Pooh
05-02-2004, 09:03 PM
Pacers' Brown is one of young coaches waiting for shot to take over NBA team.
By Mark Montieth
[email protected]
May 2, 2004
Sometimes when Jeff Foster has an idea for training camp next season, he takes it to assistant coach Mike Brown. But then he cuts himself short and says, "Oh, wait. You won't be here then."
Foster isn't alone. The widespread assumption around the Indiana Pacers is that Brown's days with the franchise are numbered. He's only 33, and he's been with them for only one season, but he's already regarded as a prime candidate for a head coaching job somewhere in the NBA.
Jobs fly open in flurries, and only so many established coaches are available. Eventually some brave team has no choice but to dip into the pool of unproven candidates and give someone a chance.
A lot of people believe Brown will be one of those guys. If not this summer, soon.
He believes he's ready. Ready enough, at least.
"I don't know if you're ever really ready in this business," he said. "But if you have the opportunity, you have to seize the moment. You're going to make mistakes. You've just got to be confident enough in yourself you'll figure a way to get through.
"Am I ready? I don't know. Will I take on the challenge if I get the opportunity? Hell, yes."
One of coach Rick Carlisle's first phone calls after getting the Pacers' job was to Brown, who spent the past three years on San Antonio's staff. Carlisle had marked Brown as a coach to watch when he first met him several years ago in Denver, where Brown got his start in the NBA.
Carlisle got to know Brown better during his year out of coaching, between Carlisle's stint as a Pacers assistant and becoming Detroit's coach in 2001.
Carlisle spent part of his imposed sabbatical observing other teams practice. His watch-list included the Spurs, where Brown was a second-level assistant.
"I knew he was good," Carlisle said.
Carlisle's approach when assembling a staff is to hire a lead assistant he believes is head coaching material. In Detroit that was Kevin O'Neill, who this past season coached Toronto to nine more wins than they had the previous season but was fired after one year.
He hired Brown with the assumption that Brown, too, will move on before long. Upheaval aside, he believes it makes for a stronger staff.
"I feel those guys bring more to your situation in terms of a presence and in terms of the respect the players will have for them," Carlisle said.
Why does Carlisle believe Brown is such a coach?
"I just know that he is," he said. "He has a presence. He's prepared himself to become a head coach. He thinks like a head coach, where a lot of assistants tend to stay within their area of expertise. He's always thinking big-picture and approaching his job the same way I approach my job as far as being concerned with all the components of the team."
Brown didn't begin thinking of becoming a coach until he was a senior member of the University of San Diego's team in 1992. He got a summer internship under fellow San Diego alum Bernie Bickerstaff in Denver, which turned into a full-time job.
He's prospered throughout his career with enthusiasm and hard work, but this season he's had to adjust to uncommon responsibility for an assistant.
Carlisle gave him the title of associate head coach and put him in charge of the defense. Brown is fully accountable for the defense, and has even convinced Carlisle to utilize zones on occasion -- something Carlisle did not do in Detroit.
He has the freedom to communicate with the players as he sees fit. It's not unusual for him to take aside a player during or after a game for a lecture, or challenge them loudly as a group in timeouts or halftime breaks.
"I'm shocked every day that I come into work," Brown said, laughing. "I'm waiting for Rick to grab me by the throat with two hands and say, 'Shut the heck up.' If he doesn't do it, I'm waiting for one of the players to do something.
"I say what I want, when I want, how I want. You can't ask for more than that."
Brown, whose father is a retired Air Force officer, respects authority and rank, so he's careful not to overstep his boundary. But he also knows he can take pressure off the head coach by doing some of the dirty work.
"In the NBA you have four or five bullets as a head coach," Brown said. "Some coaches have more because they've been around more. A younger coach like Rick, you can only get on a team or player so many times during the course of the year. Because I'm allowed to do it, it gives him an extra four or five bullets that he didn't have."
So far, Brown has done that without provoking return fire from the players.
"Mike stays on you," Foster said. "He lets you know when you're doing something right and when you're doing something wrong. It's beneficial to have someone who goes both ways and not just one way.
