First Night on the Town

A problem child. A bust. The biggest mistake in Michael Jordan’s career. Kwame Brown is out to prove the critics wrong, and his first step toward the “Jermaine O’Neal future” foreshadowed for him was the preseason. After a couple strong efforts and a couple disappearances, our new man at the power forward made his Staples Center debut on Thursday, October 20, against Kenyon Martin and the Denver Nuggets. I was at the event, observing Kwame’s play on both ends of the court.

Again, it was a slow start for Kwame and the Lakers, as the Nuggets took a 16 to 3 lead, centered on the play of Carmelo Anthony and Kenyon Martin. However, while the Lakers may not have been scoring, Kwame was doing a nice job with the intangibles of the offense, setting back picks, moving off the ball, even if it led to nothing point-wise. But, Kenyon Martin proceeded to take Kwame to school on the other end, driving baseline and drawing two quick fouls by the 7:30 mark in the first quarter, leading to Kwame warming the bench for the remainder of the quarter.

While it is a good sign for the Lakers that Kwame is being aggressive, the Lakers don’t need another “Mihm-esque” type defensive strategy instilled in Brown. Picking up these ticky-tack fouls early on can easily take a player out of the game, both physically and mentally. However, this is not one of my concerns, as Phil had a talk with Kwame on the bench, resulting in no more fouls being given to number 54 for the rest of the night.

It was at the 6:13 mark of the second quarter that the most encouraging exchange of the night occurred, and the funny thing is, it didn’t even take place on the court. Kwame got up and asked Phil to put him back in the game, but at first he was sent back by Jackson. However, Phil took another glance at Kwame walking back and called him to go in for Mihm. This is a great step in the breaking down of two barriers which have plagued Kwame and Phil throughout their careers. First, the notion that Kwame has a bad work ethic, and second, that Phil doesn’t trust his younger players, and tends to go with veterans. Something tells me Kwame was put in due to the fact that he took the initiative to show he was hungry to get at Martin and redeem himself for his first quarter fouls. If this initiative and mindset continues throughout the regular season, we should be in good shape.

Offensively, Kwame is beginning to learn his spots in the triangle, which he displayed in the second quarter. To start, he got in position for a rebound and put back, followed by a unyielding pick and roll with Kobe, leading to two free throws. While free throws are definitely something the man needs to work on, his form really isn’t all that bad, and he’s fairly close on all his misses (excluding that air ball last week of course). Despite his “eh” form, I’m sure he’ll be getting quite a bit of work in at the charity stripe during practice this year, to say the least. To close out the half, he posted up Martin, getting fouled on the shot in the process, shut Kenyon down on the other end, and finished up with a spin move leading to a layup (which was goaltended by Martin). As you could probably tell, he was purposely going at K-Mart, trying to redeem himself for his play in the first quarter.

As the second half began, Kwame came out with conviction on both ends of the court. In the third quarter, his strongest of the night, Brown put up 7 points and some very nice defensive play, stopping Martin, Elson, and any guard who tried to penetrate. One example was when Boykins was running full tilt with a 2 on 1 advantage. Kwame got in Boykins’ face and broke up the break, leading to a layup at the other end. While his defense was solid, there was one recurring problem with his positioning on offense. On at least two occasions, Odom held the ball outside the arc, looking to pass into the post. However, Kwame didn’t make the shift over to the strong side, as he and Mihm stayed stacked on the weak side of the paint. Had Kwame filled the lane and gotten an entry pass, it most likely would have led to either a couple of free throws or an easy layup. But alas, he was noncommittal, and we turned the ball over.

In the fourth, Kwame played 5 solid minutes, executing fairly well on both ends. He managed to get open for a couple of nice shots, including one promising drive on Francisco Elson, leading to a fadeaway 12 footer with Elson left in the dust. Kwame was taken out with 1:58 to play, and his night was done.

Overall, Kwame had an excellent game for us, putting up 16 points on 7 for 8 shooting, along with 5 rebounds, in only 24 minutes of play. Unfortunately, the Lakers took the loss, but that is inconsequential in the long run - a good glimpse at the upside of Mr. Brown was vastly more important to the Lakers than was the result of the preseason game. While it does appear as though he gets off to slow starts, once Kwame finds his spots in the triangle, he is very hard to stop on the offensive end. If he can get some work done on his free throws, and he can learn the true concept of team defense, he will begin to fulfill his enormous potential for the Lakers. Hopefully this happens soon, because as he rises, so will the team’s hopes of contention.

I’d like to add that although this was just a “lowly preseason game,” as I’m sure many of you are thinking, it was a decent representation of what we can expect out of Kwame this year, and in the future.

-Mike Brennan

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