they are working and by the way they are talking about it so far."
"You couple the depth with the group’s understanding and hunger to be better on the defensive end of the floor, you feel like you have a pretty positive outlook. The group has always been connected. We have talented players starting with Foxy and Domas and rising players in Keegan and others. I’m looking forward to it.”
Beyond trying to build off of last season’s playoff run, you’ve said one of the themes of this training camp is “to go from good to great” and contend for an NBA title. What’s your message on the things that go into that?
Brown:
“We understand our style of play is extremely fast. We want to continue on that path because that’s who we are. That’s what our personnel is built for, but we want to add a level of physicality as well. We want to continue to play the right way and to play together. Last year, we played fast, played together and played the right way. Now we want to add a level of physicality to our identity. If we obtain that, that will pay off huge dividends for us moving forward. On top of that, we talk about winning the day. It’s going to be extremely hard to go from good to great. We have to focus on the details daily. We have to appreciate them, have a sustained work ethic and competitive spirit on a daily basis. Then we embrace the individual sacrifice and commitment needed in order to make that jump. That will help us continue to play together.”
Why is the physicality part so important for this season?
Brown:
“The most physical teams are usually the best teams, especially deep in the playoffs. Throughout the regular season last year, we weren’t as physical. We relied on our ability to score throughout the course of the season. When we got to the playoffs, we upped our level of physicality against Golden State. But because of that, it took away from us on the offensive end of the floor."
"We weren’t used to playing that hard. We weren’t used to playing as physically like we did against the Warriors. When you have to make such a huge jump just to have an opportunity to be competitive at the highest level against the world champions, you don’t realize how impactful that is mentally and physically when it comes to shooting an open jump shot. It’s a different shot. Then you add the pressures of being in the playoffs. On top of that, it’s a way different shot.”
With that, what pace would you like the team to play at this season?
Brown:
“We want our transition game to be one of the fastest in the NBA. We have our points that we want to get to. We know what we want to do with the ball with our transition game. We want to be able to flow to our early offense. We changed a few things around because last year against some of the other teams, when we were in our early offense, they were able to get into us. That’s because the routes we laid down for our players were not as dynamic as they could be. So we changed some of our routes in our early offense. We hope that with the change of the routes, that will help us be able to make quicker decisions and not get us tangled up with our defender as much as it did when teams got up into us last year.”
You’ve said you’re impressed with De’Aaron Fox’s off-season work. What have you seen on that front?
Brown:
“Foxy works his tail off in the offseason. That is fun to watch. Luke Loucks is his player development coach and assistant offensive coordinator. He’s my fourth assistant right now. He’s also Foxy’s workout guy. He’s done a fantastic job with Foxy from day one. Foxy has done a fantastic job working with him. He’s working on all of the things that he needs to work on with his 3-point shooting, stuff off the dribbles and his free throws."
"But the thing I like more than anything else is Fox’s availability for our young guys, especially Keegan. Fox worked out every day here in Sacramento. That kept Keegan here. Fox took him under his wing. It gave Keegan more confidence because he played a lot of one-on-one, two-on-two and three-on-three. It helped Keegan come out of his shell. Foxy asked Keegan to work with him. Then on top of that, Keegan sees how hard Foxy is doing it every day. They’re able to play one-on-one and all of that other stuff. It just makes a young rookie like Keegan grow more confident.”
What do you expect on how Keegan will build off of his rookie season?
Brown:
“The sky is the limit for that guy. He has worked extremely hard, especially on his body. So he is a lot stronger. His level of focus is second to none. He wants to be a great player. Last year, he was predominately a catch-and-shoot 3-point shooter. You saw a little glimpse of it in the Sacramento summer league. He put the ball on the ground now and made a play for himself. He’s able to play in a little bit of pick-and-roll. He’s able to play in a little bit of zoom action."
"If he gets an outlet or gets a defensive rebound, he’s not going to take one dribble, pick it up and look for Fox or somebody else to advance the ball. He’s going to bring it himself. There are things he can work on that we think can translate in the games once the lights come on. We’ve seen it in pickup games. We’ve seen it in practices. More importantly, he’s worked on it with [assistant coach] Dutch Gaitley during the summer. That’s been his workout guy.”
With his expanded on-the-ball work, what do you expect that will do for Keegan’s game?
Brown:
“It’ll open up his game. When you have an ability like he can shoot from distance, teams have to bust their behind to get him off the 3-point line. He doesn’t have to go between the legs three or four times just to create a shot. All he has to do is look at the rim. Teams are then going to run at him pretty hard. When they do run at him pretty hard, he can get into his pull-up game or finish at the rim. That’s going to be beneficial for him. It’s going to be much easier for him to do because of his ability to shoot the ball.”
Back to Fox and all his positive traits about his work ethic and leadership. What about his athleticism? Where does that rank among all the other great players you’ve coached?
Brown:
“It’s hard-pressed to say who’s faster – Tony Parker or De’Aaron Fox. Maybe Foxy because I’m coaching Foxy now and it’s right in front of me. But Fox’s explosiveness is higher than Tony’s. When Fox gets going with that speed, Fox is going to dunk on you in a heartbeat. If you try to blink when you go over to contest his shot, be careful because he’s going to punch on you. To have that type of speed at his size with his explosiveness or athleticism, that’s why I think he’s different than anybody else who has played the game.”
Another strong quality has been his chemistry with Sabonis. Why has that become such a good fit?
Brown:
“They are two selfless human beings. They want each other and the rest of the group to succeed. When there aren’t any egos involved, that’s when things can happen for a group.”
