Why the Mike Brown-Knicks marriage is doomed — according to NBA veteran who played for coach

Not everyone is a believer in the Mike Brown era.

During a recent appearance on the “Straight Game Podcast,” former NBA champ Matt Barnes expressed doubts about the Knicks’ new coaching hire, emphasizing that Brown is “too nice” to lead the franchise to a championship. 

Asked if Brown — who took over for Tom Thibodeau over the summer following the fifth-year coach’s firing — can steer the team to success, Barnes responded with a firm “f–k no.”

“Mike’s a great person, to me he’s not a leader of men,” the 45-year-old Barnes began. “I couldn’t imagine it now because these kids are making so much money. You have to have the respect of them. I think Mike is such a nice guy, that’s what f–ked Mike up. Mike wants to be cool with everyone instead of putting his foot down like, ‘This is my team. This is what’s going on.'”

Brown helmed the Los Angeles Lakers from 2011-2013 following a successful stretch with the Cleveland Cavaliers, which was headlined by a trip to the NBA Finals in 2007. 

Barnes, who inked a two-year deal with the Lakers in 2010, played his final season in L.A. under Brown.

Despite the team going 41-25 during a lockout-shortened campaign, the 14-year NBA vet didn’t look back on that season with much affection.

“Kobe [Bryant] and Ron Artest, they walked all over that motherf—ker,” he said. “They used to sub themselves in and out of the game, and I’m just like ‘Oh, s–t.’”

Brown was fired just five games into the following season after a 1-4 start with the newly formed trio of Bryant, Steve Nash and Dwight Howard.

After his time in Los Angeles, Brown joined the Golden State Warriors in 2016 as an assistant coach under Steve Kerr, winning three championships. 

Barnes, who won one of those rings with Golden State in 2016-17, explained that Brown “learned a lot” from Kerr, lessons that helped him end the Sacramento Kings’ historic 16-year playoff drought in his first season at the helm in 2022-23.

But Brown lost the locker room quickly thereafter and was relieved midway through the 2024-25 campaign. 

Barnes stressed that the coach is much better off as a “second chair.”

“Now you’re going to a New York media market that’s trying to eat you up, every mistake,” he said. “Mike is a good guy, I just don’t think the situation is going to work because he’s too nice for his own good.”

Brown aims to push the Knicks past the finish line after a crushing exit in the Eastern Conference Finals earlier this year. If he can pull it off, he’ll have some receipts to bring up at the end of the season. 

The Knicks open the season on Wednesday night, hosting the Cleveland Cavaliers at Madison Square Garden.