Early years: 1969–1983 Brown's first head coaching job was at
Davidson College in North Carolina in 1969. He resigned after less than two months, having never fielded a team or coached a game. He did not discuss the reasons for his resignation, saying only that "it was in the best interests of Davidson and myself". He has later stated that it was a matter of the program reneging on promises made. In the summer of 1972, with a sore hip that was plaguing his play with Denver (he later had it replaced), Brown was offered to coach the
Carolina Cougars by team owner
Tedd Munchak. Despite favoring college coaching over the pros, he elected to take the "great opportunity" and coach for $30,000. He then hired his friend and ex-teammate
Doug Moe as an assistant coach. Using a "run-and-jump defense" that emphasized quickness and bench depth that could share minutes (at one point, Brown had four guards he had play equal time), the Cougars won 57 games in his first year;
Billy Cunningham, who lept from the NBA, won league MVP that year. The passing-game offense emphasized moving the ball quickly rather than isolation. After the second season, Brown left the team. Brown left to coach the
Denver Nuggets in 1974. He soon built a rapport with the team, and in their first season, they scored 118.7 points per game and won the Western Division for the first time in five years with a 65–19 record. They made it to the Division Finals but lost in a seven-game series to the Indiana Pacers. The Nuggets, now packed in a league that went from nine teams to just seven by its end, won the most games with a record of 60–24. They defeated the Kentucky Colonels in a tight seven-game series reach their first and only ABA Finals. The Nuggets lost three of the first four games before winning Game 5 and leading in the third quarter of Game 6 before the Nets rallied back to win the game and the series. As it turned out, it was the final game of the
American Basketball Association and the last time the Nuggets reached a league final until 2023. Despite the high fee to join the NBA and a new placement in the Midwest Division, the Nuggets went 50–32 and won the division title before losing to the eventual NBA champion
Portland Trail Blazers in the First Round in six games. In the next season, they won 48 games for another division title and managed to win their first playoff series to get to the Conference Finals against the
Seattle SuperSonics, where the Nuggets were beaten by the Sonics in six games. In the middle of the 1978–79 season, Brown clashed with general manager
Carl Scheer over the latter's refusal to trade
Dan Issel and elected on February 2, 1979, to resign under apparent strain of a near emotional collapse. He then moved on to coach for
UCLA (1979–1981), leading his freshman-dominated
1979–80 team to the
NCAA title game before falling to
Louisville, 59–54. However, that appearance was later vacated by the NCAA after two UCLA players were found to be ineligible—one of the few times a Final Four squad has had its record vacated. On March 17, 1981, Brown left UCLA to become head coach of the
New Jersey Nets, which reportedly offered him a salary of over $170,000 a year that dwarfed what he made at UCLA. The team won 44 games in his first season and in their second season they were 47–39 before he was approached about the possibility of taking the job at the University of Kansas, who fired their coach after the end of the 1982–83 season. On April 6, 1983, with an offer to coach Kansas and advised by Nets owner
Joe Taub that it would be best to leave now rather than at the end of the season, Brown resigned from the Nets and became coach at Kansas.
