Los Angeles Clippers head coach Ty Lue has agreed to a contract extension for 5 years and nearly $70 million, according to reports from Adrian Wojnarowski and Sham Charania.
ESPN Sources: Los Angeles Clippers coach Ty Lue has agreed on a new long-term contract that’ll make him one of the league’s highest paid coaches. Lue, who had been entering the final year of his deal, is considered one of the NBA’s elite coaches. pic.twitter.com/hhs6eJ0Rab
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) May 29, 2024
Ty Lue and the Los Angeles Clippers reached agreement on a five-year contract worth nearly $70 million, league sources tell me and @LawMurrayTheNU. Massive commitment to secure one of the NBA’s best head coaches. pic.twitter.com/RxbTa0PfYC
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) May 29, 2024
Based on this reporting, that would put Lue’s average annual value just under $14 million per year.
This news is especially relevant as Sacramento Kings head coach Mike Brown has been in ongoing negotiations for a new contract. Brown has been reportedly seeking somewhere around $10 million per year, but talks were reportedly tabled at the end of last week.
On May 21st Shams Charania reported that there had been “no progress” in extension talks between Ty Lue and the Clippers. Just over a week later, a deal is in place. The timing of it is worth noting as the Kings and Brown trade the ocassional public volley as part of the negotiation process.
A contract around $10 million per season would be pretty reasonable for Mike Brown given his resume, experience, and success thus far in Sacramento, and in comparison with the other coaching contracts and extensions from the last few years. Brown would be far from the highest-paid NBA coach with such a raise. Of course, we also don’t know if the negotiations between Brown and the Kings are hung up on dollars, years, or some combination of the two.
Gee, I don’t know what could possibly be holding things up…
How much is Vivek and his ownership group shelling out for hosting the A’s for a few seasons?
From what I read, Vivek is providing free rent in return for improvements (almost $20m?) to the ballpark. I think that he sees it as a chance to move up the expansion list (and as a last resort for the A’s if Vegas falls through), but I can’t escape the feeling that he is going to be as cheap as he can be when it comes to Kings spending while he focuses on this opportunity. Not that I have anything against MLB in Sac. (though I hate it being at Oakland’s expense). The whole thing gives me a case of the financial uneasys.
Since I don’t follow baseball at all, how are the Rivercats and A’s going to occupy the same park? Have two ball clubs ever shared the same space before?
It can be done, but there will be some overlap.
The AAA schedule starts later and ends earlier than MLB, 144 games vs. 162, I believe.
The funny thing is that as of right now, the Rivercats are looking at the Oakland Coliseum as an alternate site when the games overlap. But I could see Oakland shuttering that dump as soon as the A’s exit.
I was figuring they’ll front and back-load the A’s schedule so that there’s some breathing room for the teams in the middle of the season.
Vivek would actually be an asset to the community if he had the clout to bring the A’s here and that was the reason for this
Unfortunately his listed net worth isn’t enough to comfortable own one professional franchise
He actually owns two.
You waiting for the prices to come back down?
Like I said days ago, the Monty Williams deal upset the apple cart much like the Gobert trade did for players value. This is good new for Brown because he should have no trouble pointing out that the going NBA coaches salary now begins around 8 figures.
Crazy that he’s getting less money now than Luke Walton did when he was here.
Sure is. The dude really has all the leverage of examples to point to.
2nd winningest coach in Sac history, second in playoff appearances, makes less now than what Walton made, and now his coaching colleagues are signing deals for over double what he currently makes.
Were the contract details for Jordi Fernandez made public?
I haven’t seen them, but he’s also an unproven first year coach, so I’m guessing his deal is on the cheaper side.
Ty Lue’s crowning career achievement is winning a title with Peak LeBron, Kyrie, and KLove. Since then he’s pretty much consistently underperformed with ungodly amounts of talent. If Lue’s pulling in that kind of $$$ + time commitment, we really need to stop jerking around MB.
What is really his leverage, though?
If they don’t come to an agreement, he is betting on himself to get a well-paid job after next season, either from the Kings or from someone else. If he does well, I expect the Kings to pay him and will be happy to do so, believing he is really the Guy.
But if he has another first round or play-in elimination (or worse), or won’t reach an agreement when he does well, will other teams line up to hire him? That’s a high-resk bet, IMO. Even in the best of times, there are a lot of decent (assistant) coaches lining up for just a handful of jobs.
It only takes one, of course, but that is a difficult bet to make. And that may not be a better job, necessarily. Ask Dwane Casey, another former COY recipient.
