The joke was that Mike Brown had two plays:
- Give Lebron the ball and get out of the way.
- Give Lebron the ball and act like you called an actual play while everyone gets out of the way.
All jokes aside Brown was never allowed to be a “real head coach”, Lebron had too much power in Cleveland for that to ever happen.
I never saw Brown as a “yes man”, but he really had no choice but to ride the Lebron train until the train took his talents elsewhere.
When it became clear that Lebron wasn’t coming back to the Cavs if Brown was still the coach he was fired. Back to back 60 wins seasons don’t mean much when the King has spoken.
Reading this Yahoo Sports report it seems Brown is relived not to be in the pressure cooker anymore:
Five months after the Cleveland Cavaliers fired him as LeBron James’ coach following a disappointing defeat to the Boston Celtics in the Eastern Conference semifinals, Mike Brown has found a new job.
He’s coaching middle school football.
Brown is an assistant coach for the Westlake Lee Burneson Middle School team that his 13-year-old son, Cameron, plays on in Ohio. After being fired by the Cavs, Brown is using this season to spend more time with his wife and two teenage sons. He didn’t pursue opportunities during the summer to return to the NBA as a head coach and turned down an offer to serve as an assistant at St. Mary’s College in California.
Yet as much fun as Brown is having with his family, he hopes to return to the NBA next season.
“If the opportunity presents itself, I’d love to be back coaching,” he said. “The fire to coach is burning, but I also believe in family first. … I wanted to take this opportunity to reconnect with my kids, my wife.”
Brown says he has no ill will toward Lebron, but wishes he would have delivered the message about joining the Southbeach NWO a bit better.
Brown sort of reminds me of Doug Collins during the early Jordan years. Collins is still hanging around coaching, so there is precedent for coming back from failing to take a mega superstar to the NBA Finals.
Hopefully Brown is more successful than Collins in his post superstar coaching career.