University of Kansas: 1983–1988 Brown began his tenure at the
University of Kansas (1983–1988), replacing the fired
Ted Owens, who had overseen back-to-back losing seasons in 1981–82 and 1982–83. Brown's impact was felt almost immediately, as the 1983–84 Jayhawks put together a 22–10 record, finished in second place in that year's
Big 8 standings, upset
Oklahoma to win the 1984 Big 8 Tournament, and advanced to the
1984 NCAA Tournament's Round of 32 before losing to
Wake Forest. In the meantime Brown signed the most coveted high school player in the country,
Danny Manning, to play for KU after signing his father,
Ed Manning, to a position as an assistant coach. Perhaps Brown's finest team at Kansas was the
1985–86 team. This squad put together a 35–4 record, the first 30-win season in KU history. They won the Big 8 regular season title for the first time since 1978, defeated
Iowa State to win the 1986 Big 8 Tournament, and advanced to the
1986 Final Four before losing to
Duke in the semifinals. In the
1987–88 season, Kansas got off to a mediocre 12–8 start, including 1–4 in the Big 8, and the end of the Jayhawks' 55-game homecourt winning streak in
Allen Fieldhouse. Ultimately, behind the high-scoring of
Danny Manning, KU rallied to win nine of their next twelve games to finish third place in the Big 8 and qualify for the
1988 NCAA tournament as a 6-seed in the Midwest Regional. Kansas then proceeded to defeat 11th-seed Xavier, 14th-seed Murray State, and 7th-seed Vanderbilt before meeting rival
Kansas State, which had beaten KU twice in three meetings that year. KU upset the 4th-seeded Wildcats 71–58 in the Elite Eight to reach the Final Four in Kansas City's
Kemper Arena. Once there, Kansas upset the East Region's #2 seed
Duke, 66–59, avenging an overtime loss at home to the Blue Devils earlier in the season. Two nights later, the Jayhawks, who became known as "Danny and the Miracles", upset the Southeast Region's #1-seed and fellow Big 8 rival
Oklahoma, 83–79, to avenge a regular-season sweep by the Sooners and win the 1988 NCAA championship. Manning, who scored 31 points and grabbed 18 rebounds in the final, was named Most Outstanding Player of the Tournament. Kansas concluded the year 27–11; the 11 losses remain a record for most losses by an NCAA champion to this day. Two months later, Brown opted to return to professional coaching, departing KU for the
San Antonio Spurs. In his five seasons at Kansas, Brown had one Big 8 regular season title, two Big 8 postseason titles, five NCAA Tournament appearances, three Sweet 16 appearances, two trips to the Final Four, and one national title. As a collegiate coach, he had a cumulative coaching record of 177–61 (.744) in seven seasons, including a 135–44 (.754) record at Kansas. His efforts led to him being named "Coach of the Year" for the NCAA in 1988 and "Coach of the Year" for the
Big Eight Conference in 1986. After Brown left Kansas to return to the NBA, NCAA sanctions were levied against Kansas in the 1988–89 season as a result of multiple recruiting violations; potential transfer
Vincent Askew was provided with money to leave his campus to visit his ill grandmother, and the "casual administration of a summer jobs program" that was linked to other "violations of NCAA regulations." No players on any of Brown's teams were named in the report, and Askew did not transfer to Kansas. The Jayhawks were given three years' probation and banned from the 1989 NCAA Tournament–to date, the only time a defending champion has been barred from defending its title. They were also docked one scholarship for the 1989–90 season, and barred from paid visits during the 1989 calendar year. As harsh as these sanctions were, the infractions committee seriously considered imposing a "
death penalty" on Kansas, which would have resulted in canceling the entire 1988–89 season. Indeed, enforcement director David Berst said that Kansas was "on the bubble" for a death penalty. However, the committee opted against imposing a death penalty because Askew was the only player who received impermissible benefits, and because Brown had returned to the NBA by then. With Brown at the helm, the Spurs won two consecutive Midwest Division titles. In his second season, the Spurs, led by
David Robinson–who finally joined the Spurs after serving his two-year naval commitment–vaulted from the worst record in franchise history to the best. Brown remained with the Spurs until he was fired on January 21, 1992. He described his tenure later as a rocky one in his press conference for his next coaching position, saying "In San Antonio, we won 21 games my first year, and that never satisfied our owner (referring to
Red McCombs). From Day 1, I felt he felt he made a terrible mistake in hiring me, and no matter what we did after that I always felt that was the case...I have a commitment from the Clippers. I think they made a statement, and I think that statement will be made to the players. I don't know if our players in San Antonio ever felt that I was in control of the basketball end."
Los Angeles Clippers: 1992–1993 On February 7, 1992, Brown was hired to coach the Los Angeles Clippers. He took a sub-.500 team in 1992 and guided them to their first winning season since the franchise moved to Los Angeles and their first playoff berth since they were the
Buffalo Braves in 1976. He followed that up the next season with another playoff appearance in 1993. Brown resigned his position on May 21, 1993. The Clippers claimed to be surprised by the move, as he left with two years remaining on a contract that paid him $750,000 a year while on vacation in May. Brown claimed he resigned in February, which they accepted, although he stated that they tried to later offer him a contract for life (with a request from owner
Donald Sterling himself) that they did not follow up on. He was the first fulltime Clippers coach to finish with a
winning record in his tenure and the only one until
Vinny Del Negro twenty years later.
