Brendan Kirsch returns to lead SlamBall’s original powerhouse Mob

SlamBall can sell the dunks. Brendan Kirsch is there to sell the part that lasts.

Kirsch’s return to the Mob matters because the franchise is not just another logo in a rebooted league. SlamBall says the Mob came out of the sport’s original Los Angeles warehouse era, back when Mason Gordon invented the game in 1999 and first put it on the floor in Los Angeles. The Mob became the standard-bearer from the start, built on big hits, suffocating defense and one-tramp lobs, then grew into the only SlamBall team to win multiple titles and complete a three-peat.

Kirsch was behind that first act. His official biography says he coached the Mob during SlamBall’s first four seasons, including the 2012 title run in China. That gives him a rare kind of credibility in a league that is still asking the same hard question every startup sport eventually faces: can the spectacle survive once the novelty wears off?

The answer, at least for the Mob, has always been rooted in continuity. SlamBall’s season review says the club’s championships stretched through Series 4, Series 5 and Series 6, with the 2023 title completing the three-peat after earlier crowns in China in 2012 and 2016. That 2023 run was even cleaner than the old ones. The Mob became the first undefeated champion in SlamBall history, with Darius Clark powering the offense and earning SlamBall Playoffs Most Valuable Player honors.

That is the bridge Kirsch gives the league. He is not just a coach from the old days. After his first SlamBall stint, he worked on sponsorships for the Orlando Magic, Brooklyn Nets and Phoenix Suns, then added another lane in Hollywood as a basketball choreographer and second-unit director on productions including One Tree Hill, Eastbound & Down, Rebound, Semi-Pro, The Office, Teen Wolf, The Mighty Macs and All You’ve Got. That background makes him unusually useful in a sport that has to be explained as much as it is played.

It also helps that the Mob’s history has recognizable names attached to it. SlamBall lists Sean “Inches” Jackson, Lamonica “The Machine” Garrett and Kevin Cassidy among the franchise’s all-time legends, the kind of players who made the team’s identity feel concrete instead of nostalgic. In the modern reboot, that identity is being repackaged without being flattened. ESPN noted SlamBall returned after more than a 20-year absence in 2023, with eight teams playing at Cox Pavilion in Las Vegas, but the Mob’s place in the league still runs through the same line of continuity.

Kirsch also helps tell that story on the league’s official podcast, SlamBall Nation, where he serves as the Mob’s public-facing interpreter. In a sport trying to prove it can be more than a throwback, that may be the most important job of all.