Kwame Brown, one of the NBA’s top “couldn’t live up to the expectations” players, has been in the news for few months for standing up for himself picked by Michael Jordan.
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Drafted by Washington Wizards, Kwame Brown was the number 1 overall draft pick in 2001, picked by Michael Jordan himself who was the president of the team at the time.
The expectation from Kwame was to help Jordan in the playoffs when the latter made his comeback after the second retirement.
Over the course of his career, the expectations got better of him. The 6’11 center averaged over 10 points and 7 points just once in his entire career. Brown became a journeyman in the NBA who last played NBA basketball in 2013, but the poor guy is still made fun of in the basketball media very often.
Stephen Jackson and Matt Barnes started the beef with Kwame in May 2021
When Jackson and Barnes were interviewing Lakers governor Jeanie Buss on “All the smoke” podcast, she discussed the trade that sent Brown and the draft rights to Marc Gasol to the Grizzlies for Pau Gasol to which Jackson quickly teased that Marc Gasol was the only player traded for Pau Gasol.
This was even discussed by Stephen A Smith on his show after this podcast. As Smith would never leave a chance to get on a click-bait ship.
There have been many players in all the sports who have underperformed after the hype created by the media during college. But they shouldn’t be always teased or made fun of because they have families and friends as well.
But Kwame had to come forward to explain this to his fellow NBA players and the media.
Kwame ripped apart everyone who made fun of him
Brown never became a success story in the NBA, he played his last game for the Sixers in 2013. But he believes he shouldn’t be made fun of years later.
Recently Sports journalist Jason Whitlock interviewed the former NBA big man on his show they touched upon various topics including his beef with ex-NBA players Stephen Jackson, Matt Barnes, Gilbert Arenas, and also journalist Stephen A Smith.
“Kwame when you put Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson in check, did you think it would lead to all of this? Did you think like oh I’m about to really impact the culture?” Whitlock asked.
“Absolutely not! I think a lot of the stuff that I’ve been saying, men speak like that anyway. We just have to hide in a closet or a barbershop, it’s just now it’s so hypersensitive that we only have you know safe spaces that you can talk like a man, and so I think, you know, by me talking and it just exposing the difference between a true man and a man who just speaks in a way that’s disrespectful,” Kwame answered.
He continued “that you would not speak to a man to his face I think people saw the difference and they gravitated towards me.”
All these players had a better career than Kwame and Stephen A has accomplished so much as a journalist that it transcends many things. Still, they left no chance of tarnishing Kwame when they got a chance.
“It started off by me trying to check two peers of mine in the sports world that they are supposed to understand on the same level as I understand it and that you don’t stop another man’s urn. I haven’t played basketball in over 10 years, for me to be able to walk around this earth and you still bring my name in a negative light, I am a hero to some kids, and mentor to some, and you have those kids keep hearing stuff can make kids think that I don’t have validity, which I absolutely do.”
Then Whitlock tells Brown that how this scenario made him his supporter and how Kwame’s own kid could think that he’s a laughing stock and so him standing for himself will make it better for his supporters.
After explaining his feud with ‘All the Smoke’ podcast hosts he talked about Stephen A Smith and Gilbert Arenas as well, watch the embedded video of what he has to say.