Indiana Pacers: 1993–1997 Brown was hired by the Indiana Pacers in June 1993. Prior to Brown being their coach, the Pacers had never won a postseason series since joining the NBA. He proceeded to lead them to the conference finals on two occasions. On December 13, 1996, he won his 594th game as an NBA coach with a 97–94 victory over the
Boston Celtics. Combined with his wins in the NCAA and the ABA, it was his 1,000th combined win as a head coach. He resigned his position on April 30, 1997, citing his frustration with the team's inability to advance past the conference finals, which he felt was his responsibility. In four seasons, he had gone 190–138.
Philadelphia 76ers: 1997–2003 Brown was hired as head coach of the Philadelphia 76ers in 1997. The 76ers had lost 60 games prior to Brown's arrival, but they were brightened by the emergence of
Allen Iverson, who won Rookie of the Year. The 1997–98 season was the only one under Brown that the 76ers did not reach the postseason, as they went 31–51. In the strike-shortened 1998–99 season, they finished 6th in the Eastern Conference to reach the postseason for the first time since 1991. They advanced to the Semifinals after a first-round win, but they lost to the Indiana Pacers in a four-game sweep. The following year was essentially a repeat as they lost again to the Pacers in the Semifinals. The 2000–01 season, however, would be different. Bolstered by the efforts of Iverson, who led the league in scoring with 31.1 points per game and the defensive dominance of
Dikembe Mutombo, the team rocketed their way to 56 wins, the first 50-win season since the 1989–90 team. They dispatched the Pacers in four games but had to deal with tough opponents in the Toronto Raptors and the Milwaukee Bucks in the Semifinals and Conference finals, respectively. Philadelphia won each of those series in seven games. They faced the defending champion
Los Angeles Lakers in the
2001 NBA Finals, who had not lost any of their postseason games that year. The Sixers gave them trouble in Game 1 of the series, which saw them pull off an overtime win 107–101 with Iverson scoring 48 points. As it turned out, it would be the only highlight of the Finals for the Sixers, who lost the next four games to lose the series. After the season, Brown was named Coach of the Year. The following year saw the team plagued by injury while making the playoffs as a 6 seed. They lost to the Boston Celtics in five games. The next year, they went 48-34 and made it in as a 4 seed. They beat the New Orleans Hornets in the first round before the Detroit Pistons ended their season with a six-game victory. Brown resigned his post in 2003. Brown also served as Director of Basketball Operations in Philadelphia. In 2005,
Allen Iverson, who frequently clashed with Brown when he played for him in Philadelphia, said that he was without a doubt "the best coach in the world".
Detroit Pistons and U.S. National Team: 2003–2005 Brown was hired to replace
Rick Carlisle to coach the
Detroit Pistons. Brown won his first (and ultimately only) NBA championship during his first year with the
Detroit Pistons in 2004, defeating the
Los Angeles Lakers four games to one in the
2004 NBA Finals. By doing so, Brown became the first, and so far only, coach to lead teams to both NCAA and NBA titles. Brown is also the only NBA coach to take two teams (76ers and Pistons) to the NBA Finals against the same opponent (
Los Angeles Lakers in 2001 and 2004), lose the first time, and win the second. Brown was chosen as the head coach for the
United States men's basketball team at the
2004 Summer Olympics. That team won the bronze medal at the Olympics; it was the first U.S. men's basketball team to fail to win gold at a Summer Olympics since NBA players began playing on the U.S. men's team in 1992. In May 2005, rumors surfaced that Brown would become the
Cleveland Cavaliers' team president as soon as the
Detroit Pistons finished their
postseason. At any rate, the Pistons played the
San Antonio Spurs to seven games in the
2005 NBA Finals. The Pistons were up two points with 9.4 seconds to play in game 5 and had to defend an inbound play.
Rasheed Wallace was assigned to guard
Robert Horry. On the play, Wallace trapped
Manu Ginobili, who passed it away to Horry, who found time to shoot the game-winning three for the Spurs.
