This season has seen fewer NBA teams making head coaching changes than most years as to this point, only the Los Angeles Lakers, Sacramento Kings and Charlotte Hornets are the only franchises to part ways with their previous head coaches.
All eyes are on the Lakers, of course, to see who they bring in to replace Frank Vogel. They are reportedly taking their time with their head coaching search though, so the Kings and Hornets are expected to make hires before them.
The Kings are the furthest along in their search as it was reported last week that Mark Jackson, Mike Brown and Steve Clifford were the three finalists.
It appears the Kings are not wasting any more time and have already come to a decision as Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN reported on Sunday that they are hiring Brown:
Brown and Kings negotiated deal over the past 24 hours, sources said. Brown emerged in recent days as the focus of franchise’s search and now he’s tasked with helping to end the organization’s 16-year playoff drought.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) May 8, 2022
It will be interesting to see what effect, if any, the Kings hiring Brown has on the Lakers’ coaching search. The Lakers have been linked to all three of the Kings’ finalists although they haven’t been mentioned as much as some other candidates like Darvin Ham, Terry Stotts and Adrian Griffin.
Jackson is the wild card in this as the expectation was that he would get the Kings job. He interviewed with the Lakers this past week but it was reported that he doesn’t have a strong chance of being hired by L.A.
The ESPN analyst has received an endorsement from Shaquille O’Neal and a reported endorsement from LeBron James though, which could make the Lakers take a more serious look at him.
Rob Pelinka said he would like to have a new coach in place by the NBA Draft on June 23, so the Lakers still have plenty of time to interview more candidates before making a decision.
Lakers expected to interview 8-10 candidates
Those interviews have already begun with the Lakers reportedly already talking with Stotts, Jackson, Ham and Griffin.
The expectation is that they will interview 8-10 candidates, so there should be more coming in the next week or two.
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