Also, Lue had the advantage of the Lakers apparently lusting after him.
this is exactly right, MB and kings kind of just need/fit with each other as I don’t think any other higher level coaches would LOVE to come here (it’s a rare job so one would probably take it with the current talent especially) and other teams aren’t going to be fighting over hiring MB
Kangz fans know all too well the impact of a coach, mostly from experience with bad ones. If Harrison Barnes can make close to $20mil per year, Mike Brown absolutely should be paid $10mil. $10mil/year is less than many mediocre non-needle-moving bench players in the league. It’s about time good coaches get paid what they are worth to a team.
Can’t really compare player salaries to coaches because there is a minimum amount that must be spent on player salaries and pay scale minimums and maximums.
Coaches salaries don’t count towards the salary cap and there are no pay scale guidelines.
It’s just another area where the larger markets with their fancy local TV deals have extra income to spend.
Then take into account that Vivek has yet to spend into the luxury tax for players and the minority partners have balked in the past to forking out extra cash to fire GMs and coaches and it’s pretty clear what the holdup is.
Them:
Us:
Two of the highest paid coaches work in San Antonio and Detroit, so I don’t think larger markets and fancy local TV deals make all that much difference when it comes to coaching salaries.
When every NBA team is now valued at over $1B and revenue sharing/salary cap figures jump every year, a coaches salary is really chump change to a franchise on a whole. Teams make on average over $1M per game just in gate sales, which doesn’t take into consideration concessions, merchandise, tv deals, etc.
To SA’s credit, they have not paid overlapping HCs the umpteen times that we have over the past couple of decades.
“I highly recommend getting a job as head coach with the Kings! You’re guaranteed two years of paid vacation time!”
Mike Brown: My price just went up.
https://x.com/CarmichaelDave/status/1795934658447729122
Brian Keefe just locked himself in with the Wizards.
What does the Brown / Kings deal look like now?
Keefe is being promoted from interim into his first official Head Coach position, for a team in the middle of a rebuild. He’s going to be on a much lower salary and doesn’t really factor into the Brown negotiations at all.
Yep. The Lue contract is much more significant than the Keefe contract. It is especially startling to see the regular and post season records of Brown and Lue over the past two seasons and how they are almost identical.
Keefe is definitely a minimum wage guy. First year coach with a broken franchise.
Brown is somewhere in the middle. Experienced coach that has fixed some of a broken franchise but also not a playoff contender.
Lue is a coach with a clear upward trajectory and a coach that free agents will choose to play for. I think a large chunk of Lue’s salary is based on the reality that he can get players.
So in the middle is Brown. Not a broken franchise but not a winning franchise. Not a bad coach but not a coach that a free agent will seek out.
Put Lue in Sac and Brown in LA, and I don’t see Lue as being a superior recruiter of FA talent. It’s really more about the geography.
Lue: 8 years a HC, .590 wp, age 46.
Brown: 10 years a HC, .607 wp, age 53.
Not saying that Brown is in line for a Lue payday – a lot of that was Ballmer driven. But I’ll take Brown as being closer to Lue’s pay than Keefe’s when Brown signs his next contract.
I think a big part of Lue’s skill set is managing superstars, and that’s why he’s valued the way he is. That said, he’s had superstars and the results have not been great. He also gets a lot of leeway due to injuries, which I don’t necessarily disagree with.
Ty Lue is represented by Klutch Sports.
Not sayin’, just sayin’
Good point. The market Lue is in and the ownership willing to throw money around is helpful.
I don’t really buy into the idea that Vivek is cheap. Vivek is limited in who he can throw money to. Not the talent draw that LA and other markets have. Vivek isn’t going to throw money at players or coaches that are not worth it.
I dunno – this season was the first one in a long stretch that Vivek is only paying the salary of only one Head Coach.
(Luke Walton was on the books during Mike Brown’s first year. And his predecessors – 6 in 12 years of ownership – have completed a full contract, IIRC)
Vivek probably wishing he’d agreed to $10M/yr yesterday. Now Brown will want 12+
Penny-wise and pound foolish strategy.
Typical Vivek. He’s a PR nightmare.