Chauncey Billups (the Finals MVP from the previous year), who was not in the game for the final play, stated later that Brown "just kind of choked" in that game. On July 19, 2005, the Pistons, displeased with Brown's public flirtations with other teams—bought out the remaining years of Brown's contract, allowing him to sign with another team. A week later, on July 28, 2005, Brown became the head coach of the
New York Knicks, with a 5-year contract reportedly worth between US$50 million and $60 million, making him the highest-paid coach in NBA history.
New York Knicks: 2005–2006 On January 13, 2006, the Knicks beat the
Atlanta Hawks to give Brown his 1,000th win in the NBA, making him only the fourth coach to do so (at the time, the other three were
Lenny Wilkens,
Don Nelson, and
Pat Riley; coincidentally, all three had previously served as
coach of the Knicks at some point in their careers. Brown's tenure as Knicks head coach lasted one season. The Knicks fired him on June 23, 2006, after he led the team to a 23–59 record. Brown's season with the Knicks was marred by public feuds with his own players, most notably point guard
Stephon Marbury. After the firing, the Knicks declined to pay the remaining sum (more than $40 million) under Brown's contract on the grounds that he had been terminated for cause. Before the contract dispute was to be heard by NBA Commissioner David Stern, Brown reached an agreement with the Knicks wherein the team agreed to pay him $18.5 million.
Philadelphia 76ers front office: 2007–2008 In January 2007, Brown became Executive Vice President of the Philadelphia 76ers.
Charlotte Bobcats: 2008–2010 On April 29, 2008, Brown signed to become the head coach of the
Charlotte Bobcats – his ninth NBA coaching job. He managed to keep the relatively young team in playoff contention. The following season, Brown guided the Bobcats to the franchise's first ever playoff appearance. Charlotte was the eighth team he had led to the postseason, an NBA record. On December 22, 2010, Brown parted ways with the Bobcats after the team started the 2010–2011 season with a record of 9–19. His departure was officially characterized as a resignation, but other sources reported that Brown was fired. Assistant coach
Jeff Capel II told
The Charlotte Observer that the entire coaching staff had been fired.
Southern Methodist University: 2012–2016 On April 17, 2012,
ESPN reported that Brown was to be named the new head coach of the
SMU Mustangs, replacing
Matt Doherty, who had been fired from SMU earlier in March.
Tim Jankovich, the head coach of
Illinois State, was hired as the coach-in-waiting. After a rebuilding season in 2012–2013 (15–17), Brown brought SMU into the national conversation the following year, as the school made its first appearance in The Associated Press Top 25 rankings since 1985. SMU went on to be the overall number one seed in the
National Invitational Tournament, losing in the final game of the tournament to
Minnesota, and finished the year with a record of 27–10. In the 2014–2015 season, SMU won the American Athletic Conference tournament and secured its first NCAA Tournament appearance since 1993. On September 29, 2015, Brown was suspended by the NCAA for 30% of the Mustangs' games in the upcoming 2015–2016 season, and the team was banned from 2016 post-season play, placed on probation for three years, and lost nine scholarships over a three-year period. The NCAA found that Brown failed to report violations when a former administrative assistant committed academic fraud on behalf of a student-athlete and he initially lied to enforcement staff about his knowledge of the potential violations. On July 8, 2016, Brown announced his resignation as head basketball coach.
Auxilium Torino: 2018 On June 12, 2018, Brown accepted the proposal of
Auxilium Torino to become the new head coach of the Italian basketball club of the
Lega Basket Serie A (LBA). On June 17, he officially became new head coach of Torino. He was fired midseason on December 27 with the team's record at just 5–19.
University of Memphis: 2021–2022 In June 2021, Brown joined the coaching staff of the
Memphis Tigers men's basketball program, as an assistant coach under head coach and former NBA player
Penny Hardaway. Brown had most recently served as an assistant coach in 1967. ==Career playing statistics==