OAKLAND — A year ago around this time, Steve Kerr was in the market for a new lead assistant and Mike Brown was a target. But before Kerr called Brown, he called Gregg Popovich.

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Stephen Curry is on the Mike Brown train despite missing Steve Kerr Brown was hanging around the Spurs some. Popovich was the mutual connection. Among Kerr’s questions for Popovich: Is Brown really ready to dive back into coaching full-time?

“Pop got off the phone and told me Steve may call,” Brown said. “Then he told me: ‘If he does and he offers you the job, you better take it! You’ve been out long enough.'”

With Popovich serving as the middle man, the connection turned into a partnership that turned into a path, weaving to this unlikely moment just a year later: Brown filling in as head coach for the ailing Kerr, readying his Warriors to face Popovich’s Spurs in the West Finals. The reward: a likely chance to square up, on the sport’s biggest stage, with a Cleveland franchise that’s fired him twice this decade. What a time to be Mike Brown.

But three days before one of the most stressful stretches of his professional life, Brown seems anything but stressed as he pulls up to a Peet’s Coffee on the north side of Oakland, wearing a plaid shirt that matches his beige green Harley. He wrestles it into a parking spot, greets a few fans, unstraps his matte black helmet, plants himself on a stool near the window and, for the next 90 minutes, gazes toward the hills as he recaps the past three years of his life — a period of revitalization thanks to an NBA sabbatical, his two sons, a motorcycle, Popovich and Kerr.

“My perspective on life and work has changed dramatically,” he says.

Brown was hired by the Cavaliers, for a second time, in late April of 2013. Brown was fired in early May of 2014, less than 13 months into a five-year, $20 million deal. He sensed it was coming.

Around the All-Star break, owner Dan Gilbert axed general manager Chris Grant, his friend and biggest ally in the organization. “That kind of shook me,” Brown said. David Griffin was hired to replace Grant. “We didn’t see eye to eye,” Brown said.

He’d been in the business long enough. He knew he was next. Two months later, he was. So there Brown sat in May of 2014, holed up in the huge house he’d just purchased, his life suddenly in an unfamiliar place.

Brown played basketball through college and went right into coaching after that. He was a video guy at 22, an assistant by 27 and a head coach by 35. “There are a lot of smart people out there,” Brown said. “The only thing I had control over was working harder than the next guy.”

So that’s what his life became: basketball, basketball, basketball and family, not much else. Brown met his eventual wife, Carolyn, at 23. They had their first son, Elijah, when Mike was 25 and their second son, Cameron, when Mike was 27. They all grew up together in the NBA world.

But by May of 2014, his two boys had entered independent stages. Elijah was in his second year of college, having transferred from Butler to New Mexico because Brad Stevens left for the NBA. Cameron was in his last year of high school, soon setting off for Cincinnati. And in January of 2015, Mike and his wife agreed to a divorce.

Forever, he was the dad with the young kids and the cool job that kept him extremely busy. Life was frantic. Now he was the dad with too much free time and a disappearing list of responsibilities. Life became mellow.

“I was basically just trying to find myself away from basketball,” Brown said. “I tried expanding my horizons.”

He exercised more to keep from going stir-crazy. He grabbed some tools and helped keep the local high school football field in playing shape. He tried to dig into a few leadership books. “But I’m not a reader,” Brown said.

Still in a search of a hobby, Brown hopped on his motorcycle. It became his release. Sometimes twice a week, he’d rev it up from his Cleveland home and take the two-hour round trip across the south shore of Lake Erie toward Cedar Point’s famous theme park, blasting Beastie Boys or whatever would calm him as he collected his thoughts on Ohio’s open road.

Year 1 of his sabbatical ended and basketball still hadn’t drawn him back. Teams called, offering assistant jobs, but nothing excited him. The business side of things had scarred him, but Brown maintains he never got bitter. He knows how fortunate he’s been professionally. “I’m pretty good at moving on,” he said.

But both his boys were now off at college, his ex-wife was out of the house and, just down the road, LeBron James had returned and the Cavaliers had bolted back to prominence, overtaking the region. It was time to hit restart and get out of Cleveland.

