Kwame Brown released an emotionally charged tirade in response to his scapegoating over the years, also making a revelation about Michael Jordan.
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Kwame Brown has recently been in the news for his comments on Stephen Jackson, Gilbert Arenas and Matt Barnes. The aforementioned trio discussed his career on their podcast, with Arenas aiming some less-than-palatable banter at Brown.
Having faced all of this criticism for so long without speaking up, Brown may have found this one hitting home too much. His response is something that comes from years of being downplayed and joked about by sports media people. He revealed how Michael Jordan had drafted him only to send him off in a trade package for Elton Brand:
“You are not playing me because you wanted to trade me for Elton Brand. See, the Bible says you have to accept what you cannot change and have the wisdom to know the difference.”
“Imagine a teenage boy start saying, MJ didn’t draft me to keep me as a Washington Wizard. See, I got caught in between a fight with MJ and Abe Pollin. I am a consequence of two grown a** men fighting and couldn’t come to terms with what they wanted to do.”
Does Kwame Brown have a legitimate gripe with Michael Jordan?
While Kwame Brown may not have taken the most gentlemanly approach to confronting this issue, you can’t blame the man for telling us his true feelings. It is something that he’s been going through, and something that we should strive to not do in an age when you expect people to care about others’ mental health.
The case of Kwame is a very delicate one. Brown may not have been a particularly NBA performer, but he was a relatively solid contributor in the right situations. Being on Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant’s teams weren’t exactly conducive to his development as a basketball player.
The NBA Draft class of 2001 had 3 high school big men with NBA potential who were selected high. Tyson Chandler and Eddy Curry were the other two players who’d displayed this promise and occupied the stage with Kwame.
But obviously, the expectations from a #1 pick in the draft are for him to develop into a star player. Developing promising young players takes a careful approach which hadn’t been optimized in the NBA at the time.
To be clear, this doesn’t condone him from his inconsistent play. Kwame was no more than a rotation level player at his best. But what you can’t fault is his attitude as a professional. He put his body on the line countless times.
