Bulls' Brown always available, always there
Whether he was coaching a D-League team in Fayetteville, N.C., or working with troubled teens in Las Vegas, Mike Brown always tried to keep his family with him.
Brown's wife, Esther, is from Barcelona, Spain, and they have a blended family of four daughters and one son ranging in age from 5 to 24. The youngest was just 2 months old when Brown first moved to Roanoke, Va., to be a D-League assistant.
"That really helps me to have my family with me," said Brown, the former NBA center who joined the Bulls as an assistant coach last week. "And the kids adjust. They've got a lot of different friends all over and never really had a problem with doing the school thing."
But since this job with the Bulls may last only three months -- Jim Boylan still is an interim head coach, after all -- Brown decided to check into a suburban hotel while his wife and kids stay in Las Vegas, where they've lived since the Fayetteville franchise folded in 2006.
As far as Brown is concerned, he has a new family in Chicago. It's Joakim Noah, Aaron Gray, Tyrus Thomas and the rest of the Bulls' big men.
"This actually gives me a really good opportunity to do some bonding with these young guys, because I have a lot of free time," Brown said. "So if guys want to get into the gym at 8 o'clock at night, they can say, 'Hey coach, let's go shoot.'
"Or if they want to hit the weight room at 4 in the afternoon or maybe go get some dinner or grab a movie, it's an opportune time for me to do some real good bonding with these guys and try to instill some different work habits for them."
Will it help?
Well, in Monday's 118-108 victory over Seattle, Gray tied his season-high with 14 points and the Bulls outrebounded the Sonics 50-35. So no one can say Brown has done a bad job after three days with the team.
"If he's paying, I'll go to dinner with him every night," Gray said. "It's great to have him around. Our post play has progressively gotten better this year, but I think it's going to improve even more."
Added Noah: "(Being available) shows that he's sacrificing a lot and that's what we need. I think he's doing a great job. It's just good to have an extra voice and somebody who comes in and has another opinion."
During his 11-year NBA career, Brown had no interest in coaching, but he got involved in a minor-league team through current Sacramento Kings coach Reggie Theus.
"What happened was, they brought an ABA team to Las Vegas," Brown said. "I went down and talked to Reggie; he was the head coach. I went to a couple practices and I really saw a need. Not that I'm the greatest teacher or anything, but I just saw that the guys are younger and younger playing the game, younger when they're trying to become a professional.
"So in turn they didn't have all the fundamentals that they did 15 or 20 years ago, when I came out in the mid-'80s. They were staying in college less and you really grow and mature in college.
"So I worked with them and from there contacted people in the D-League. It just kind of blossomed to where it is right now."
Brown pointed out that when he first joined the Bulls, Dave Corzine and Gene Banks were the team's veterans. Now Luol Deng is considered a veteran and he's still 22 years old. Mentors are disappearing from current NBA rosters, and Brown is hoping he can fill the role.