What Really Goes On In the Mind of Kwame Brown

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>We all believe we would be so much better than Kwame Brown.

"If I was so big and so strong ..."

"If I had his athleticism …"

"If I got all those opportunities …"

Brown has had the size, strength, athleticism and opportunities … and yet here he is. His fellow NBA players see him the same way as everyone on the outside, having just voted him in a Sports Illustrated poll the player who does the least with the most talent – by no small margin. Brown got 17 percent of the vote; Clippers forward Tim Thomas was next with 10 percent.

It's clear now, six and a half years in the NBA since Michael Jordan made him the first high-schooler taken with the No. 1 overall pick, that Brown's projected greatness will never come to be. That size, strength and athleticism was even combined with opportunities from the very same NBA coaching combination (first Doug Collins' fire, then Phil Jackson's grace) that erected Jordan's own legend, but the usual two-pronged adapter of coaching and experience can work only if a guy actually wants to be plugged in.

Brown doesn't want it. As shameful as that is, let's hold on for a second and look at it another way.

Don't we all have some friends who hate their jobs? Don't we all know someone who simply can't deal with confrontation? And if we look around this Sunday, couldn't we all find a guy who, given the choice between playing in the Super Bowl and hanging out at a rockin' Super Bowl party, would be a lot happier wearing a lampshade than a helmet?

These kinds of guys – even with all the size, strength, athleticism and opportunity – would not be 6-foot-11, 270-pound Michael Jordans either. They'd be sitting there with beer in hand, moaning about what time they have to get up Monday morning, rooting for the underdog Giants to beat the so-professional Patriots and asking if you've got any more guacamole dip.

That's basically what's going on inside Brown, who was stumped when asked the day he came to the Lakers what motivated him. (He eventually turned to the cop-out answer of "winning.") Brown has been pushed toward greatness and has pushed back, preferring to blend in with the regular folks. That's how DJ Mbenga can learn more from Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in 10 days than Brown has in 2½ years.

On Friday night in Dallas, Brown air-balled a foul shot. To fill the uneasy moment that always follows such a glaring individual error, a stoic Brown softly spoke a single expletive.

Even his curses are unconvincing.

It's his smile that looks real.

Not long after his air ball, Brown had that easy grin on display. The Mavericks brought three awkward fans onto the court to stage a dance contest during a timeout. Nobody appreciates hokey, in-arena entertainment more than Kwame Brown.

In fact, after practice the previous day, Brown had found an Elvis mask – complete with big goggle sunglasses and bigger hair -- in the Mavericks' prop area. Bryant was literally in mid-sentence of answering a reporter's question on that touchy topic of his unhappy offseason when Brown strutted by – and Bryant had to laugh, saying: "That's just wrong!"

Which brings us to another point: Brown's teammates love him. Now, how can this be when they could be getting so much more from him (or getting Caron Butler's 21.9 points, 7 rebounds, 4.3 assists and 2.4 steals instead)?

That's the thing about accepting people for their true selves: It frees you up to let their flaws go a lot easier and focus on what they do bring. And Brown does consistently post team highs in camaraderie, to the point that his explanation for wanting to return from an injury earlier this season was so he could be with his teammates on the road.

When Lakers fans were dropping that avalanche of boos on him two weeks ago, every Lakers player on the floor with him made sure to swing by Brown and encourage him – with many more teammates echoing Bryant's sharp condemnation to fans afterward: "If they want to do that, they can stay home." The way those guys kept trying to give Brown the ball so he could make amends said a lot to Jackson about the team's unity, actually.

The game Tuesday night against New York will be Lakers fans' last chance to boo Brown before the team embarks on a nine-game trip with Brown, not Andrew Bynum, at center. Jackson called Bynum's eight-week-minimum absence a "huge opportunity that just presented itself on the plate" for Brown, whom Jackson advised in October to make "a dramatic change" if he hoped to command the mid-level salary-cap exception this summer as a free agent.

But by "dramatic change" Jackson didn't necessarily mean big production or want-to; he meant just growing up at 25 and trying to be a little more professional. The coach who once asked Brown for 15-point and 10-rebound averages has gotten past those delusions – and so must Lakers fans in this world where what we see is colored so by our expectations.</div>

http://www.ocregister.com/sports/kwame-bro...589-los-angeles

Things I have learned from this article:

1. Kwame Brown does not like playing basketball, just like how some people dislike their jobs.

2. Kwame Brown is more interested in the performances in the arena rather than the actual game.

3. Kwame Brown jokes around in practice, and all his teammates like him, even Kobe. Which probably explains why everyone was so defensive of Kwame after he received all the boos.

4. DJ Mbenga has learned more from Kareem in 10 days than Kwame has learned from Kareem in 2 and a half years

 

I don't like my job either. I wish I got paid $9 million a year for it. Kwame's the same age as me too.

 

I probably wouldn't look forward to playing basketball as much if I was the only guy on my team getting booed nightly lol, or if I sucked like him (which I would suck worse in the NBA), and basically even if I tried would look like a fool on the court. I'd only be happy that the Lakers management felt extra generous and gave me a 9 mill per year contract.