One of the biggest “swing and miss” stories in NBA history is the tale of Kwame Brown. The South Carolina-born baller was drafted No. 1 overall by the Washington Wizards and their president at the time, Michael Jordan. Unfortunately, his career didn’t pan out, and Brown is widely considered one of the biggest busts in league history.
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Gilbert Arenas, who shared a locker room with Brown, remembers those days — and actually blames MJ and the Wizards for Brown’s career faceplanting.
Brown skipped over playing college ball and instead declared for the NBA Draft in 2001. It made sense. Brown was a top prospect, whose scouting report compared him to other historical great big men.
“Already bulkier than Garnett and could turn into more of a Webber-type post player. Very graceful running the floor. Tremendous leaping ability. Passes and handles extraordinarily well for a 6-11 player,” read the report. Boy, were they wrong.
So when Dan Patrick had Arenas on his program, he wondered why Jordan and the Wizards organization would take Kwame first overall. “Upside,” Gil answered immediately. “You’re looking at the age, you’re looking at the body style, and you’re looking at the raw potential of the player.”
While it seemed that Arenas was about to go into a soliloquy as to why Brown didn’t have the juice to compete, he actually came to his defense and placed the blame elsewhere.
“It’s not the kids that are the bust; it’s the organization,” Gil stated with confidence. He explained that the Wizards didn’t properly build the “infrastructure” around Brown for him to be a success. Arenas mentioned building Kwame as a player as well but hammered home the organization’s failure.
“He’s coming in from high school straight into the NBA. He doesn’t know the landscape, so you have to teach him that,” he added.
Arenas later noted that great players who transition into management sometimes have a difficult time assessing players because of “what made them great.” For example, he suggested that Jordan thought he was the best because of his “fundamentals,” but Gil pointed to his athleticism. It’s small things that eventually blind someone from seeing what’s really in front of them. A bust.
Funnily enough, Gil didn’t always stand in Kwame Brown’s corner. He was once his biggest critic.
What did Gil previously say about Kwame Brown?
On an older episode of Gil’s Arena, Agent Zero opened up about the beef he used to have with Kwame Brown when both played on the Wizards together.
“His problem wasn’t he didn’t have skill. The problem is, he didn’t wanna do nothing. It came to the point where it’s like, I’m afraid to try and fail,” Gil recalled.
The tension between Arenas and Brown was at a boiling point, especially after Brown threatened to slap his teammate after Gil suggested that Brown be benched. This eventually led to Brown’s departure from the team in 2005.
Brown ran into some trouble with the law after his NBA career. It’s another tale that could have ended positively if the organization did what Gil suggested and helped build the young baller up. Instead, he’ll remain in history as a “what if.”
