http://www.wa****ngtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/01/AR2005100100
925.html
"You see my house. It's bigger than the house I had in Wa****ngton," he
said.
"You see my team. It's better than the Wizards. This is the best
organization in the league."
Brown's perspective on his days with the Wizards, however, is still tinged
with bitterness.
Brown said that during Game 3 of the Bulls series, Arenas told Coach Eddie
Jordan not to insert Brown into the game, and that Jordan complied. Brown
said Jordan's decision angered him so much that he wanted to physically
harm
Arenas the next day at practice. In order to contain his rage, Brown said,
he decided not to come to practice for fear of what he would have done to
Arenas.
"The thing is, the whole thing stems from Gilbert telling them not to put
me
in the game. I didn't come to practice because I was going to be a
distraction. I was going to slap the [expletive] out of him," Brown said.
"I'll admit it, what I did was wrong -- not showing up was wrong -- but I
ain't saying what I would've done if I showed up would've been right.
Being
that I didn't show up I didn't put my hands on nobody. How a teammate, a
supposed friend, would go to a coach and tell him don't put me in a game,
I
would've done something seriously wrong to him."
Told of Brown's accusations, Arenas denied his former teammate's version
of
events. "That's the coach's decision. I'm not the coach. I'm not the GM,"
Arenas said. "If he feels I have that much pull that I could pull him in
and
out of the game, then I guess he would blame me. If that's his excuse for
missing practices -- to blame me -- then I'm strong enough to take the
responsibility. But I never told Coach to put him out the game."
Jordan said Arenas had no say in whether Brown played in Game 3, when
Brown
played a season-low four minutes in a 117-99 blowout win against the
Bulls.
"That's not true," he said when informed of Brown's comments. "I didn't
make
my decision based on what [Brown] thought Gilbert said, and I never heard
Gilbert say that.
"The fact that he didn't play is because somebody else was playing better,
and he wasn't playing as well. I can't recall every minute, every decision
I
made in Game 3, but certainly, I made my decision based on how the game
was
going and how players were playing. Not because of what somebody told me."
Arenas said he was startled by Brown's claim. "[I'm] the same dude after
Game 2 who said we need to stop booing Kwame and boo the Bulls. I'm the
guy
that's protecting this guy. But he doesn't see that. He's stuck on the
same
thing," Arenas said.
Arenas said he urged Jordan not to suspend Brown, and that after the
shoot-around before Game 4 he drove to Brown's home in McLean and tried to
persuade him to come back to the team. Brown said that during that
encounter
he asked Arenas if he told Jordan not to put him in the game. "He lied to
my
face and said he didn't say that," Brown said.
Brown said he believes his problems with Arenas were rooted in a situation
that had been brewing throughout the season. Brown, who was entering free
agency in the summer, said he considered firing his agent, Arn Tellem, and
had conversations with Dan Fegan, who represents Arenas. When he elected
to
remain with Tellem, Brown said Fegan later told Arenas to stop passing
Brown
the ball so that his statistics wouldn't look good entering the free agent
market.
Fegan declined to comment for this story, but Arenas called the claim
bogus.
"How silly does that sound?" Arenas said. "I'm not going to give him the
ball because he didn't want to go with my agent?"
Mitchell Butler, a former Wizards player and player development coach now
employed by Fegan, said Brown's view of reality has been obstructed some
by
his jealousy of Arenas, who was drafted the same year as Brown but has
already signed a lucrative contract and become an all-star.
"This is just my opinion. I just felt, maybe Kwame couldn't handle the
fact
that Gilbert came in, got a good contact and became a favorite -- a
favorite
of the team, a favorite of the city, a favorite of the coaching staff, a
favorite of management. His worth and value to the organization was
great,"
Butler said.
Brown and Arenas also clashed during Arenas's first season in Wa****ngton
in
2003-04. Their friction exploded after a game in Toronto when Brown,
without
naming names, said certain players on the team needed to pass the ball
more.
Arenas took exception to the comment and challenged Brown in the media to
do
something with the ball when he got it. Both players played down the
conflict afterward but Brown made several comments last season about not
getting enough passes on offense. "You give Tim Duncan four shots and see
what his stat line will be," Brown said of the San Antonio Spurs' star
forward.
"He's a talented kid. His only problem is his head," Arenas said of Brown.
"There is nothing wrong with his physical talents. But you can't blame
somebody in every circumstance. You got to be a man sometimes. There is
some
point where you have to grow up as a basketball player in this league and
say maybe I did mess up."
Brown made some subtle changes this offseason to truly get off to a fresh
start in Los Angeles. He changed his jersey from No. 5 to No. 54, the
number
he wore in high school. "I'm going back to the beast," he said, smiling.
He
also cut back his time in his home town of Brunswick, Ga., to reduce his
chances of any more mishaps. "This is my first summer [with] no trouble. I
ain't go to jail for speeding. Didn't go to jail for DUI. I didn't break
my
foot. I didn't break my other foot. I'm one step ahead of the game
already,"
Brown said.
"I can't wait until the season starts. I'm stronger. I'm faster. I just
have
to get my timing down. I plan on having a good start on both ends. You
can't
take away 6 foot 11, quick feet with attitude -- like a bull. The way [the
Wizards are] saying I have attitude is false. I feel like the best-kept
secret."
"I hope he's working hard to prove everybody wrong. Or to prove me wrong
in
Game 3," Arenas said, before laughing to himself. "We got to grow up, man.
That's it. I just hope the kid does well. He needed to get away from here.
I
knew he couldn't stay here. The crowd wasn't reacting to him. He didn't
get
the love he needed."
Asked if he was concerned what his comments would mean when he returns to
Wa****ngton to face the Wizards on Dec. 26, Brown said "No. It's going to
be
the same. I'm going to get booed. . . . And I'm going to whup their
[butts]."
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