At the Apex Part 3: Mike Brown

There are a lot of figures with the Knicks this year who entered the season with pressure: Jalen Brunson to prove he can lead a team to a title, Karl-Anthony Towns to validate his career, and Mikal Bridges to prove he was worth the draft compensation to acquire him, to name a few. But perhaps the person with the most pressure isn’t a player, but the head coach, Mike Brown.

After five seasons of the Tom Thibodeau experience, Brown was hired to take the team to the next level with a more collaborative, player-friendly approach. In a sense, he was billed as an anti-Thibodeau—more adaptable and willing to change on the fly. The Knicks are on pace to slightly eclipse last year’s win total and have shown improvements at times over the final Thibodeau year. But ultimately, Brown will be judged on what he does in the postseason, and there is little room for error.

Anyone that has watched the NBA for an extended period of time knows that this is a league dominated by its superstar players. Oftentimes, when things go wrong, the first person to be blamed is the head coach, the logic being that a truly transcendent player is much harder to find than a good coach. They are the easiest to get rid of because their salaries don’t impact the cap sheet and are less connected to ownership than general managers and team presidents. Plus, it’s impossible to ignore that players fill up seats and sell merchandise, not coaches. Which explains the Thibodeau decision: despite his role in reviving the team from the doldrums, he was relieved of his duties to get to the NBA mountaintop.

The atmosphere that Brown entered is a volatile one. The Knicks made the Eastern Conference Finals last season for the first time since the 1999-2000 season, so anything short of that will be considered a failure for Brown—and the ultimate indictment of him being able to be a championship-level coach. He has a roster that was built to win now with a superstar in Jalen Brunson who is at the peak of his powers. A successful run to the Finals and a title will change the entire perception of him in NBA circles.

Since 2000, there have been four head coaches that have arrived at a team and won a title in their first year: Phil Jackson with the Kobe and Shaq Lakers in 2000, Larry Brown with the Goin’ to Work Pistons in 2004 (who would ironically later coach the Knicks to disastrous results), Steve Kerr with the Splash Brothers Warriors in 2015, and Nick Nurse with the Kawhi Leonard Raptors in 2019. There have also been two interim coaches that pulled it off as well: Pat Riley with the Heat in 2006 and Tyrone Lue with the Cavaliers in 2016. All of those teams had a few years of playoff success before pivoting to a new coach, and with a Finals run, Brown would join that group.

A win would validate Brown as an excellent coach who proved to be both tactically efficient on offense and defense at different stages of his career. He would go from a good coach to a potentially revered one, a coach who did what Pat Riley, Jeff Van Gundy, and so many others could never do—win a title in New York. A win would likely render the rest of his time in New York mostly inconsequential, because he will have done what was once considered impossible.

With a second-round rematch against the Boston Celtics looming, the potential for Brown to have a signature series in Knicks lore could be on the table. A title validates Brown, the front office, James Dolan, Leon Rose, and this entire operation. Regardless of what becomes of the rest of his career, Brown would be remembered as the man who brought a title to New York, which is enough to make him local legend for the rest of his life.

The pressure on Brown to get the Knicks back to the Finals is immense. He was hired to do what it was thought that Tom Thibodeau could not, and it was amplified by comments owner James Dolan has made where he noted that getting to the Finals, and winning the championship, was the expectation. That is in a conference that looks much different than it did in the summer. The Pistons have taken a massive leap to the top of the standings, the Celtics have Jayson Tatum back after he ruptured his Achilles in the playoffs last year, and the Cavaliers acquired James Harden. On top of that, the bottom of the Eastern playoff bracket is much stronger than anticipated, making for a potentially hazardous first round series as well as teams like Charlotte and Atlanta continue to win games.

It’s hard not to think of the crosstown Nets in the context of Brown and his predecessor. In the early 2000s when they still played in New Jersey, the Nets were coached by Byron Scott who led them to the Finals two years in a row. He was fired in middle of the next season when he had a 22-20 record, with rumblings of a disconnect with his star players. It feels oddly reminiscent of Thibodeau in a strange way. Scott was replaced by Lawrence Frank, who could never reach those heights, and the Nets have never been back to the Finals since then. That distinction awaits Brown if he is unable to perform this postseason.

If the Knicks were to lose in the first two rounds of the playoffs, it goes without saying that this year will be considered a failure. If that were to happen, Brown’s future instantly becomes murky. Because regardless of any nuanced argument that reasonable minds may present, the optics will tell a story that the team regressed in terms of the overall result under Brown after moving on from Thibodeau. That could create enough mounting pressure in a media market and fan base so desperate for a winner that Brown may lose his job.

And if that happens, what is the next step for him? Is it coaching in a smaller market team looking for a coach to raise their floor? Is it a media pivot? Maybe he tries his hand at coaching in college? Whatever the outcome, it is far inferior to being the head coach of one of the league’s historic franchises and competing for a title.

Is the idea of Finals or bust in relation to Brown fair? Absolutely not. But when you accept a job for a team with a high profile that is coming off a run to the Eastern Conference Finals, that’s the sort of scrutiny that you sign up for. A premature exit from the playoffs this year also means that the team might reconsider their entire approach to this roster.

That often starts with the coach and could lead to the manifestation of sweeping changes. But if Mike Brown would be along for that journey remains unclear. For Brown, the pressure to perform is incredibly high, and he has said all the right things about embracing the heat that comes with coaching the Knicks. This postseason will prove if that was genuine or just bluster.