SAN ANTONIO — In his 13 years as Kings owner, Vivek Ranadivé has come nowhere near the NBA Finals. His team has played in just one playoff series in that time.
But Ranadivé’s fingerprints are all over the Knicks–Spurs Finals.
In Dec. 2024, the Kings fired Mike Brown as their head coach amid a 13–18 start. Two months later, they traded De’Aaron Fox to the Spurs after the star guard requested a trade.
Brown’s firing was shocking in NBA circles. Two years after he led the team to its first playoff berth since 2006, he was fired over the phone.
“I’m not surprised that Mike Brown got fired, because I got fired by the same person,” then-Nuggets coach Michael Malone said at the time. “And what really pissed me off about it was the fact that they lost [Thursday] night, fifth game in a row, I believe. Tough loss. … They had practiced this morning. He does his postgame media, and he’s in his car going to the airport to fly to L.A. and they call him on the phone.
