Progress Rarely Looks Clean: Mike Brown's 19 year Journey Back to the NBA Finals
A few days ago, the New York Knicks won the NBA championship led by Mike Brown. Mike Brown is no stranger to the NBA and he may be one of the most resilient leaders we’ve studied over the last few years.
Here’s why he’s so resilient.
Over the course of his 29 years coaching, he was fired by three different NBA teams on four different occasions.
He’s been fired - the thing every coach wants to avoid - four times.
Take a quick look at his career of twists and turns.
2007 - takes a young, 22 year old Lebron James to the NBA finals only to be swept by San Antonio as head coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers.
2009 - Coach of the year, won a franchise record, league best 66 games.
2010 - Fired by the Cleveland Cavaliers.
2012 - After being hired by the Los Angeles Lakers and leading the team for nearly two seasons, he was fired 5 games into the season.
2014 - He returned to Cleveland and the Cavaliers fired him again. (Three firings in a four year span.)
The standard reaction after this firing would be to scramble for the next head coaching job. After all he’s an NBA finalist, had been hired by one of sports’ most notable franchises in the LA Lakers, and was a coach of the year in the not so distant past.
Instead, Mike Brown went backwards. He buried his ego and became an assistant coach again. He became Steve Kerr’s right hand man for Golden State, and learned a championship system from the inside.
While in his assistant coach years - Golden State won championships in 2017, 2018, and 2022 while Mike Brown sat in the Associate Head Coach chair.
2023 - In his second season as head coach of the Sacramento Kings he wins Coach of the year again.
2024 - His time at the top didn’t last long as he was fired by the Kings shortly after winning coach of the year. Fired for the fourth time in his head coaching career.
2025 - Takes over for the New York Knicks
2026 - 19 years after losing to the San Antonio Spurs in his NBA finals debut, Mike Brown leads the Knicks to an NBA title.
Winston Churchill said, “Success is the ability to move from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.”
Few have been as successful as Mike Brown.
Here’s five takeaways from the career of Mike Brown. What would you add?
1.) The best career moves are often the ones your ego will reject. Everybody loves to announce moves up, but the moves into roles that aren’t sexy are the ones that often produce the most growth. True ‘alpha’ leaders are the ones who are willing to serve. I’m always amazed when I see a highly qualified leader in a support role when their resume suggests they should be the “boss” somewhere else. It reveals one of two things. 1. A tamed ego or 2. An ego being tamed by the experience.
2.) The “assistant” chair in a flourishing environment may be one of the best places to be. If you’re in one, don’t be so quick to move from it. Mike Brown’s decision to be a key coaching role player in the Golden State Warrior dynasty is a paramount stop on his coaching journey and path to leading the Knicks to the title this year. Flourishing individuals, with flourishing relationships, in flourishing environments - can’t lose.
3.) K-12 school teaches us that life is linear but it’s not. “Move up a grade at a time year after year.” The real world doesn’t work that way. Most journeys are full of twists and turns. Taking ground. Stepping back. Even the most processed focused, outcome detached leaders can catch themselves leaning for progress. Progress rarely looks clean on the chart. Every peak and valley tests our faith in the process. You may be closer than you think or closer than you feel. Trust the process.
4.) They love you when you win and they hate you when you lose. As Billy Napier said in his last days in Florida, “There’s something about the game that is conditional and there is a life out there that is unconditional.” At the highest levels - it’s not personal. There’s power and freedom in a leader realizing they are not the role. When people attack the leader’s performance, they’re not attacking the person. Mike Brown doesn’t make it past a single firing without separating the critic from his identity. Instead, he was able to endure four public embarrassments en route to an NBA championship.
5.) There’s power in being even-keeled. Ride the high highs and low lows and you may not make it 29 years. At any given moment after firings, Mike Brown could have panicked and called it quits. Instead it seemed as if he was immune to viewing setbacks as fatal failures.
The mindset allowed him to endure four firings and now he’s standing on the top of the mountain for the first time.
Stay The Course,
