The End of the Mike Brown Era

You’ll have to forgive me this morning, as I am overcome with thoughts and feelings of redemption, finality, closure, and things coming full circle in the wake of last night’s series finale of Lost. How fitting, then, that when I woke up this morning the first thing I saw on my phone was a message that Mike Brown had been fired. I’ll spare you the parallels I can make between the Lost series finale and Mike Brown’s reign as head coach in Cleveland, but I’ll just say this morning I feel that even though there’s unfinished business with this franchise, there’s a certain closure to be found with the end of the Mike Brown era. After all, not all endings are happy ones.

It’s no secret I was a longtime Mike Brown defender. Even to this very day I feel that his positives outweigh his limitations overall as a head coach. But his time had come, and this is 100% the right move to make and I completely stand behind this decision.

After 2 years of turmoil and extremely mediocre basketball (at best) under Paul Silas, it was a bit of a shock when new owner Dan Gilbert hired Mike Brown. Coach Brown was young, unproven, and had few years of experience even as an assistant coach to go with his 0 years experience as a head coach at any level of basketball. But none of that stopped him from making an immediate improvement in on court play in Cleveland, and in the end he left an indelible stamp on this franchise as a whole. He gave the Cavaliers an identity. For better or worse, it was an identity of tough defense, a system of complex rotations and helping, and an offense that would run through the hands of team’s biggest superstar.

For Mike Brown, though, he seemed to actually coach better with less than with more. When he had fewer quality players, he did a much better job of making adjustments and finding ways to beat better opponents. When Gilbert and Ferry gave Brown more and more toys to play with over the last couple seasons, Brown seemed to get more and more overwhelmed by it and the team slowly fractured and lost it’s identity. All season long we saw the defense get worse and worse, and by the time the playoffs came around, the team seemed to have completely tune Mike Brown out. He had lost the locker room, and this time there was no coming back from it. And that’s why it was time for him to go.

The actual literal timing of the firing is a bit unfortunate for the Cavaliers. It’s going to leave them coach-less for a very long time as it seems highly unlikely that they will be able to hire a quality coach without any knowledge of LeBron James’ intentions. In fact, I would argue that not only should coaches be wary of coming to Cleveland without that knowledge, but so too should the Cavaliers wait because the type of coach this team needs will vary greatly depending on what LeBron chooses to do.

Brian Windhorst has compiled an impressive list of potential coaches including names like Phil Jackson, Tom Izzo, Coach K, Byron Scott, and John Calipari. None of those coaches are coming to Cleveland without LeBron James here. Without LeBron, you have to start looking at the bottom of the list, names like Lawrence Frank, Sam Mitchell, Terry Porter, Tom Thibodeau, Dan Majerle, and Bill Laimbeer.

We’ll open up the comments for you to share your thoughts with us on who you’d like to see the next Cavaliers coach be. If I’m going to toss a guy’s hat in the ring to be the next coach, without knowing LeBron’s future, I’m going to go with Bill Laimbeer. I know he’s flaky when it comes to commitment and doesn’t necessarily handle adversity well, but he showed a tactical awareness in his role as coach and GM of the Detroit Shock in the WNBA. He is a former player who can command respect from today’s players in a way Mike Brown, who never played basketball, could never do. He’s also a guy who will not be afraid to stand up to LeBron. He had no problem burning bridges with Swin Cash and was still able to win without her. The Cavaliers need a coach who LeBron can both respect and occasionally be put in his place a bit by. If Laimbeer’s personality as a head coach is anything like his personality as a player, that shouldn’t be a problem for him.

Whoever the next coach may be, Mike Brown’s era has come to a close. On a personal level, I hope he is able to find another head coaching job soon and I hope he can find his redemption and prove he can coach without using LeBron James as a crutch. I suspect he might even excel on a team where he doesn’t have a superstar that he feels the need to handle with kid gloves. And who knows, maybe his offense will even look better somewhere where he doesn’t have a guy like LeBron who insists on constantly holding on to the ball and dribbling out the shot clock on most possessions. Perhaps the way the Orlando Magic are being systematically dismantled by the Boston Celtics will help preserve Mike Brown’s image around the league, but it won’t change the ultimate storyline of his time in Cleveland. Only time will tell how Coach Brown’s story will end.

For the Cavaliers, the franchise is at a crossroad and this is just another important reminder of how much turmoil the franchise is in right now. The team had to make this change, and they had to fire Mike Brown before today to save from paying him his full guaranteed salary. But as a result, the franchise remains in a persistent state of limbo. History does not shine brightly on teams who lose coaches after 60 win seasons, but history has never witnessed circumstances quite like this offseason. That Mike Brown was fired after the way the season came crashing down isn’t surprising. What would be surprising, though, would be if the Cavaliers search for a new coach was completed any time soon. It’s going to be a long summer in Cleveland.