Most of us saw where Kobe Bryant took time to rip Kwame Brown during a guest lecture to a college class at the University of California-Santa Barbara the other day, video embedded above and linked here if you missed it. In calling out the transgressions of inglorious bastard teammates Brown and Smush Parker, Bryant took pause to mention that he would say the same thing to the faces of both players; this after eliciting chuckles from the class en masse by mere mention of Brown’s name. Surely Kobe realizes that every comment he makes, every action, is susceptible to fast dissemination amongst the Internets. He knew Kwame would hear his dig.
People are always ready to rip Kwame, myself included. Almost as readily, people blame Michael Jordan or Doug Collins for all that went wrong with him at the onset of his career with the Washington Wizards as the NBA’s 2001 No. 1 overall draft pick. Both men have admitted that they would’ve handled the 18-year old differently, Collins at various times even admitting that their scouting was duped by Kwame’s accelerated physique and confident persona in a pre-draft workout where he bested, and beasted, high school contemporary Tyson Chandler. Jordan, now majority owner of the Bobcats, attempted to swallow his mistakes last summer by reuniting with Kwame in Charlotte.
Others have blamed the burden of a child basketball prodigy entering the league during the indisputable height of the corrupt AAU basketball scene. Kwame was the poster child for the one-and-done college rule, and he likely would have been exposed as a later-round selection had he gone to the University of Florida to play with the likes of Udonis Haslem, Matt Bonner and David Lee. An example of Brown’s insight in April 2001 before officially deciding to turn pro (via the Sun-Sentinel.com): Read more »
[Ed. Note: I'm going to warn you. Rashad is about to divulge himself as a Philadelphia Eagles fan. Please, do not be outraged. I already knew this and it is okay. He's a fine young man (who's older than me) and you should not hold his fandom of a certain team about 140 miles north against him. Now Mr. Mobley is going to explain why the Bobcats are worth checking out, aside from wondering if Gerald Wallace is going to injure yet another Wizard. -Kyle W.]
I have been a Philadelphia Eagles fan since 1985 when I saw Randall Cunningham running and passing his way to superstardom. And although they have just one Super Bowl appearance and no titles during my 25 years of loyalty, my allegiance remains strong.
Unfortunately, since sports is mostly about business and not fan loyalty, some of my favorite players have left the Eagles via trade, free agency or waivers. Randall Cunningham retired as an Eagle and then unretired and played for Minnesota; Reggie White left for Green Bay via free agency; Terrell Owens was released and then he signed with Dallas; and just this past summer, Donovan McNabb was traded to the Washington Redskins.
“He’s a smart guy, he knows how to play the game. If he had the body of a . . . Kwame Brown, he’d be an All-Star. And he makes the most with what he has.”-Steve Buckhantz on Darius Songaila
Watching (for the first time) Saturday night’s loss to the Spurs late Sunday evening, I’d never before considered an utterance praising D-Song and digging at Kwame in the same sentence. Thank you Steve Buck.
[Runner-Up Quote of the Week: "Wizards looking for a little home cookin', but the stove is not lit."- Steve Buckhantz in reference to the refs.]
After he walked (and played) in Gilbert Arenas’ shoes, and before he became a Washington Wizard, Javaris Crittenton played for the Los Angeles Lakers and the Memphis Grizzlies. My immediate reaction is that while I’m sorry to see Antonio Daniels go (I have love for him too), I like the idea of Crittenton’s youth, potential, and size (who doesn’t like a 6’5″ PG?).
But before I get into doing a bunch of research on the kid’s past, I wanted to asked some NBA bloggers from LA and Memphis their opinion about Crittenton. Thanks to Kurt of Forum Blue & Gold and Josh of 3 Shades of Blue for providing their thoughts. Read on…..
When the Gasol trade went down last season, the only twinge of regret for fans was losing Crittenton. Well, there was really no twinge of regret, but Lakers fans were sad to see Crittenton go. I haven’t seen him play in a year, but his game has potential with a capital “P.” He’s long, very fast, played hard on defense, was developing a shot, and he can get to the rim. He played a little out of control, especially for the rather controlled triangle offense the Lakers run, but that was a matter of youth and maturity. He could develop into a quality player in this league. He’s just in the weird spot a lot of young players are: He needs run to develop, but he can’t get run because coaches can’t sacrifice wins for experience. So he sits a lot.
The Lake Show is in DC tonight, and I’m afraid that Laker Nation posers will be dominating the Verizon Center. I’ve been called a Laker-Hater in the past, and yes, this fact forced me to root for another team I dislike, Boston, in last year’s Finals (just like the damn Super Bowl when I had to root for the Giants over the Patriots). Oh well, what’s a sports fan to do?
