Mike Brown, coaching salaries and avoiding basketball hell 2.0

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The Sacramento Kings summer list is long. Changes are needed. Running it back didn’t have the desired results and while it is not time to start at square one, the team must balance continuity, while making necessary adjustments to the overall talent on the roster.  

With the NBA Draft just weeks away and then an extremely important free agency period that may completely hinge on whether the team can retain star sixth man Malik Monk, the next six or seven weeks are going to be extremely interesting in Sacramento. 

Monte McNair and Wes Wilcox are tasked with managing the busy offseason, but there is one more piece to the overall puzzle that must be resolved -- the future of head coach Mike Brown, who is entering the final year of his contract. 

There have been rumors about what Brown is looking for in an extension since the season ended. A report from Anthony Slater and Sam Amick of The Athletic put the number in the $10-12 million range last month. Jake Fischer of Yahoo! Sports added this tidbit earlier in the week, “Brown’s talks are expected to center around a similar eight-figure threshold.”

In his first season at the helm of the Kings, Brown led the team to an 18-game improvement over the previous season, pushed his team to a third place finish in the Western Conference standings and took home the NBA’s Coach of the Year honor. He also helped snap a 16-season playoff drought and posted just the ninth .500 or better record since the team moved to Sacramento before the 1985-86 season.

Brown backed up year one with a 46-36 record in year two, but the Kings fell short of the playoffs, falling in the second of two play-in tournament games. The failure to repeat the success of the previous year hasn’t sat well with ownership, according to sources. 

This shouldn’t be a complicated matter, but like everything else in Sacramento, it is.