Skip to footer

NBA LA Lakers: Coach Mike Brown fired after dismal start to season

After a 1-4 start to the season, Los Angeles Lakers coach Mike Brown has been fired, the National Basketball Association team said on Friday.

|
Lucy Nicholson/Reuters/File
Los Angeles Lakers coach Mike Brown reacts during Game 1 of their first round NBA Western Conference basketball playoff game against the Denver Nuggets in Los Angeles, Calif., in this April 29 file photo.
  • By Reuters

Los Angeles Lakers coach Mike Brown has been fired after a 1-4 start to the season, the National Basketball Association (NBA) team said on Friday.

Assistant coach Bernie Bickerstaff will take over as interim head coach for Friday's game against the Golden State Warriors and a search for a new head coach will begin immediately, general manager Mitch Kupchak said.

"This was a difficult and painful decision to make," Kupchak said in a statement posted on the team's website.

"Mike was very hard-working and dedicated, but we felt it was in the best interest of the team to make a change at this time. We appreciate Mike's efforts and contributions and wish him and his family the best of luck."

The disappointing start by the Lakers, who had the worst record in the Western Conference, followed an off-season in which the NBA team added All-Star center Dwight Howard and point guard Steve Nash, a two-time league Most Valuable Player, to their lineup.

Brown, who previously coached the Cleveland Cavaliers and LeBron James, was in the second year of a four-year, $18 million deal, of which the final year was not fully guaranteed.

Last season, the Lakers won the Pacific Division with a 41-25 and reached the conference semi-finals before falling to eventual conference champions Oklahoma City Thunder in five games.

The Lakers, hobbled by injuries in the early season, had struggled under a new offensive system installed by Brown. Howard is still recovering his form after back surgery that ended his 2011-12 season, while Nash and fellow-guard Kobe Bryant have been slowed by nagging injuries.

The poor start was particularly hard to swallow for the Lakers, who carried the NBA's largest payroll at just over $100 million.

The move came less than 48 hours after Lakers owner Jim Buss gave Brown a vote of confidence.

Reporting by Larry Fine in New York.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to NBA LA Lakers: Coach Mike Brown fired after dismal start to season
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Latest-News-Wires/2012/1109/NBA-LA-Lakers-Coach-Mike-Brown-fired-after-dismal-start-to-season
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe