Mike Brown gives credit where credit is due.
Speaking with reporters on Tuesday ahead of the Kings’ preseason opener against the Golden State Warriors, coach Brown revealed the person behind one of his team’s primary focuses over training camp: improving offensive rebounding.
And no, the idea, which has been a priority for Brown and Co. since their arrival in 2022, didn’t come from within his coaching staff.
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It came from Brown’s boss, Kings general manager and president of basketball operations, Monte McNair.
“The reason why it started when I first got here, and I say this to everybody: when you lead or you're the “head coach,” it’s best when you give people ownership around you to make them feel a part of the process,” Brown told reporters.
“I don’t care if the idea comes from somebody in our video room, somebody on the coaching staff, Mel, my executive assistant. If she’s got a great idea, let’s roll with it.
“In this case, when it came to offensive rebounding, it was Monte (McNair.) He’s a huge analytics guy and he came to us during our coaches retreat in Tahoe my first year.”
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Brown said he originally pushed back on McNair’s idea, but the general manager persisted that the method could generate favorable outcomes for the Kings on both ends of the floor.
Brown, who also entertained the strategy during his time as the coach of the Nigerian national team in 2021, listened and, ultimately, never looked back.
“(Monte McNair) threw it out there, and I said, ‘Well, it’s going to kill us in transition defense, and I kept trying to ways to fight it, and he kept sticking to his guns and saying he believed in it,” Brown added. “So, I said, ‘Okay, let’s try it.’ And we tried it. I liked it, so we’re trying to increase it.”
Last season, the Kings ranked 18th in the league in offensive rebounding, averaging 10.8 per game. It was an improvement from the 9.5 offensive rebounds Sacramento averaged throughout the 2022-23 regular season.
Now, heading into his third season at the helm of a talent-laden Sacramento roster, Brown hopes his players can take crashing the offensive glass to another level during the 2024-25 NBA season.
“We started emphasizing it when we got here, but we’re trying to take it to another level this year,” Brown concluded.