So for Year 2 of the sabbatical, Brown stationed himself in a small apartment in Albuquerque, just down the road from the University of New Mexico, where his son, after a redshirt transfer season, was preparing to star as the school’s high-scoring wing.

But about two months before the college season started, Gregg Popovich called with an invite: Come to the Spurs’ annual coach’s meeting in Newport Beach. Brown did. And while there, Popovich had an open offer: Any time he wanted to be around the Spurs during the upcoming season, he could. Just call Popovich’s secretary and set it up.

“Extremely important,” Brown said. “I was feeling like I wanted to get back in, but I wasn’t quite there yet. So to be able to do it this way, it was unbelieveable. I couldn’t have asked for a better situation, a better guy, a better organization at the time to be able to do that with.”

It allowed him to sort his priorities exactly how he wanted. When New Mexico was playing, Brown was there to see Elijah — home or road. He went to 31 of their 32 games that season, only missing the game at UNLV because UNLV had just fired its coach and rumors were floating that Brown may be the next guy. “Missed that one on purpose,” he said.

But the college season is shorter and spread out. So any time he had the NBA itch, Brown would meet up with the Spurs for days at a time. He’d stay at Danny Ferry’s vacant house in Alamo Heights, where Brown left a vehicle and clothes. Ferry moved to Atlanta for the Hawks’ GM job years earlier, but never sold his home. Brown slept in his son’s old room.

“Every time I go to sleep, I’m in this Spiderman bed with this Spiderman fathead looking over me,” Brown laughed. “Yeah, life was different.”

Popovich gave him unobstructed access to everything. He went to practices when he wanted and took part in every coaching meeting — pregame, halftime, postgame — during the “40 or 50” games he attended.

Brown was an assistant with the Spurs 14 years earlier, back in the early 2000s, when Popovich was younger and sterner, in some ways forming Brown’s regimented approach. Back then, Brown and now Hawks coach Mike Budenholzer split up the scouting reports. They had to fax it to Popovich by 7 p.m. the night before the game. Like a high school teacher shredding a rough draft, Popovich lasered through them in red ink before sending it back for corrections.

“He used to put notes on it if the spelling was incorrect, if the grammar was off,” Brown said.

Fourteen years later, Brown watched as a more tranquil Popovich allowed his assistants to bring the reports in the morning, trusting his own immense knowledge of the league and reading over it just before addressing the team. “There are a lot of things he just let go easier,” Brown said.

It was an example Brown would store in his back pocket for his next job, a realization that, hmm, coaches can evolve and alter their approach over time.

But until then, Brown was just relishing his year of pure serenity. He went up to Cincinnati to visit his youngest son, Cameron, and go to a Bengals game. Then his youngest son joined him on a Christmas vacation to Hawaii to watch his eldest son, Elijah, score 64 points for New Mexico in three non-conference tournament games.

This was normally the time of year he’d be grinding through an East Coast back-to-back in the dead winter. Instead, he was in sunny Honolulu, spending time with his two boys in this next stage of parenting.

“Although it’s still father and son, it’s getting closer to being friends,” Brown said. “Let’s go have a beer, let’s go hang out here. I feel like it was really good for me and good for both of them.”

There was some basketball mixed in, too. Earlier in life, whenever he’d suggest to Elijah that they watch tape, “it was almost like punishment.” But now Elijah was calling him after games, seeking out advice. “‘Dad, what time you want to watch film tomorrow? Meet me at the gym,'” Brown said. “It was almost like a role reversal.”

Through it all — the nights when Elijah wasn’t free to hang in Albuquerque, the snowy trudge through the mountains for his game at Utah State, the 830-mile Harley ride with his brother, Anthony, from New Mexico to Sturgis, South Dakota for a famous annual motorcycle rally or the Spiderman sleepovers — Brown emerged with a different, reinvigorated approach to life. Enjoy the ride.

Then Popovich helped perfectly pair him with Kerr and the Warriors, who preach everything Brown was starting to appreciate. He was officially hired in early July and, days later, took his youngest son to Las Vegas to observe Golden State’s summer league team.

