Is Mike Brown the right coach for the Knicks? + Should Giannis LEAVE the Bucks? | First Take

Is Mike Brown the right coach for the Knicks? + Should Giannis LEAVE the Bucks? | First Take

The New York Knicks are expected to hire two-time NBA Coach of the Year award winner Mike Brown as the franchise’s next head coach. Brown’s last stop was with the Kings, where he was fired in December after a 13-8 start to the season, despite having led the franchise to his first playoff birth in 16 seasons back in 2023. Tony Cornheiser on PTI had some strong words for folks who may be criticizing the Knicks on this hire. Mike Brown’s record in regular season games in the NBA is 454 and 304. He wins at a percentage of 59.9%. His record in the playoffs is 5040. And you know, he wins more than he loses. He took LeBron James to the finals in Cleveland and he took Sacramento to the playoffs when they hadn’t been there in 17 years. He’s a professional coach and he’s being hired, if it happens, by a management that is amateurish. Every single thing the Knicks have done, including firing Tom Thibido, has made them look worse, day by day worse. So, he is Mike, and I’ll get out of here on this. Mike Brown is on some level better than the Knicks deserve right now. Alan Han, you’re around this Knicks team as an analyst for MSG. Do you agree with Tony that Mike Brown is better right now than the Knicks deserve?
Well, I mean, all of respect to Tony, the Knick front office has been a a huge part of rebuilding this franchise from what it was when Phil Jackson was running things. Okay? So, you got to give Leon Rose a little more credit than to say that they don’t deserve this. They have built themselves out of what was nothing into a team that really now you consider them a championship contender which is something we haven’t been able to say about this franchise in a quarter century. So let’s give a little more credit to Leon Rose, William Wesley and company and what they’ve done. Am I surprised by the Tibido hire? Yes. Do I do I agree with it? No, I do not. But do I agree that Mike Brown is the right hire for right now? Absolutely. the resume, the experience, everything that you need to walk into a place like New York with the expectation of not just winning, not just matching last year. No, the expectation now here in New York is to get to the NBA finals, especially with the new landscape of the East. Okay, let’s go back in time 30 years ago to 1995 when the Yankees lost in the first round of the playoffs to the Seattle Mariners. Buck Shoalter gets let go and the Yankees go out and hire Joe Tory. Now, at the time, Joe Tori had never won a playoff game. It was called Clueless Show, the back page, I believe, at the Daily News at the time. It was a widely panned hire. People didn’t think it was going to work. He was a guy who coached three teams in his past like Mike Brown has. He was 55 years old like like Mike Brown is. And he was a guy that was not seen as somebody who was going to get the Yankees anywhere with an Imperious owner in George Steinbrunner, just like James Dolan now, right? What happened? They went to the playoffs the next 12 years in a row. They won four World Series. Totally transformed the franchise. Totally transformed the sport of baseball. I’m not saying I’m not saying the Knicks are going to go on a dynastic streak here. However, if you are a Nick fan, that’s the kind of thing you are hoping for. And look, to Allen’s point and to and frankly to Tony’s point, I think he nailed it in a lot of ways. Mike Brown was clearly the best option for this team. He has coached in Los Angeles. He has coached Kobe Bryant. He has coached Michael Jordan. He’s coached LeBron James. He’s been around the Spurs. He’s been around the Dynastic Warriors team. he is going to understand the pressure that comes with being in New York and the pressure that comes with being in this job where there is nothing short of a finals that’s going to be acceptable. To Allen’s point, the Knicks just made the conference finals for the first time in 25 years and fired their coach. If you do that, you’re not going to be able to say, “Oh, well, we got it the second round. First year growing pains, you know, we can get better next year.” No. The only way this is going to work for the Knicks, for their fans, for the expectations they have is for the Knicks to be in the NBA Finals next year. If they win it at that point, we’ll see. But that’s what people are expecting and that’s what Mike Brown has to deliver. And this is a guy who’s experienced. He’s won big in the playoffs. He’s made the finals before and there wasn’t a better option available after they struck out on all these coaches who were employed by other teams.
Yeah, this is the best of a bad situation right now. I think w with Mike Brown. I think, you know, it felt like it was going to be impossible to win the press conference and win the announcement once you get rid of somebody uh like Tibs. But the X’s and O’s are there. The guy has coached uh tremendous offenses with that Sacramento Kings. he can come up with some inventive ways to even expand that offense even more. He was the architect behind a lot of that Warriors defense and his teams that he’s coached uh have improved defensively, which we all know that the Knicks need. Uh but really what’s most important is the high pressure stuff. We’ve talked about the fact that whoever comes in here, it’s championships, finals are bust at the very least, and there’s expectation that there’s got to be a championship here. Mike Brown has been in all of these high intense situations. coach LeBron James when it was LeBron James as carrying this team and you got to get to the finals and win the championships. He was there with the Lakers when it was Kobe Nash and Howard and he had to do that. Of course, it was like he lasted a week and a half when all that happened, but that’s that was just a mess there. He also, let’s not forget the fact that when Kerr went out, when it was that first KD gear, he was coaching that Warriors team in the playoffs and they were 12 and0 under him as a coach. That is a high pressure situation. He is used to this. Now, there probably is no higher pressure than Madison Square Garden and the Knicks saying, “You have to win us a championship for the first time in a million years.” But if if there’s anybody built for that, it is Mike Brown. And he, you know, with combine that with what he can do with that team, I think this is the best of all of the all of the things we’ve looked at for the Knicks, this is the best scenario.