Should Mike Brown leave, and look maybe his next Kings season is a disaster, Sacramento is 11th in the West (or worse), who knows? (no change in roster, lose Malik Monk, Fox and Ox are injured, Keegan is injured or doesn’t show much improvement – take your pick of any and all), then The Sacramento Kings go on a coaching search. (“we’re interviewing a large number of candidates” (is Henry Bibby still around? John Whisenant? Who else were the choices when the Kings interviewing? Last time out with the list whittled to 6, Darvin Ham and Will Hardy bowed out, leaving Mike Brown, Steve Clifford and Mark Jackson as the Top 3 – they crossed off Mike D’Antoni and Terry Stotts, IIRC)
Who’s signing with Sacramento for under market salary? Who signing for under 4 years?
And you are still tied in to Monte McNair/Wes Welker. If Mike Brown extends, are you not extending Monte? (Maybe McNair’s deal is not 4th year optional, I don’t know).
Didn’t the NBA just sign a blockbuster deal, or in negotiations for same with Disney, Amazon, NBC? The $2.8B number is being thrown around and the expected effect on the salary cap is to progressively elevate to somewhere in the $180M range in two or three years?
My point: NBA coaching salaries are not going to get cheaper and the list of candidates to coach Sacramento will get smaller. Especially for not extending last season’s unanimous Coach of the Year.
After he bunches this up – is this the part where Vivek tells us how he learns from his mistakes? How he listens to others?
How can a guy so darn smart be so darn dumb? This is why I became a Clippers Fan for a few years.
I don’t see this ending up
well.
Brown certainty deserves the raise. No doubt. Is he a championship level coach. No. He’s had better rosters and still hasn’t won the chip
But he will always keep the Kings competitive.
But maybe Vivek is looking at this retro:
Lu coached Lebron 4 seasons. 1 championship, 2 ECF.
Brown: Coached Lebron 5 seasons.
Only 1 ECF appearance.
Brown also took 6 years off to be an Asst with the Dubs. Recycled coaches in the NBA is not always a good thing. Brown took over a mess and did a great job in the first year.
Lu has also had to deal with major injuries to his stars every single year in Clip Land
Brown on the other hand has had pretty good to excellent health to all the Kings players since he took over.
Their lifetime W-L records are similar.
Well, we can play the “what type of coach are you looking for” game.
For example-
famously, there is the Golden State story of Mark Jackson structuring the team, and achieving a winning season and playoff wins.
2011-12 23-43 (Shortened season)
2012-13 47-34 Playoffs! lose in 2nd round
2013-14 51-31 Playoffs! lose in 1st round
Jackson Fired, Steve Kerr hired. 5 straight Finals appearances, 3 Championships then a fourth ring.
It worked out historically- But, was Mark Jackson fired because he couldn’t take them to the next level or because he was doing Mark Jackson stuff that we heard about later?
Anyhoo –
There are developer coaches, veteran and rookie type coaches, coaches that level you up and All-Time greats and All-Time not so greats.
Even if Mike Brown is a Mark Jackson type level up coach (without the baggage), has this Sac Kings team convinced you (or anyone reasonable) that a change in coaching makes them a Championship contender? Bring Phil Jackson or Mike Krzyzewksi out of retirement? Hire John Calipari? Re-Hire Michael Malone? and start buying Trophy polish?
The way the NBA CBA is structured it is a lot easier to re-roll your coach than your roster. If you have a competitive roster that feels like it is underperforming I wouldn’t go all-in on a coach, ever.
Steve Ballmer has infinite coach re-rolls regardless of what he signed Lue for. Vivek does not.
I like Mike Brown and this isn’t really his fault, but he needs to get past the first round next year.
Did this current Kings roster really underperform though?
I guess it is subjective. They lost some games that probably should have been won (Portland, Washington, Charlotte), and they had some meltdowns against Chicago, missed free throws against Milwaukee and Phoenix. But they also won some games where fought back and “stole” a win.
All in all, they seemed mostly on par for what was expected of them.
Maybe the better question is do coaches Pop or Spols, or even Lue, get this Kings roster farther? Do they get them to 50 wins or out of the first round?
They get maybe five more wins. The roster is the ceiling.
So is 5 more wins worth triple the salary? Brown makes less than $5M while Pop makes $16M and Lue now makes $14M.
Nope…not worth anything more until it is five wins in the playoffs.
I’m not here for the $ comparison, but 5 wins is a big deal.
5 more wins would have changed the entire season! Three actually. 5 more wins would have, at worst, left us tied with the Clips for fourth. You’re arguing against your own contention.
…and then get destroyed in the first round without a doubt.
My contention is that the roster is the ceiling. The ceiling is not Mike Brown.
Pretzel logic. Your not a troll, but with fans like you, who needs haters?
I like winning. That makes me different than the average fan boys.
