following the fifth-year coach\u2019s firing<\/a> \u2014 can steer the team to success, Barnes responded with a firm \u201cf\u2013k no.\u201d<\/p>\nMike Brown was hired to succeed Tom Thibodeau over the summer. Charles Wenzelberg \/ New York Post<\/p>\n
\u201cMike\u2019s a great person, to me he\u2019s not a leader of men,\u201d the 45-year-old Barnes began. \u201cI couldn\u2019t imagine it now because these kids are making so much money. You have to have the respect of them. I think Mike is such a nice guy, that\u2019s what f\u2013ked Mike up. Mike wants to be cool with everyone instead of putting his foot down like, \u2018This is my team. This is what\u2019s going on.’\u201d<\/p>\n
Brown helmed the Los Angeles Lakers from 2011-2013 following a successful stretch with the Cleveland Cavaliers, which was headlined by a trip to the NBA Finals in 2007.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Matt Barnes played one season under Mike Brown with the Los Angeles Lakers in 2011-12. Getty Images<\/p>\n
Barnes, who inked a two-year deal with the Lakers in 2010, played his final season in L.A. under Brown.<\/p>\n
Despite the team going 41-25 during a lockout-shortened campaign, the 14-year NBA vet didn\u2019t look back on that season with much affection.<\/p>\n
Matt Barnes said Mike Brown was \u201ctoo nice\u201d to lead the New York Knicks to a championship. YouTube \/ STRAIGHT GAME PODCAST<\/p>\n
\u201cKobe [Bryant] and Ron Artest, they walked all over that motherf\u2014ker,\u201d he said. \u201cThey used to sub themselves in and out of the game, and I\u2019m just like \u2018Oh, s\u2013t.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Brown was fired just five games into the following season after a 1-4 start with the newly formed trio of Bryant, Steve Nash and Dwight Howard.<\/p>\n
New York Knicks head coach Mike Brown reacts on the sideline in the second half at Madison Square Garden in New York, Friday, Oct.17. JASON SZENES\/ NY POST<\/p>\n
After his time in Los Angeles, Brown joined the Golden State Warriors in 2016 as an assistant coach under Steve Kerr, winning three championships.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Barnes, who won one of those rings with Golden State in 2016-17, explained that Brown \u201clearned a lot\u201d from Kerr, lessons that helped him end the Sacramento Kings\u2019 historic 16-year playoff drought in his first season at the helm in 2022-23.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
But Brown lost the locker room quickly thereafter and was relieved midway through the 2024-25 campaign.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Barnes stressed that the coach is much better off as a \u201csecond chair.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNow you\u2019re going to a New York media market that\u2019s trying to eat you up, every mistake,\u201d he said. \u201cMike is a good guy, I just don\u2019t think the situation is going to work because he\u2019s too nice for his own good.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Brown aims to push the Knicks past the finish line after a crushing exit in the Eastern Conference Finals earlier this year. If he can pull it off, he\u2019ll have some receipts to bring up at the end of the season.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Knicks open the season on Wednesday night, hosting the Cleveland Cavaliers at Madison Square Garden.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Not everyone is a believer in the Mike Brown era. During a recent appearance on the \u201cStraight Game…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":241491,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[52569,6043,355,361,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-241490","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-matt-barnes","9":"tag-mike-brown","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-new-york-knicks","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241490","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=241490"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241490\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/241491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=241490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=241490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=241490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}