How do you see Domantas building off of that for this upcoming season?
Brown:
“Sabonis is one of the hardest-working guys I’ve been around. He struggled a little bit with the playoffs last year. He worked on things that people thought were his weakness and forced him to go in the playoffs and at times during the regular season. You’re going to see him have a lot more counters to the things that our opponents take away. I also believe the confidence and his ability to shoot the ball from range has gone up. So you may see more of that as well.”
When you say he’s worked on things that people thought were his weaknesses, what is that exactly?
Brown:
“I’m not going to get into it because I don’t want people to read this and understand the scouting report. But everybody knows he likes to go over this shoulder or that shoulder for a jump hook at times. He didn’t like to go back to the other shoulder. Therefore, he worked on making sure he was efficient going over either shoulder. Not only was he efficient. He’s confident, too. That’s one of the things that you got to have. He’s done this all along, but he continued to work on his ability to shoot the ball. At times during the playoffs, he was a little hesitant with it. He knows that he’s got to let that thing fly, especially if teams give him an open look. His ability to handle the ball and make plays is always going to be there. That’s been there since he was born. He probably got that from his pops (laughs). But the things he spent his time working on was attacking his quote-unquote weaknesses, whether it’s a layup power move or a jump hook.”
Even during the team’s strong run last year, you often mentioned your want for the team to meet your defensive expectations. What do they need to reach this season?
Brown:
“I think we can be really good. Our expectations are pretty high. That’s part of the reason we kept the core group together – to give them an opportunity to be in the system for another year. We were relatively young in terms of guys playing big minutes at a high level for a playoff team. We didn’t have a ton of that on our roster. Now guys got to experience that through the course of the last year and so they should be comfortable with having a better understanding of what it takes to succeed, especially defensively because of the experiences that we’ve got against the world champions with the Golden State Warriors. Especially because of the experiences the guys got in that series, they should have a better understanding not only on what it takes in terms of effort and the level of physicality. But in terms of how consistent you have to be on that end of the floor to be a good or great defensive team.”
Given the history you’ve had with the Warriors, how would you describe what it was like to be on the receiving end of Stephen Curry’s 50-point performance in Game 7, Draymond Green’s physicality and incident with Sabonis, Kevon Looney’s rebounding as they prevailed in a tough seven-game series?
Brown:
“They were the world champs at the time. They have plenty of NBA championship experience. They used that toughness to get them over the hump. We had them on the ropes a little bit. A lot of people say that Steph’s 50-point performance in Game 7 was our downfall. But Steph is a great player. It’s going to be hard to stop Steph. I’ve been a part of many NBA championships with Steph knowing that everybody is gameplanning to stop him. He still goes and gets his. Where we lost that series is the rebounding department. Kevon Looney has a heck of a series. In that Game 7, if we could’ve controlled the boards, even with Steph’s 50, I thought we would’ve had a much better chance of winning the game.
We have to make sure going forward that we take care of the things that we can control. That is something we can control. When you have great players like Steph, MJ (Michael Jordan), Kobe (Bryant), LeBron (James), Magic [Johnson] and Larry Bird, sometimes you just try to make them earn their buckets. If you do that and focus on the controllables – taking care of the ball, not fouling and sending them to the free-throw line and boxing out and giving them second opportunities – if you’re able to do that, you’re able to sustain a great players’ great game as long as not many other players go off. We felt we were able to do that. But we just weren’t able to stop them from getting second opportunities.”
Where do you rank Davion Mitchell with his on-ball defense?
Brown:
“His on-ball defense is out of this world. His ability to press up into the ball on a consistent basis with his quickness and his strength is unbelievable. He’s one of the better on-ball defenders that I’ve ever been around. He’s able to skinny up and get over a lot of pindowns. He’s able to skinny up and get over a lot of ball screens. That makes him a very good defender in today’s game. That’s all you see is ball screens.”
What’s the story behind your sprints at the beginning of training camp last year?
Brown:
“(laughs). We like to play fast. Everybody says they want to run. But it’s really hard to consistently run at the highest level in the NBA. If you just run part time in the NBA, it’s not going to be as impactful. What we’re trying to get our guys to do here and understand is it’s not running the hardest every once in a while. It’s consistently running hard every single possession offensively. That type of pressure, most teams don’t want to deal with. Part of that for us is making sure we get to the corners. We have great 3-point shooters. If we get to the corners, that’s going to flatten the defense. That’s going to allow our guys like Fox and Mitchell to create in transition. It will open up the floor that much more. Our guys were doing it every once in a while during training camp. But I lost it and showed them (laughs) what and how I expected guys to get to the corner once we secured the ball on our defensive possession.”
Message delivered?
Brown: “Message delivered. Thank goodness it was delivered without a ruptured Achilles or a pulled hammy (laughs). ”
I loved when Luke Loucks pulled a prank on you when he told you that you won the NBA’s Western Conference Coach of the Month award. Did you read through the prank, or did any part of you worry that there was a serious problem being brought to your attention?
Brown:
“(laughs). Luke has been pretty good with the other coaches with pranking me. They do it, not often, but every once in a while. But they keep me grounded. I didn’t have much of a clue.”
So did your heart initially sink when he suggested there was a serious matter regarding a player that he needed to address with you?
Brown:
“You always get worried anytime somebody comes to talk to you about something and they’re not smiling to start the conversation.”
Mark Medina is an NBA Insider at Sportskeeda. Follow him on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Threads.