Tony’s point about amateurish management. If the Knicks lose in the first or second round of the playoffs, they’re going to be seen as having amateurish management. If they make the finals, this is going to be remembered as a and hailed as a move that transformed the Knicks into a finals team. That’s really all it comes down to.
The problem is if it’s finals or bust and you have a coach that is not as tied to the management as the previous coach, even though this coach and Mike Brown is more accomplished than the previous coach, I’m nervous on Mike Brown’s behalf that there’s going to be a quick hook and that’s unfair preemptively to him. But obviously, he signed up.
Well, there was no there was no coach that was going to come in this situation where if you don’t make the finals this year where everything was going to be fine. There’s no p there’s no patience in New York. disagree with that because if they were going to give compensation to another team to get their coach, they’re on the hook for longer than a year. In theory, in theory, if they were to get Jason Kidd and give up something to get him,
the pressure would be the same though and the expectations would be the same and that the failure to get there would still be seen in the same manner. Giannis should want to stay in Milwaukee.
He has been, this has been a story for a number of years. And for him to want to stay, the only reason he owes them nothing at all. He won them a championship. What he wants now is the ability to continue to win them. And when you look at the East, the ability should be there, but it’s not because of the Damen Lillard injury more than anything else. But let’s go before the injury. How is it working? Not great. They made that trade. It did not work out as well as everybody thought it would pairing those two stars together. So, at this point, Giannis needs to come to that point just like almost Dame Lillard had to come to that point when he was in Portland to say, “I’ve had enough time here. I want to go somewhere else.” because it sounds like that’s what he wants. But like a lot of these players, they whisper it, but they’ll never actually come out and say it. Someone has got to have the courage to come out and say, “You know what? I’ve done enough here. I want to go somewhere else.” That’s where LeBron James doesn’t get enough credit. When he was in Cleveland all those years, he left over for Miami. Everybody’s burning jerseys. What do you blame him for? He gave you all the time he could. He moved on. He had control. Giannis has to do that next. If he really wants out, say it because this would be the time to do it. I I I am baffled that we’re at this point still having this conversation because I cannot believe that Milwaukee would do what they just did.
Take on that cap, that money for Dame Lillard, bring in Miles Turner as their last ditch effort without having Giannis saying, “I am all in if this is what we do.” The fact that they are still, if they get this, this is sort of an organizational beyond malpractice. This is like a nuke to your own organization if you have not had Leianis already sign in on this and say if we buy out Dame stretch Dame bring in Miles Turner you’re in right there should have been a ticker tape parade as soon as they made that move where Yiannis is saying I’m here I’m in Milwaukee I’m bought in if you’re doing this and you’re still waiting on him to commit this is a disaster that’s not waiting to happen it has already happened because you are now looking at a situation if Giannis does move you’re paying for Dame Lillard to go win a championship somewhere where else and you have Miles Turner on your team, you have no draft capital or whatever you may try to get back from Giannis. This is something that could doom your franchise for the next half decade if you have not already said Giannis, you’re in if we do this right and he says yes.
Tim, desperate teams do desperate desperate things and I would say this is a Milwaukee Bucks team that is a desperate team because they’re trying to keep the greatest player that’s ever played for their franchise. Kareem Abdul Jabbar was a better overall player who only played there a few years though before he went to the Lakers. Jiannis Koopo has been more than a decade. He brought this team a championship after 50 years. He’s been an incredible player there for them. Won multiple MVPs. Has been awesome. But at this point, you look at where the Bucks are. They’re not good enough to contend. They haven’t been good enough to contend the last couple years. It’s why they lost in the first round of the playoffs each of the last three years. David, to your point about the Bucks being doomed if he doesn’t want if he doesn’t on board with this move, the Bucks were already doomed going forward. They’ve traded all their draft picks in future years. Yes, they have this dead cap hit on their books, but they’re not any going to be any worse situation if Giannis comes to them in a month and says, “I want to be traded.” than he would have if they had if he had done it two months ago and they didn’t have this dead cap hit on their books. It would look bad. It would be a problem, but they could still turn around and trade Miles Turner. They can trade Jonakoupo for a bunch of stuff and then they could just reset their roster going forward and they’re in Milwaukee. The cap space is going to be less of an issue. The real question is what does Janet Koopo want? And to this point in his career, what he has wanted is to be in Milwaukee. If Giannis wanted to leave Milwaukee, he’s had chances the last three years to go other places. They got embarrassed in the first round two years ago. He got hurt and they lost last year. Then this past season, Dane gets hurt. They lose in five games to Indiana. But that series didn’t look like it was going to be competitive anyway. They’re not a team that’s that good. They don’t have young pieces.