Brown showed up for practice. Fellow assistant Jarron Collins was running it. The team began stretching. Brown looked across the court.

“And there was this guy and I swear to god, it looked like a DJ table,” Brown said. “He had these two big speakers, computer in the middle and it looked like he was about to play music like at a club. I thought that was a little weird. Then when we started stretching, JC points to him and the music comes on, while we’re stretching. I was like: ‘OK, they play music while they stretch.’ But then they started practice and I’m thinking they’ll cut the music off. But they didn’t turn it off! I turned to my son and I’m like: ‘Can you believe this? They’re playing this music during the damn practice.’ It played drill after drill after drill.”

Brown’s next thought: Maybe this is just a summer league deal. But training camp arrived in late September and there it was again. Kerr is a Popovich disciple in some ways, but not this one. Brown had never seen this.

“It helped me loosen up a little bit,” Brown said. “Just because I’m (so regimented) doesn’t necessarily mean everyone else is or should be. I don’t know that I could ever be Steve, but being around him, I’ll take a lot of who he is with me moving forward. The way I coach now isn’t the way I used to coach.”

Early in the season, Kerr sent Brown to a far court to work with a group of Warriors on some offensive sets. He rounded them up — this collection of Hall of Fame talents and self-sufficient veterans — and began to methodically take them through the drill.

“I’m very structured. ‘We’re going from Point A to Point B to Point C,'” Brown said. “But that’s not how they play. That’s not how they learn either. I started doing that stuff and — I’ve been around a bit — so I know and feel if something’s not right. Now they were respectful, but I could feel right away they’re like we don’t need you to hold our hands and walk us through this. We just need a little direction and once in awhile, if we’re not doing the right way, say something.”

Brown backed off. He was starting to understand the vibe. He began to meld into the organization’s culture, while still picking his spots to teach. Maybe one day down the road, if he returned to the top seat, he’d bring some of this with him.

Then Steve Kerr’s lingering health issues worsened and the coach was forced off the sidelines. Boom! Welcome to your test run, Mike Brown 2.0. Your first objective: Don’t allow the Warriors — a notoriously unfocused Game 3 team (2-6 the past two years) — let up with a 2-0 lead in Portland. What happens? They fall behind 13 at half and 17 in the third quarter.

Earlier in his coaching career, when LeBron was a pup and Brown was still in his 30s, he’d get so tense on the sidelines, stressing in key moments. A veteran, he thinks it was Eric Snow, told him: “You have to watch how you react to things and your facial expressions. Because if they’re the wrong way or not positive, it can bring us down as a team, as a group.”

“I tried to take it to heart,” Brown said. “But as a young head coach, experiencing things for the first time, I couldn’t always control that.”

But here he was in Portland, a truly important moment in his career, remaining calm on the sidelines during a rough patch. The Warriors stampeded back for a win. After the game, Draymond Green called Brown the game’s “MVP.” Klay Thompson said “we appreciated his composure.” Thinking back to Snow’s advice, Brown was just proud of the personal growth he felt.

“I’ve relied on my past experience as a head coach,” Brown said. “But also, a lot of what came into play was what I learned this season, how Steve handles things.”

A couple weeks later, Kerr remains out, which means Brown remains the leading man. The Warriors are 6-0 with him in charge. The adjustment has gone smoothly. But things are about to heat up. He’s currently staring down the barrel of two challenging, familiar tasks: a showdown with Popovich’s Spurs before a potential Finals date with LeBron and the ghosts of Cleveland past.

How stressed is Brown? Meh. He knows what kind of talent he’s lugging around. He’d rather talk about his recent trip into the Oakland Hills. Brown called the Bay Area his favorite place he’s ever lived because he can hop on his motorcycle and “10 minutes later, you’re in a completely different world.”

Brown revved the Harley up, left downtown and climbed Lake Chabot road near Castro Valley. Before long, he was up in the hills, stunned by the mix of forestry and creeks, lakes and wildlife. He had to show somebody. So he hopped off his bike, started snapping pictures with his iPhone to text friends and then thought to himself, wait: “I’m not a picture guy. I’m not a nature guy.”

Correction: The old Mike Brown wasn’t. The new one seems to be.