Learning more about Monumental Basketball executive Sashi Brown

The Washington Wizards announced the formation of a new group called Monumental Basketball on Monday that will see Sashi Brown serve as chief planning and operations officer. Below you can watch Brown’s media availability after the group introductory press conference as well as the main takeaways.

Brown, 43, is the former Executive Vice President of football operations for the Cleveland Browns. He served in that position for nearly two years until his firing in December 2017. Prior to that, he was the Browns’ executive vice president/general counsel since 2013. He was lead counsel for the Jacksonville Jaguars before that from 2005 to 2012. The Hampton University graduate worked as an attorney for a D.C.-based firm so this opportunity allows him a chance to return to the area.

• Ted Leonsis and Sashi Brown’s initial meeting in May was not a job interview. It was an information-gathering meeting by Leonsis, one of over 50 he conducted during the front office search, which was easily arranged because Brown and his family were residing in Bethesda, MD. They discussed Leonsis’s business experiences, stadiums, the collective bargaining agreement, player engagement, strategy, team building, and more. “It was a pretty robust, lengthy conversation that he had to run out of to get to his next meeting.”
• Brown was not involved in the draft or free agency process and was only offered and accepted the position less than two weeks ago.
• Brown’s grandfather coached at Kentucky State across the town from Adolph Rupp: “I’ve always had a passion for the game [of basketball].”
• On how he knew this was the right opportunity for him: “Ted and his partners have put Monumental in a position to be one of the more respected ownership groups across the world in sports and they have a big platform that does require a lot of talent to manage and to run and combining my passion for basketball, my expertise in terms of sports executive.”
• On how much he knew about his now partner Tommy Sheppard: “I didn’t know Tommy very well other than we have a bunch of people we knew in common so I was able to do some diligence on him quietly and everybody spoke very highly of him.”
• On dividing up the Wizards overall philosophy: “That’s going to be driven by Tommy.”