The Sacramento Kings fired Mike Brown on Friday, but they are not starting a coaching search. Doug Christie, who will serve as interim head coach when the Kings visit the Los Angeles Lakers on Saturday, is expected to remain in that position for the rest of the season, according to The Athletic's Anthony Slater and Sam Amick.
Christie has been an assistant coach in Sacramento since 2021. He played for Rick Adelman's Kings from 2000 to 2005, starting at shooting guard on the team that was one win away from the NBA Finals in 2002. Christie was also Sacramento's color commentator with NBC Sports California from 2018 to 2021.
When Christie initially joined the team as a coach, he was on Luke Walton's staff. As The Athletic noted, he was seen as a potential replacement when the Kings fired Walton in November 2021. Alvin Gentry ended getting the job, but ESPN reported at the time that Christie was a candidate. According to The Athletic, team owner Vivek Ranadive "made it clear that he saw Christie as a viable alternative" when negotiating a deal to remove Gentry's interim tag.
Also reported by The Athlteic's Slater and Amick:
- Kings players and staffers found out about Brown's firing minutes before ESPN's Shams Charania reported it.
- Ownership signed off on the decision after Friday's practice. When Christie was offered the interim job in a meeting, most of the team's traveling party had already boarded its flight to Los Angeles.
- Ranadive "has been notably upset with the team's recent play," but "team sources insisted the decision to fire Brown was [general manager Monte] McNair's."
- McNair and assistant general manager Wes Wilcox are "considered safe" despite the issues with Sacramento's roster. The front office is looking to add depth between now and the trade deadline.
- Brown's "stern news conferences were beginning to wear on some players, team sources said, and were part of the decision to part ways with Brown." It is implied, but not stated directly, that guard De'Aaron Fox is one of those players. After the Kings collapsed against the Detroit Pistons on Thursday and lost their fifth consecutive game, Brown called out the team -- and Fox specifically -- for the poor defensive execution that led to Jaden Ivey's game-winning four-point play. That same night, Fox gave terse answers to questions about what had gone wrong and what needed to change. After what turned out to be Brown's last practice, he and Fox had an "extended discussion" in view of reporters.
Christie will be Sacramento's eighth coach since Ranadive bought the team in 2013. The first coach of the Ranadive era, Michael Malone, blasted the franchise on Friday for both the decision and the way they communicated it to Brown: "He does his 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."
Brown, who in 2023 became the NBA's first unanimous winner of the Coach of the Year award, signed an extension last June. After adding DeMar DeRozan to the mix in July, the Kings have had a disappointing season, especially when it comes to crunch-time performance. It is difficult, however, not to see this firing as shortsighted. Despite the NBA's worst shot profile -- they lead the league in long 2s and get to the rim less frequently than all but one team, per Cleaning The Glass -- and iffy defensive personnel, they have a positive (and above-league-average) point differential. Without meaningful changes to the roster, no one should expect Christie to make turn Sacramento in an elite team.
At the same time, no one should hold the circumstances in which Christie got this opportunity against him. It's not his fault that the franchise appears to be falling back into familiar patterns just two years after its charmed 2022-23 season. Since the Kings parted ways with Adelman in 2006, they've only had one coach (Dave Joerger) who has lasted three full seasons. Who's to say Christie won't be the second? He has never been in this position before, so no one knows how he'll take to it.
One thing to watch for the rest of the season (and especially in the next five-ish weeks) is how Fox responds to Christie. The 27-year-old guard does not appear to be in line for an All-NBA berth, so he will likely not be eligible to sign a supermax extension with Sacramento next summer. If he doesn't sign an extension at all, then 2025-26 will be a contract year, so his future with the team is increasingly uncertain. The trade deadline is Feb. 6.
