Brown Could Ride Nigeria to Head Coach Gig

The American men are not off to the start they wanted, losing both of their opening exhibition games to Nigeria and Australia before salvaging a victory Tuesday against Argentina.

And in their first loss, the Warrior coaching staff was under the microscope – but it was not on US assistant coach Steve Kerr. Rather, it was on a coach with NBA Finals experience in Golden State and Cleveland, Warriors associate head coach and Nigeria men’s basketball head coach Mike Brown.

The Nigerian Olympic team notched the first-ever win for an African national team against the American side in men’s basketball Saturday in Las Vegas, taking down a team of nine American NBA All-Stars 90-87 while having just six current players who regularly take the floor in the association.

Fanduel.com had the US as 29.5 point favorites, and seemingly for good reason – even without Khris Middleton, Jrue Holiday and Devin Booker, who will join the team after the NBA Finals, the team features Kevin Durant, Jayson Tatum, Damian Lillard, Bradley Beal, Zach LaVine, Jerami Grant and Bam Adebayo, with the Warriors’ Draymond Green and Kevin Love also providing Olympic experience.

On the flipside, 2018 Minnesota first-round pick Josh Okogie is Nigeria’s most experienced NBA player, with Jazz bench player Miye Oni and Heat reserves Precious Achiuwa, KZ Okpala and Gabe Vincent filling out Brown’s NBA arsenal. The exhibition title didn’t only work for the type of game it was, it also represented the show Nigeria decided to put on from three-point range. “D’Tigers” hit 20-of-42 triples, good for 47.6%, held the Americans to 41.3% from the field and outrebounded the favorites 46-34.

The Nigerian dominance on the glass tied in another Warriors connection, as Larry Riley’s No. 6 overall pick in 2010 Ekpe Udoh reeled in five rebounds to go along with a bucket and three assists.

After a season and change with Golden State, Udoh was dealt to the Milwaukee Bucks in the Monta Ellis deal in 2012. Following a stop with the Clippers and time in Utah from 2017-19, he played professionally in China most recently, and is currently in a courtship with teams in Italy and Serbia years succeeding his playing in Turkey in the mid-2010s.

I realize this was very tangential, but if you ever wondered what the Warriors’ first-rounder taken in the years between Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson is up to, here you go.

But back to Brown. The associate head coach filled the voids of Alvin Gentry and Luke Walton following their departures from Kerr’s staffs in 2015 and 2016, respectively, and two rings later is approaching his fifth campaign by the Bay. What he is doing thus far in exhibition play should also be recognized, turning around a national team which as recently as 2012 featured just one NBA player (Al-Farouq Aminu) and sustained the largest loss in Olympic men’s history, falling 156-73 in London 2012 to the US.

Nigeria backed up its precedent-altering upset of the Americans with a 94-71 exhibition victory over another traditionally-strong international team in Argentina, this time dominating on 48.1% from the field while hitting just 25.8% from distance – the team can win in multiple ways.

Overall, the 2020/1 Tokyo Games represent a unique opportunity for Brown to show he still has what it takes to be a head coach in the NBA. He already took (or was taken to by) a young LeBron James to the NBA Finals in 2007, led the Lakers to a No. 3 seed in 2012 before being shown the door in 2013 after only five games. Los Angeles had started 1-4, but through five games decided to fire Brown in what seems to have been an extremely impulsive move on the part of ownership.

Brown won the first 12 playoff games for the Warriors in 2016-17, but has yet to ride the dynastic success to another head coaching gig as Gentry and Walton have. Kerr’s Golden State staff also just got busier with head coaching talent in the form of one-time Nets coach Kenny Atkinson.

But luckily for Brown, if the 2009 NBA Coach of the Year were to want to lead a bench somewhere in the NBA – he indicated he “eventually” wanted to head coach again in 2017 – the Olympic exhibition and competition are good places for him to show off his talent, and he is off to the start he wanted.