Wizards still taking shots at Kwame!

[LakeShow]

I have to say I didn't like the crowd booing Kwame the other night. It was obvious that it was affecting him, for the worst. Fans should try to encorage him rather than cut him up. That was ed up, and I didn't like it!

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/wizar...wame_time.html

Kwame Time!

Kwame Brown has changed coasts, but not much else has changed.

Did anybody catch the Lakers-Suns game on TNT last night? Most of you guys were probably in the bed. Unfortunately, that meant that you missed seeing (or hearing) the Staples Center officially turn into Verizon Center West.

Yes, Brown was booed at home yesterday. In those same vile, unrelenting tones he once received in his last days in Washington.

It might not sound like such a big deal, but these are Laker fans! Laid-back California Laker fans who come for the Kobe Show and spend a good portion of the game star gazing. In the last year of his contract, and showing no improvement from the day arrived, Brown has turned them into hardened, angry people.

I think I can. I think I can. (Andrew D. Bernstein/NBAE via Getty Images)

The Lakers were playing first home game since losing Andrew Bynum for eight weeks. When Brown went down with a sprained medial collateral ligament last November, Bynum was Brown's backup, and the Lakers were 6-3. While Brown was gone, Bynum emerged as a double-double machine and Kobe Bryant recently said that Bynum made them a "championship-caliber" team.

Kwame hasn't been all bad in Los Angeles. He had some decent playoff games two years ago, and was the starting center during the Lakers' best stretch last season, when the team went 16-8. Of course, he got hurt - what's new? - and the season collapsed from there.

But now that the Lakers have one of the best records in the Western Conference, the fans expect a little more from the former No. 1 pick. Not only was Bynum balling, but so is Caron Butler, the guy for whom Kwame was traded. Brown didn't do too bad in his first start since returning, when he had 10 points and 10 rebounds in Seattle on Tuesday, but it didn't take long for the fans to turn on him.

There was a smattering of boos when Brown missed a point blank layup early in the first quarter, but the fans really gave to Brown during the third quarter, booing every time he touched the ball for long stretches. Brown blew a dunk and committed four of his seven - yes, seven - turnovers during the period and Lakers Coach Phil Jackson had to yank him for good with 3:50 left, after he picked his fifth foul. Ugh.

"I wanted to let him work his way out of it and his teammates wanted him to work his way out of it," Jackson said. "It wasn't going to happen."

Does this sound familiar to anyone?

The funny thing was how the Lakers players and coaches reacted to the vitriol aimed toward Brown. Jackson said he'd never never coached a team where home fans did that to a player. Maybe he should give Eddie Jordan a call.

Here's Kobe: "I thought it was terrible," Lakers star Kobe Bryant said of the fans' behavior. "If they want to do that, they can stay home. He's going to be our guy here for two months. He's going to do fine, he's going to play well the next game.
"Kwame's sensitive. You boo him, it's going to affect him. I told him I've got his back."

Here's Jordan Farmar: "That's just not right. If you're here as a Laker fan, you should support your team through the good, the bad, the ugly."

Poor Kwame. The boos come during the same week when Sports Illustrated took a poll of 242 NBA Players who listed Brown as the player who gets the least out of the most talent. Brown received 17 percent of the votes to top Tim Thomas (10 percent), Eddy Curry (7 percent), Vince Carter (6 percent) and Darko Milicic (5 percent), among others.

Kwame, disappointing coast to coast.

[exstatic]

Kwame is a giant who's entire problem is that he expects something (adulation, respect, PT) from everyone except himself. If he had worked on his game to the extent he needed to coming from HS, he could have been an All Star. Instead, he loafed and Cadillac-ed his way out of one stop, and is on his way to losing his spot again. If he lets the crowd disrupt his game, I would RELISH being one of his opponents. I'd be so in his head, I'd move in and have my mail forwarded.

edit: I was looking for this quote. I knew it was in someone's sig, and I just found it.

"The time when there is no one there to feel sorry for you or to cheer for you is when a player is made."
Tim Duncan

[m33p0]

"The time when there is no one there to feel sorry for you or to cheer for you is when a player is made."
Tim Duncan

i guess kwame is not a player. everybody has figured that out already anyway.

[1Parker1]

Kwame is giant Pussy.

Pardon my french, but again an overated player whom I can't believe was actually the #1 NBA pick at one point.

[JamStone]

Kobe supporting Kwame in the first place is as surprising as Phil Jackson not only keeping him in that game but continuing to draw plays where he touched the ball on offense. Kobe the "good teammate?"

And, while Kobe's comments and Farmar's comments are well intended, they are not realistic. It's one thing when you talk about pee wee or even high school basketball where booing kids is just not cool. But, Kwame Brown is a 25 year old man who gets paid money to play basketball. Fans who pay for tickets to watch that thief take millions, they have the right to boo. Michael Jordan may be a class A asshole, but he was right. Kwame is a pussy.

[vicphoenix]

Kwame is a classic example of someone who hasn't put the work in. After being drafted number one overall, you would think he would have the necessary motivation to prove himself. But Kwame got lazy and sat on the money he was given.

[ambchang]

Cueing those idiots who think Kwame is a success because he's earning more money that most (if not all) of us here.

[JamStone]

The better career of a #1 overall pick: Kwame Brown or Michael Olowokandi?

[RonMexico]

When the fans were booing him, I think it was one of the funniest things I'd ever seen. Let's not forget that this guy once threw a birthday cake at a random guy on the street and then ran into a limo with his entourage.

[Medvedenko]

Look, leave cake thrower alone....He's a great back up....still he's only 25 so his best b-ball is still to come...

[exstatic]

Look, leave cake thrower alone....He's a great back up....still he's only 25 so his best b-ball is still to come...

He's 25, so there is no more physical growth potential, and he doesn't work on his game, so you're seeing his best b-ball right now. This is it. This is rush hour on the Kwame freeway.