By Sekou Smith
[email protected]
September 3, 2003

Assistant brings 11 years of NBA experience, the past 3 with the Spurs and Greg Popovich.

Two weeks after closing on a new home in San Antonio, Mike Brown and his wife Carolyn are house hunting again.

And with his two young sons -- 8-year-old Elijah and 6-year-old Cameron -- already late for the start of school in Indiana, the new associate head coach of the Indiana Pacers can't waste any time.

"We've got an idea of where we want to look," said Brown, who was introduced along with the rest of Rick Carlisle's staff Wednesday at Conseco Fieldhouse.

"The school is most important. We'll get into a hotel close right away and then try to find a house near the school and basically go from there."

Brown spent the past three seasons on Greg Popovich's staff in San Antonio. That lingering euphoria of an NBA championship season, along with a new house, made Brown's decision to join the Pacers difficult. But it was one that even Popovich agreed he had to make.

"I'm grateful to (Spurs general manager) R.C. Buford and Pop for allowing me to explore this opportunity," said Brown, 33, an 11-year NBA coaching veteran. "It was late in the year, which is tough on everyone involved.

"There were a couple of other teams that offered me the same types of jobs earlier in the summer, but those weren't situations where I thought we could win like I think we can here. This was one of those things that you just couldn't pass up."

Rounding out Carlisle's staff will be Dan Burke and Ron Rothstein, holdovers from Isiah Thomas' staff. Chad Forcier, who was with Carlisle in Detroit as a special assistant, will be added to the staff.

Carlisle said Chuck Person, an assistant to Walsh last season, will work with the players in some capacity. The status of Mark Aguirre, Vern Fleming and George Glymph, other members of Thomas' staff and under contract, are undetermined.