Mike Brown Facing Pressure With Knicks

New York Knicks head coach Mike Brown is being thrown into the fire immediately after being hired.

Brown, 55, was chosen after nearly a month-long hiring process to be the next head coach of the Knicks, succeeding Tom Thibodeau, who was fired shortly after being eliminated from the Eastern Conference Finals.

The Athletic insider James Edwards III emphasized the pressure Brown will face upon arriving in New York.

"Brown comes into a situation that he can only come out of as a superhero if he takes New York to the NBA Finals or beyond. That’s it. Anything less will be considered a failure, unfair or not. New York’s decision-makers put those expectations on their new head coach. The fans didn’t. The media didn’t," Edwards wrote.

"The pressure is tremendous. The Knicks feel like they got the right person to end a 50-plus year title drought. And maybe they do. We won’t know that answer, though, for quite some time. What we do know right now is that of all the coaches available to the Knicks, no one was more familiar with the gravity of the situation than Brown."

The Knicks are at a point in their evolution where anything short of the NBA Finals is a failure and Brown comes into the team as the main change in the franchise so far.

Therefore, his impact is going to dictate how well the Knicks perform in the upcoming season. If he does well, he'll earn the praise and respect as the "missing piece" to the puzzle. If not, the pressure will only continue to rise.

It's not easy coaching in New York, but big risk comes big reward. That's what Brown is seeking as he eyes his first championship as a head coach.

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