It is what it is. Thankfully, someone who is a real Lakers fan, Kurt from the Forum Blue & Gold, has been kind enough to take time to answer some questions I had about his team. Read on…..
1) In the olden days, when it came to Phil Jackson, I was like “meh…..he’s a convenient opportunist and I’m not buying his Zen B.S.,” but more and more, I’m beginning to like Phil because of his snarky sarcasm that screams, “Will you baby NBA millionaires just grow up and be men?” Plus, the realistic side of me knows that he’s always been a damn good coach.
That being said, what’s to make of the latest with Andrew Bynum? To me, what amounts to about a half an NBA season (last year and this year) does not make a boy a man. So, is he really a kid who doesn’t know better, or should he be in at the end of games for boards? And why do the Lakers do so much communicating in the press anyway? Read more »
If the Wizards would’ve shot better that 37% against New Jersey, they would have won, right? Yea…..who knows. When it comes to winning and basketball, no two areas are preached more about than defense and rebounding, no matter what pulpit the message is coming from. So against the Pistons, for game blog purposes, I’m going to ignore the offense and concentrate on defense and rebounding. Not all boards are attainable, and you can play great defense and not stop a bulk of an opponent’s shots from going in. That being said, I’m going to attempt to selectively focus on the particularly great or horrendous occurrences in those areas. Q1
10:48: Ron Thompson mentioned that transition D would be key in the pregame show…here, Billups brings it down the middle in off a Wizards turnover (Etan had great position in the lane, just lost the ball). Amir Johnson comes to screen Antonio Daniels just inside the three point line. Jamison is laying back a little to protect the basket, but there’s just too much space, AJ needs to be closer to help on Chauncey. Billups takes one dribble off the screen and gets an easy jumper on the left elbow. Johnson’s screen was semi-illegal….but this is the NBA. 4-0 Detroit.
10:23: Next time down, Amir Johnson gets called for an illegal screen…..laid his butt into DeShawn.
9:35: Wiz get caught standing and confusing assignments for boxing out….can’t see whose fault it is because of the camera angle, but Prince sneaks for an offensive board and the Pistons get 2nd chance points. 6-3 Detroit.
In anticipation of tonight’s game between the Washington Wizards and the Detroit Pistons, I present a quick Q&A with Matt from the excellent Pistons blog, Detroit Bad Boys.
1) Over the summer, Joe Dumars said that no one was ‘untouchable’ and then did not make any major moves. How satisfied were you with what the Pistons did in the off-season coming into this year?
At first I was disappointed, but once it became apparent that Amir Johnson was going to start and Rodney Stuckey was expected to average 25-30 minutes, I got excited. Not a lot of team can undergo a youth movement while staying in contention, but I think the Pistons have a chance to pull it off. I’ve been dying to see Johnson get a fair shake the last two years and Stuckey looked like a future All-Star at times in the playoffs, so if all the pieces come together, it’ll be like the Pistons added two impact players to their rotation without giving anything up.
Plus, I’m not completely convinced the roster will look the same come playoff time. With Rasheed Wallace on the verge of free agency and Rip Hamilton potentially opting-out, Dumars will be taking a lot of calls at the trade deadline. Maybe something falls in his lap, or maybe he looks at the team and decides it’s a little younger and a little deeper than last year and sits tight. Anything can happen.
When Gilbert Arenas’ blog dropped the last week, I was all set to write a post on the past tumultuous relationship between him and Kwame Brown. However, I became distracted by Gilbert’s absurd lack of social responsibility. [Side Bar: I do realize that Gilbert's blog (or at least the one that some dude transcribes for him) spawning other bloggers to write blog posts (in some cases multiple) about his blog post could be considered absurd as well....and I'm comfortable with that possibility.]
What Arenas said about Brown and his migration to Motown seemed to be words of encouragement for the 26-year old, seven-year NBA vet.
I like that deal for Detroit and for Kwame. He’s in a quieter city now, he’s 26-years old, he’s on a veteran team, he’s growing up. In the past in D.C. and L.A. it was a case of him being a big kid in a big city, now he can settle his career down. You know that Sheed and McDyess and those other bigs will help him develop and this should be the best time of his career because in Detroit, the bigs get touches in the offense.
Don’t think that the Kwame Brown that was in Memphis is the real Kwame Brown. When you get traded, so much emotion goes into it and leaving a No. 1 team to come into a team with a bad record halfway through the season is a tough adjustment.
In the past he had the spot light on him because he was a No. 1 pick and he was in these big markets, but now he can just go out and play hard and blend in. This is going to be his year.
