Honorary Warrior For Life, Mike Brown? Plus Chris Chiozza election results

super-sub assistant coach Mike Brown

Sep 05, 2022

The master list of Honorary Warriors For Life lists everyone already polled.

Introducing Honorary Warriors For Life

The concept is simple. You get to vote on the question “Is X an Honorary Warrior For Life?”

What does that phrase mean? I once tried to define it, and people found it more fun to bring in their own definitions, so it is now back to being kept vague, like “Most Valuable Player” or “Greatest Of All Time” or “Sandwich” or “Taco”.

You can vote at the Substack poll at the end of this section, or in the comment sections with a #YES or #NO.

The Nominee: Assistant Coach Mike Brown

Mike Brown joined the Warriors staff in 2016. Assistant Coach Luke Walton had just parleyed an impressive run as substitute head coach for Steve Kerr into a lucrative Lakers head coach job. (Luke was the coach for the stupendous 39-4 opening run.) Mike Brown was ready to step in as one of the most experienced assistant coaches in the world. He had already been head coach for LeBron’s first marriage with the Cavaliers, even winning Coach of the Year. He then became head coach for the crap festival that was the post-Phil-Jackson Kobe Lakers / King Lear Buss Family Drama.

Brown became the rock and backup plan of the Warriors coaching staff, and Steve Kerr’s most trusted assistant. His skill and cheerful good nature helped navigate the mega-egos of the KD era (see his relevant past experience). He also took over lineup rotations from Kerr and otherwise served as the head of the coaching staff.

Kerr trusted Brown to cover for him in key playoff games: in 2017, Brown took over in Game 3 of the first round when Kerr went out with ongoing back/head issues and ran off a 10 game winning streak before Kerr came back to coach the NBA Finals.

Most recently, Brown took over as head coach in the GSW-MEM series Games 4 through 6, while Steve Kerr was out with COVID.

Brown really came into his own last season, taking over leadership of the defense and turning the Warriors into, in my opinion, the league’s best defense. GSW showed the most flexiblity of scheme, used the hardest schemes (multiple zone defenses, junk hybrids like box-and-one, triangle-and-two, numerous doubling schemes and help rotations), and got the most effort and result out of relatively small defenders. His internal defense accountability measures were widely internally praised for their effectiveness.

The Warriors defense played a huge role in each playoff series in the Championship run, so Mike Brown was a key figure in the title run.

Mike Brown, four-time NBA Champion assistant coach, is now leaving the Warriors to be head coach for the Sacramento Kings. Following in the footsteps of Alvin Gentry, Luke Walton, and Willie Brown, his excellent assistant coaching with GSW got him a head coach gig elsewhere.

Good luck in Sacramento, Mike. I hope the job came with a lot of cash.

The Poll

Vote in this embedded Substack poll, or in the comments, or both. Comment votes count as 10 normal poll votes.

*** To have your comment vote count, you must put #YES or #NO somewhere in the body of your comment, exactly once. Please don’t type the hashtags more than once; it makes extra work for me.

Chris Chiozza Election Results

The results are in from our previous vote at Honorary Warrior For Life, Chris Chiozza?

Weighted Vote: 8.6%.
- Poll 7%, Comments 10%.

As expected, Chiozza fell well short of the 50% for Honorary Warriors status (with no remote chance at the 75% Honorary Warrior For Life threshold).

I tend to be a “Big Tent” HWFL voter, but even I would be hard pressed to say I have a lot of sentimental attachment to Chiozza, due to his brief tenure.

Anyway, here is my appreciation from the vote, followed by a few DNHQ comments.

The Appreciation

Chris Chiozza was a hard-working, hard-celebrating, positive teammate on a Warriors two-way this year. As the 16th man, he was given scraps of playing time here and there, and handled it gracefully. He was not offered a qualifying offer by the Warriors this off-season.

Some fans had an unusual amount of complaint with Chiozza’s play, considering he was not even on the roster. It’s possible that other recent Warriors have set the bar way too high for two-way contract players, with Juan Toscano-Anderson and Gary Payton II playing so well that their two-ways were upgraded to proper NBA contracts.

Perhaps the complaint was due to inflated expectations, or the feeling that his spot should have gone to A Mythical Big Man, or the feeling that he got his spot as a Kenny Atkinson favorite. Anyway, he worked hard and I thought he did fine for his role. He handled the ball competently, though he didn’t create well off the dribble. His shot didn’t space the defense but he could punish teams that left him open.

He kept the offense moving and he competed on defense. He was the point guard on the floor when the bench made that great Spurs comeback…

And finally, he was a regular in my celebration analysis videos, with his squinting three-darts celebrations and his always looking 45 minutes into a good time with a bong.

Farewell and thank you for contributing to a championship, Chris Chiozza!

Dub Nation Speaks on Chiozza

jzalvarado (5 ♡):
I vote #Yes on Chiozza. Needed a player to pile on all your frustrations, Chiozza was the man. I think that makes him a Warrior for Life in my book
Dilly (4 ♡):
A complimentary cheese basket.
Nom De Sab (4 ♡):
Chiozza was the glass vase your realtor gave you when you closed on a house.
stopnpop (4 ♡):
> where, indeed in what digital location, is ‘will you root for candidate in a neutral setting’
The original format for this poll/vote was an indirect question: would you root for player X to do (1) well, (2) poorly, (3) dont care, (4) dont know if he wasn't playing for or against the Dubs?
HWFL and WFL (and Villian for Life) were based on the result of that poll. But too many people didn't like the indirect nature of it and wanted to roleplay the bouncer to Club DNHQ... and that's what we have today.
The original format was genius and more fun, imo.
Fantom (3 ♡):
Chiozza tried hard but was a failure. He was predictable on offense going quickly to the basket but because he couldn’t compete he would always pass out. So his scoring could be ignored and thus was a liability, though he did keep the team organized. More importantly he reduced time for moody and even Poole. And arguably weatherspoon who we almost never saw.
Being (2 ♡):
What's your criteria for it working out?
I think it worked out admirably. Better, arguably than Mulder the year before. Chiozza was a serviceable 3rd string PG and he got to play in 34 games at almost 11 MPG. For a 2-way contract 3rd string PG, I think it worked out exactly as intended.
Was he a prospect that we'd want to hold onto so that he can blossom into a rotation spot in the future? I think the Dubs have enough of those, and the one that was available last year, Nico, was obviously not up to the task nor available.
The contributions of a 34 reg. season game 3rd string PG are insufficient for HWFL, but I think that's pretty obvious to almost everyone.