This is not good! Kwame in LA.

[Mulli]

He'll be better next year with Phil as his coach. He's 7' and has a solid body frame. He's not a rail like Hunter. I think he needs to focus on rebounding and defense like Chandler and he'll be solid.

Perhaps Phil will coach him up into being the next Dickey Simpkins or Jason Caffey? Will Purdue? That is asking a lot of Kwame.

 

[scotsman13]

to put this simplely if anyone thought they were going to get a good player out of kwame brown dont you think that they would give him something more then a 2 year deal?

 

[SirStefan32]

This really does not worry me. Not at all.

 

[Southpaw]

Kwame has potential to be a star, as evidenced by his new shoe deal with NIKE.
It is for their " loafer" line of shoes.

 

[Errntknght]

 

[Diamondback Jay]

I've never bothered to collect any documentation, and my memory is sketchy. Don't take any of this as gospel.


When he was first coming up, the Bulls would collect veteran backups for MJ, and a couple of them washed out of the league by the next year. The problem was that Jordan would go after his backup mercilessly in practice, trash-talking and basically destroying the guy's ego.

When Toni Kukoc came to the Bulls, Jordan and Pippen were annoyed that he was getting so much money and attention. There were rumors that those two froze Kukoc out in the locker room.

Everybody around here remembers the time Jordan got into a fight (in practice) with Steve Kerr--Kerr's rep is that he's one of the nicest and friendliest guys in sports, and he's never had trouble with any of his other teammates. The Bulls weren't able to hush it up because of the marks on Kerr's face IIRC.

When Jordan was with the Wizards, the rumor was that he would challenge Rip Hamilton to shooting contests, putting money on the line. Rip would generally put Jordan a few thousand dollars in the hole, and then Jordan would make him stay on the court until he could get even. A couple of times the team bus was delayed for hours because of this--the rest of the team had to sit and wait.

When MJ traded Hamilton to the Pistons for Jerry Stackhouse, it was thought that part of the motivation was personal, because Hamilton didn't kowtow to him (not that Jordan needed a special reason to make bad trades).

And, of course, Jordan used to repeatedly insult Kwame Brown's manhood in front of their teammates, calling him a '******' and a bunch of other names. Kwame was 18 at the time, and Jordan was about 37 or 38.


I'm sure I've forgotten more than I remembered, but there you have it.

If you guys want an inside perspective on all this and other "Jordanisms", check out the book "When Nothing Else Matter". Jordan really did destroy and crap all over Kwame's ego, however at the same time as a professional you should be able to move beyond your initial immaturities and short falls, something Brown has never been able to do.

Also, I'm not too fond of the Jermaine O'Neal comparison. J'O was NEVER given the shot in Portland and found himself buried on the furthest depths of Portland's bench. Washington gave Kwame EVERY opportunity to live up to his potential, and he was too immature to follow through with it.

I don't like this deal for the Lakers. Butler is a solid player and should be able to help allivieate the loss of Hughes, where Atkins can step in off the bench to spell Arenas..

 

[baltimorer]

Hey, F-Dog. Can you give me some background on your statement "Jordan-level teammate killer?"


My wife loves Jordan and I love to dig up dirt on him to torture her.

He killed Steve Kerr into hitting a Finals-winning jumper, and he absolutely murdered Paxon into sinking a Finals-winning 3 against the Suns.

Jordan wasn't a teamate killer. I think his problem was that he got mad when a teamate wasn't willing to die for the team. That problem hurt the Bulls on two separate occasions. The first occassion was from 1991-1993. The second occassion was from 1996-1998.

 

[George O'Brien]

One of the most difficult thing for superstars to do is deal with less talented guys who don't outwork them. Barkley had a terrible reputation with the Sixers of blasting his teammates for not playing harder.

This is a potential risk with Amare. It was rumored that Amare was upset with Marbury not being willing to practice. Marbury was like a lot of veteran players who saved his energy for the regular games, but the result was that he never developed much chemistry with Amare. No one outworks Nash and the connection with Amare seemed to be almost instantaneous.

I don't think it is problem now. The Suns have a team of very hard workers. I get the impression that Zarko was dumped because he was perceived to be lazy (I doubt Amare had anything to do with it). In any case, the requirements to play for the Suns include not only talent but willingness to work hard.

So while I disagree with MJ's tactics with K Brown, I'm not surprised that MJ had problems with him. Brown has a reputation of being lazy and not putting out all the time. For a guy like MJ, that is deadly even if MJ was the total nice guy his TV ads make him out to be.