Kwame Brown

Well, I don't care how cheap we can get Kwame now. The last thing the Rockets need is more inexperienced youth. He might come into his own in a few years and people might say "See, we should've gotten him when he was available," but in my mind, the Rockets don't have the luxury of sitting him on the bench and waiting for him to develop. It's not fair to the team or the fans to suffer while waiting for him to become a player. Put me off the Lebron James bandwagon as well. I don't care if he's going to be the next Jordan. If we have to endure four years of lottery and bad chemistry before the next Jordan can live up to his potential, count me out.

I know this is sort of off-topic, but that's how I feel.

 

Wow, an excellent read. Thanks for the link. This kid has been through hell, and it's not over. Truly a cautionary tale. He may still turn out to be a great player, but it makes Griff look pretty damn good.

 

Is Brown actually older than Griff? I like Brown, I liked his demanor during the post-draft press conference. Pretty surprised that he dominated Chandler.

 

I think Griffin has it a lot better simply because his mother moved here with him. There's no telling how much better off Kwame would have been if his mother was able to stay with him. That would make the transition so much easier. If not his mother, it seems like they would have at least sent someone to be with him. A brother? A friend from high school? My goodness, I can't believe he was actually here all by himself.

 

btw rimrocker, thanks for the link. Very good read.

DCKid, I agree. I spent much of the article trying to figure out why some relative wasn't living with Kwame. I guess his mother is pretty entrenched and with 8 kids has many other factors to consider than just taking care of Kwame in D.C.

 

Great article and great read. His younger brother's name is "Akeem". No doubt about it, Kwame will be a Rocket.

 

People need to think too for a moment. Your drafted by a team in which Michael jordan plays on. Now put yourself in his shoes and realize he stressed himself out thinking he was expected to become this allstar in one year and take the wiz to the playoffs with his royal airness!
But did not fit that way instead he was sent to ride the pine and scrape for minutes...

You will see a totally different Kwame next season. The pressure is off now.
look at Jermaine O'Neal back when he was a pup. Now look at im today.

 

i only read half the article...im still very perplexed how someone can be so sheltered. i guess i take things for granted. by the time i was 12 i could of taken care of myself with 11 million dollars...

 

It's amazing how immature some of these straight out of HS players are.

I know a lot of people from HS who started working across the country. Or people like myself who attended college on the other side of the country.

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Now I just read the article, and am certainly shocked that normal everyday things like using the ATM, doing my laundry (that I've done since I was 12), and giving Time Warner a call for some cable, was such an ordeal for a guy 2 months younger than me who will make more money in the next 3-4 years, than I ever will.

He seems like a great kid, who is a great rags to riches story. I am definitely rooting for him, but it boggles my mind how he didn't/doesn't have the common skills needed not only to just survive in college or whereever, but even more so the NBA.

 

That's where Kwame should move his family up to DC, since he can obviously now financially support him.

I could understand that Kwame would want to be his own man, but when you have an impoverished family of 10 or how ever many, I would think it would be your duty to upgrade their quality of life ASAP, if at all possible.

Where are the teammates in all of this? Do they look down on him for being so young, and not "paying his dues"?

 

It sounded like they didn't want to move his brothers out of their schools before they graduated, so the mother had to stay home in Georgia and take care of them. I don't know if that's the only reason they didn't move, but its definitely one of them.

In my opinion, the biggest problem was Collins. I think he's a great coach and I'm glad he's staying with the Wizards, but he's second only to George Karl in blurting things out to the press that he should just keep within the organization. I'm sure its hard for Kwame to read Collins saying things to the press like, "he's been a disappointment, I thought he was going to help us more this year." Jeez Doug, how about using a little more tact?

...oh MJ, why did you pass on Brand?

 

That was a great read, and i feel like kidrock, how can you not know the simple things like grocery shopping and drying cleaing. I had to do it at 17 with ALOT less money

 

I guess you guys didn't spend most of your time honing your basketball skills. He's probably wondering how some of you can't drive to the hoop or dunk. He's socially inept, but he's making bank. Now he's learning how to be socially normal and he's got bank. Sounds like no big deal to me.

 

You make it sound like Kwame did nothing but play basketball 24 hours a day. The average basketball player should know how to go to the grocery store, as well as knowing that wadding up your clothes in a ball is not the smartest thing.

This is something that should be developed by a 13 year old, much less a soon to be if not already 20 year old.

 

Great read.

 

I was going to post something about that earlier, but then I thought about his family situation. I don't know how poor his family is, and I recognize it's difficult to extrapolate much with confidence from the article, but his family didn't sound middle-class being headed by a single mother with so many kids and having to go to the Salvation Army occasionally.

Growing up in a family in those conditions and a somewhat rural environment (the article makes it sound podunk), I can see how he might not be used to using an ATM, understanding what cable modem is sufficiently to recognize the need to order it, etc. I'm not saying that he's too dumb or ignorant to be able to pick those things up quickly; but I can see why he might need someone to walk him through it. Those things can be kind of class-specific.

I agree about laundry though. And when it comes down to it, the impression I get from the article is that he's used to having things done for him and doesn't have a great work ethic. In other words, that he's pretty immature. And that I think is sort of bad, although I can't blame him for not keeping his room clean (it can't be worse than mine).

 

Kwame will probably end up becoming a KG type of player. Everyone seems to agree that he has that kind of potential and nearly every great player that's come out of hs has sat the bench and contributed little their first couple years. However, even with all this potential, he's not someone the Rockets would have any interest in, simply because we have most of the talent that we need, with the exception of someone to pull it all together, and the way the fans here are, the Rockets don't have the luxery of having too many more losing seasons. The Rockets need to get a player that will help us in the present as opposed to the future before the Houston fans completely give up on the Rockets. Kwame Brown does not fit this profile.