"He's definitely a guy who has bigger and better things ahead of him. He'll make some team very lucky."
By Mark Montieth
[email protected]
May 2, 2004
Sometimes when Jeff Foster has an idea for training camp next season, he takes it to assistant coach Mike Brown. But then he cuts himself short and says, "Oh, wait. You won't be here then."
Foster isn't alone. The widespread assumption around the Indiana Pacers is that Brown's days with the franchise are numbered. He's only 33, and he's been with them for only one season, but he's already regarded as a prime candidate for a head coaching job somewhere in the NBA.
Jobs fly open in flurries, and only so many established coaches are available. Eventually some brave team has no choice but to dip into the pool of unproven candidates and give someone a chance.
A lot of people believe Brown will be one of those guys. If not this summer, soon.
He believes he's ready. Ready enough, at least.
"I don't know if you're ever really ready in this business," he said. "But if you have the opportunity, you have to seize the moment. You're going to make mistakes. You've just got to be confident enough in yourself you'll figure a way to get through.
"Am I ready? I don't know. Will I take on the challenge if I get the opportunity? Hell, yes."
One of coach Rick Carlisle's first phone calls after getting the Pacers' job was to Brown, who spent the past three years on San Antonio's staff. Carlisle had marked Brown as a coach to watch when he first met him several years ago in Denver, where Brown got his start in the NBA.
Carlisle got to know Brown better during his year out of coaching, between Carlisle's stint as a Pacers assistant and becoming Detroit's coach in 2001.
Carlisle spent part of his imposed sabbatical observing other teams practice. His watch-list included the Spurs, where Brown was a second-level assistant.
"I knew he was good," Carlisle said.
Carlisle's approach when assembling a staff is to hire a lead assistant he believes is head coaching material. In Detroit that was Kevin O'Neill, who this past season coached Toronto to nine more wins than they had the previous season but was fired after one year.
He hired Brown with the assumption that Brown, too, will move on before long. Upheaval aside, he believes it makes for a stronger staff.
"I feel those guys bring more to your situation in terms of a presence and in terms of the respect the players will have for them," Carlisle said.
Why does Carlisle believe Brown is such a coach?
"I just know that he is," he said. "He has a presence. He's prepared himself to become a head coach. He thinks like a head coach, where a lot of assistants tend to stay within their area of expertise. He's always thinking big-picture and approaching his job the same way I approach my job as far as being concerned with all the components of the team."
Brown didn't begin thinking of becoming a coach until he was a senior member of the University of San Diego's team in 1992. He got a summer internship under fellow San Diego alum Bernie Bickerstaff in Denver, which turned into a full-time job.
He's prospered throughout his career with enthusiasm and hard work, but this season he's had to adjust to uncommon responsibility for an assistant.
Carlisle gave him the title of associate head coach and put him in charge of the defense. Brown is fully accountable for the defense, and has even convinced Carlisle to utilize zones on occasion -- something Carlisle did not do in Detroit.
He has the freedom to communicate with the players as he sees fit. It's not unusual for him to take aside a player during or after a game for a lecture, or challenge them loudly as a group in timeouts or halftime breaks.
"I'm shocked every day that I come into work," Brown said, laughing. "I'm waiting for Rick to grab me by the throat with two hands and say, 'Shut the heck up.' If he doesn't do it, I'm waiting for one of the players to do something.
"I say what I want, when I want, how I want. You can't ask for more than that."
Brown, whose father is a retired Air Force officer, respects authority and rank, so he's careful not to overstep his boundary. But he also knows he can take pressure off the head coach by doing some of the dirty work.
"In the NBA you have four or five bullets as a head coach," Brown said. "Some coaches have more because they've been around more. A younger coach like Rick, you can only get on a team or player so many times during the course of the year. Because I'm allowed to do it, it gives him an extra four or five bullets that he didn't have."
So far, Brown has done that without provoking return fire from the players.
"Mike stays on you," Foster said. "He lets you know when you're doing something right and when you're doing something wrong. It's beneficial to have someone who goes both ways and not just one way.
"He's definitely a guy who has bigger and better things ahead of him. He'll make some team very lucky."