If they don’t have plan B, then they need to figure this out. I do think Pop, probably Kerr, would have had this roster in the playoffs, but worst case scenario is firing another coach mid-season. Injuries basically propelled both ECF teams past the 1st round. Indiana, especially, showed what can happen if you just get there. The gap between those coaches, and Brown may not be wide, but the Kings missed the playoffs by 3 games.
It felt like we spent the entire season discussing how/why the Kings we under-performing. You were here in the thick of it while I mostly sat out, but this sounds revisionist. The conversation all year long was “Their record is the same, but something seems missing.” The bad losses. Shooting #s down. Free-throws? Blown leads. Fourth quarter Fox wasn’t really the same. Bottom line, they missed the playoffs, they under-performed.
I was gonna say sorry for being off topic until I saw the first few comments. To any of you who think ‘Sac is in the majors’ I’ll be on the right field lawn next year with my Oakland people wearing our ‘Sell’ shirts giving Nepo Baby Fisher and Ramapatsy the finger continuously until we get thrown out. Billionaires gotta billionaire I guess.
My real comment is that Monte needs to take Ke’el Ware number 13. Two bigs are back! He’s a poor man’s Holmgren, or a Dereck Lively who can shoot; take your pick. There are three things Sabonis can’t do: run, jump, and shoot threes. Ware does all three. I might like him a bit more than my other favorite, DaRon Holmes. Check out his highlights. Oh, also: F Las Vegas, F Fisher and Go Yolo High Wheelers!
I think Domas can shoot the 3 fine, he just doesn’t take many, 1.1 per game at 37.9%. Ware took 1.3 at 42.5%.
Domas looks at setting his teammates up more for 3s than taking them himself. I think Ware would be fine, he just probably needs some more time to develop so that he can play bigger minutes in the NBA. But long term he could be really nice.
That being said, I don’t see Monte taking someone that isn’t a “plug and play” type of guy, he hasn’t done that yet in the 1st round. My hunch is that Monte will try hard to include the player selected at 13 in a trade for immediate help in the rotation.
the thing about people that can shoot the threes is: they actually shoot 3s.
1 shot a game tells us all we need to know about his 3 pt shooting ability
I really like Ware, but not thinking MM will get excited about any rookie
Bleacher Report and The Ringer are all in on Devin Carter as our 13th pick. Seeing the numbers and the combine results, I am sold. Lengthier Davion, rebounds well, can shoot and is a dog on defense, can guard 1-3.
Thoughts?
My concern, much like with Davion, is that he really only shot the 3 well in his junior season. He was under 30% his two prior years, and his is mentioned as being “ugly”. Was the improvement legit or an outlier.
If the 3 isn’t real, then it’s basically a longer version of Davion that might dunk better and play better defense.
Shams with a report on the Kings making an offer to Mike Brown:
https://x.com/ShamsCharania/status/1796334746089169201
Oy vay!
Lines in the sand incentives? Coaches want to win, what more can their be?
This reminds me of firing Dave Joerger: he lost the last two games of the season, after Sacramento was eliminated from the playoffs, and let his bench have the minutes as they sit too much the rest of the season. Unfortunately, they lost and Sac ended up with 39 wins instead of .500 (41 wins). Boom! Vivek had Vlade the Executioner axe Dave Joerger and they hired Luke Walton.
Sigh.
Again – Vivek has gone through 6 previous coaches; Michael Malone, Ty Corbin, George Karl, Dave Joerger, Luke Walton, Alvin Gentry to Mike Brown.
Mike Brown is 94-70 (.573), or 97-74 including playoffs. No one in the Ranadive Era (error) is even close to that.
Pay the man. $10M/year x 3 years, even if it is an overpay, it evens out the last two seasons of underpay. Move on, this is lame sauce by ownership.
They will meet in the middle and get it done around $10m, that’s my guess.
Vivek is a clown
3/21 or even 3/27 incentivized is laughable
Brown is generous to accept 10
Vivek showing he isnt solvent enough to run the franchise again
Mavs just won the Western Conference finals with Luka winning West Finals MVP. It could’ve been us but seeing how cheap and dumb the front office was, Luka would just leave.
Nah, Luka would have completely altered this franchise and we are just making up excuses or fat-shaming him to deal with the pain of it.
Yep, and the vast majority of posters here wanted him. That picture of Vlade in his office with Bagley written at the top of a short list on that whiteboard filled me with dread.
Luka doesn’t shoot the spray three or drive recklessly into the lane.
How do you even know who he is?
Badge Legend