How How about this, Tim? If you’re the Bucks at this point looking at your roster and your situation that you guys are talking about where they are when it comes to personnel, draft picks and all those things and he’s getting to now the age where he’s now what 32, right? He’ll be 32 during the season. It’s like when do you get to a point where you look at him as a bigger asset than anything else because this story hasn’t gone away and he hasn’t said publicly committing to wanting to be there for the rest of his career and I don’t want to go putting that narrative away. It stays there every year. So when do you get to a point to say I could we could trade this guy
never
and reset the franchise and get ourselves back on track. You can get a boatload for him if you decided if you’re not going to commit we aren’t either. Loyalty one way is stupidity.
So I’ll say this. I was at the NBA finals and before game two of the NBA finals, Don Nelson won the NBA Coach Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award, the Chuck Daily Award. And he talked about the loyalty that you owe to a star player when he’s on your team. He talked about Dirk Nitzky and Dirk Nitzky spending his entire career with the Dallas Mavericks and that he believes if you have a player like Dirk Nitzky or like Luca Donic, this was his way of taking shots at the Mavericks, that if you have a player like that, you owe it to them to do whatever you can for them to win as long as they’re on your team. Giannis Tennakoupo, if he wants to play on the Milwaukee Bucks for his whole career, should play on the Milwaukee Bucks for his whole career. He would have an unbelievable career then. He’d be looked at like Dirk Nitzky, like Kobe Bryant, like Tim Duncan, like Steph Curry. The guy’s won a title. He doesn’t have, as you said before, he has nothing to apologize for. He has nothing he needs to do. If he wants to be a buck, God bless him. Have him play his career there. Have him do everything they can to win because it took 50 years for the Milwaukee Bucks to get another player like Giannis Denno. They had Kim Abdul Jabbar in the 70s, they won a title. They went decades while having good teams, never coming that close to winning a title. Then they get a top 2025 player again and they win a title again. They probably, if you just look at the odds, are never going to have a player like Jonathan Koopo in Milwaukee ever again. So, if he wants to spend his whole career with the Bucks, God bless him. Let him do it. Obviously, if you want to look at it from a cold-hearted reality standpoint, if you’re the Bucks, hey, we should blow it up. We should get draft picks for him. We should start over. Fine. You could say that. But that’s not what sports are. And if you tell Bucks fans, hey, Jianniso is going to spend 20 years playing for the Bucks and we get to watch him play for an entire generation, I guarantee you every Bucks fan would take that and be happy with it and have no problem.
Why do we keep hearing about him not being happy? Yeah. Like if you if there’s if there’s all this kumbaya and this loyalty and you’ve been here, then why aren’t having y’all sat then? Why didn’t y’all sit down 3 weeks ago and say, “What is our plan? Why didn’t y’all sit down and say why do we assume they haven’t?”
Well, that because we’re still having this conversation.
Who said otherwise? But who said otherwise?
Because we have a lot of conversations.
Well, because we had a whole We had a whole conversation about LeBron James leaving Los Angeles who just picked up his player option three days ago. We’d love to have conversations. But I’m just saying but but the the reason we’re still having this conversation is because after this move or before this move Giannis has not committed to this team. We are still having this conversation because Giannis put up a team. We’re having this conversation because we like to talk about whether Yiannis Tennakoupo is going to get traded. Giannis is under contract. He doesn’t have to come out and wave a flag and say, “Hey, Miles Turner is here. This is great.” Like he doesn’t have to do that. You usually get Wait a minute. You usually the star player reacts to when you spend $100 million or more on a free agent. [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause]

On First Take, Evan Cohen, David Dennis Jr., Alan Hahn, Tim Bontemps react to Tony Kornheiser’s comments on the New York Knicks hiring Mike Brown as their next head coach and debate whether Giannis Antetokounmpo should want to remain with the Milwaukee Bucks following their latest moves.

0:00 Tony Kornheiser’s comments on the Knicks hiring Brown
4:00 David Dennis Jr. defends the Knicks’ new coaching hire
6:00 Should Giannis want to stay after the Bucks’ latest moves?
10:00 The Bucks should look at Giannis as an asset – Alan Hahn
#espn #nba #firsttake

☑️ Subscribe to ESPN+: https://plus.espn.com/
📱 Get the ESPN App: http://www.espn.com/espn/apps/espn
🏀 Subscribe to NBA on ESPN on YouTube: http://bit.ly/2yxs3Og
☑️ Subscribe to ESPN on YouTube: http://es.pn/SUBSCRIBEtoYOUTUBE
☑️ Watch ESPN on YouTube TV: http://es.pn/YouTubeTV

#ESPN #NBA