SACRAMENTO — Early Friday afternoon, not long after Mike Brown completed his final practice as head coach of the Sacramento Kings with an 18-minute news conference, general manager Monte McNair called him. Assistant general manager Wes Wilcox, who was finishing up a separate phone call, eventually joined the conversation on speaker phone.
Brown’s two-and-a-half-season tenure was over. He was fired while on the move, having left the facility to prepare for a flight to Los Angeles for Saturday night’s road game against the Lakers.
That generated an awkward interlude on the tarmac for the leftover players and staffers.