Wizard’s Brown is Just a Country Boy at Heart

WASHINGTON â€”  At 19, Kwame Brown is in the Big Time. Lots of money. Fame. Regular trips to big cities like New York and Los Angeles.

What does he think of it all?

“It’s very boring,� Brown said. “I spend a lot of time watching television.�

Boring? Yes, except for the basketball part. Although he’s the first high school player ever chosen No. 1 overall in the NBA draft, Brown is still a country boy at heart trying to adjust to life with the Washington Wizards.

“I don’t like walking in New York,� Brown said. “I like dirt roads. I hate all this traffic.�

Brown, from Brunswick, Ga., a town of about 16,000, will be watched closely the next few years, and not because of his line in the box score. With the NBA getting younger and younger, Brown becomes the latest test case for teen-agers in the pros.

Michael Jordan, who was in charge of the draft before deciding to unretire as a player, chose Brown in part because the youngster appeared mature. It seemed fame and money wouldn’t go to his head. It’s early yet, but so far Brown is as levelheaded as advertised.

“It know it would have been too much for me,� said Wizards point guard Chris Whitney, reflecting on his days at Clemson when he was 19. “But he’s handling it well. He’s a little further along than his years. He’s learning. Coaches are throwing a lot of things at him. He struggles sometimes, but he’s grasping it pretty well.�

Two strokes of fortune have helped Brown immensely in his first days as a pro. First: Jordan decided to play.

If Jordan were still in the front office, Brown would have been the story of training camp, the subject of countless interviews and profiles. Instead, all that attention went to Jordan, and Brown most days is able to walk off the court in relative anonymity.

After watching all the hoopla, Brown has decided he doesn’t want to Be Like Mike.

“He has a lot of money, but he has no freedom,� Brown said.

Secondly, Brown learned soon after he was drafted that an old friend from his hometown is attending Howard law school in Washington. They are now roommates -- Brown, the new millionaire, pays the rent -- so he isn’t on his own in the city once practice is over.

“I get a chance to see what it’s like for him in school, studying hard, studying a lot,� Brown said. “I look over his stuff. I can’t relate to it. He has to read, like, 100 pages a night. I read, like, two paragraphs. After the first paragraph, I’m done.�

Brown, a 6-foot-11 foward/center, has been very inconsistent in the Wizards’ exhibition games, but fellow college-skippers Tracy McGrady and Kobe Bryant weren’t exactly All-Stars as rookies, either.

“He’s got tremendous talent,� coach Doug Collins said. “He’s got to get so frustrated and so disappointed that he’ll be willing to listen and want to be taught. Right now, he’s pretty stubborn. Sometimes, it has to crumble down on you, and then you’d be willing to listen.�

During one game, when Brown sat down with a twisted ankle, Jordan, according to Collins, told Brown “to lace that thing up and play because I’ve played with 45 ankles worse than that.� Brown laced it up and returned to the game.

“I don’t want to shelter him at all,� Collins said. “The more he needs me, the more he’s going to listen. If I shelter him and never let him stub his toe, then he’s not going to find out reality.�

Brown is slowly getting the message. He’s realizing he can’t rely on sheer talent to dominate a game the way he did in high school.

“Coach always says, ‘You can’t play on a railroad track.’ You have to be able to change, do something different,� Brown said. “That’s what’s different to me. If a play brakes down, what do you do?