The Pistons have been tied to several potential blockbuster moves this summer, whether it be for Carmelo Anthony, Josh Smith, Tracy McGrady or Ron Artest. [side note: The 17th pick of the '04 NBA draft which was shipped from Detroit, via Milwaukee and Denver, to Atlanta in the Rasheed Wallace trade was used by the Hawks to select Josh Smith.] But nothing has come to fruition since Joe Dumars built “big splash” expectations by deeming everyone available (with perhaps Jason Maxiell and Rodney Stuckey as the lone exceptions).
So now, after being on the latter end of “win or go home” in the Eastern Conference Finals for the past three years, this is Joe D’s answer. A guy in Kwame Brown who once, at the age of 24, destroyed a stranger’s cake, getting it all over the man, before ducking into a limo like a hoe, has been anointed to push the Detroit Pistons over the top.
Good luck with that one Motor City. Will Kwame finally find his way under consummate vet, Antonio McDyess? Or will his attitude travel the path of Rasheed Wallace? How will any of these guys affect Walter Sharpe? In any case, $8 million over two-years is not exactly a low-risk move.
Ford makes a good point. Sure, the Knicks could try to trade Marbury this summer to a team looking for cap room, but Ford doesn’t think that New York will get anything worth their while. Then again, have you heard of the Phoenix Suns? They gave the Seattle Sonics Kurt Thomas and two first round picks, in ’08 and ’10, in exchange for a conditional future 2nd round pick and a gain in cap space.
With frugality on the minds of manymost all GMs these days [take that mainstream media....bloggers can cross out words and look cool, you can't]….anyway, you’d think the Knicks would be able to get someone to bite on Starbury. Of course, Marbury’s recipient would surely cut him loose before he could set foot on a plane. No need to pack baggage Steph, all of yours is carry-on. Exactly, Kurt Thomas has been a great locker room presence in Seattle, not to mention averaging almost 10 rebounds in 25 minutes per game. And I’ve really got nothing against Marbury. The whole cheap shoe thing is kind of cool. But he’s never been a winner. Why would any franchise want him? More importantly, for Stephon, how can he resurrect his career at this juncture? And why did Phoenix give up Thomas in the first place? They could sure use him now.
Step 2: Trade Zach Randolph or Eddy Curry.
Chadwick throws out several theories. I can’t blame him, it’s his job to do so. One involves Curry to the Hawks for Pachulia and Lue…intriguing. Another with Eddy going to the Magic for some randoms. But the suggestion which made me pause was Eddy Curry and Malik Rose to the Washington Wizards for Antawn Jamison. I can’t even begin to say what’s wrong with this suggestion. Jamison provides two main things over Curry: rebounds and intangibles. And “intangibles” covers a lot….everything from AJ’s crafty shot repertoire to his leadership. Besides, Eddy Curry is not built for the Eddie Jordan offense and I don’t see him meshing with Gilbert Arenas, assuming Gil stays around.
Very interesting article by Rick Cleveland of the Clarion Ledger (Jackson, Mississippi) – all about college football coaches and the high salaries they receive, especially when compared to those of professors.
Rick says that big-time college athletics is a business, but seems skeptical at the inherent culture.
He’s exactly right about the business part. But why do people go into business? To make money. Yes, it can be hard to digest for academia, but the money educational institutions make from their participation in this “business” allows for the betterment of the school as a whole.
And I’m sorry, but starting the first defensive play of the game with only 10 men on the field was NOT the way for the Redskins to honor Sean Taylor. If they wanted to feel his presence on the actual field, they should have put his number 21 on the grass, and not allow Freddie Jackson to bust a 22 yard run down the left side. Doing this also put the Buffalo Bills in the awkward situation of receiving comments from announcers to the effect of, ‘The classy thing for the Bills to do would be to take a knee.’ Uhhh….no! Sean Taylor played to win. Both teams should be out there doing the same.
Yea, most of these links probably have been circulated twice over….but I thought these were the most interesting nonetheless.
Kobe Gives OJ Advice – No, not that OJ…but I would not be surprised. Although, it’s a little too late for OJ to buy Nicole a diamond ring. But in this Sports Illustrated article, Kobe Bryant gives a little advice to USC’s OJ Mayo.
“It’s different if you’re throwing it to a player you feel can make that shot,” said Bryant. “But throwing it to him just because he’s open doesn’t give the team the best shot of winning.”
I wonder how Michael Jordan’s philosophy lined up with this? Probably similar. Then again, if MJ didn’t trust a teammate, (and yes, he even yelled at those he trusted), that guy wouldn’t even set foot on the court.
I’m beginning to like Phil Jackson, the Zen Master, more and more…..especially when he talks about Kwame Brown. Oh yea…check out kwamebrownsucks.com
