{"id":40204,"date":"2021-06-16T08:00:38","date_gmt":"2021-06-16T12:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=40204"},"modified":"2021-06-15T21:58:45","modified_gmt":"2021-06-16T01:58:45","slug":"the-defense-of-kwame-brown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2021\/06\/16\/the-defense-of-kwame-brown\/","title":{"rendered":"The Defense of Kwame Brown"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former number one draft pick Kwame Brown<\/strong><\/a>, 8 years removed from his last season in the NBA, is back in the spotlight.<\/p>\n

Following some unprompted digs directed at his underwhelming NBA career from Stephen Jackson<\/strong><\/a>, Gilbert Arenas<\/strong><\/a>, and Matt Barnes<\/strong><\/a> on the \u201cAll The Smoke\u201d podcast, the 7-foot Georgia native took to social media to unload 20 years of pent-up anger on not only the three instigators; but many of the other critics who had \u2013 in his eyes \u2013 unfairly denigrated him over the course of his career.<\/p>\n

In Defense of Kwame Brown<\/h2>\n

From challenging journalist Stephen A. Smith to a fistfight, saying, \u201cMeet me in Seattle where you can have mutual combat and talk like that\u201d<\/a> to repeatedly depicting Barnes as a tragic mulatto \u201cWhich one didn\u2019t like you, boy? Your grandaddy that was black or your grandaddy that was white?\u201d<\/a> Brown\u2019s expletive-laden tirades against his detractors boiled down to one fundamental question: Why are you, as black men, going out of your way to put down a fellow black man for no real reason?<\/p>\n

The fact that Jackson and company chose to double down on their remarks without apology underscores Brown’s point: we (the media and the fans collectively) have normalized Kwame Brown slander to a level far beyond that which is warranted. And the man has a right to be upset about it.<\/p>\n

Fair Criticism or Just Straight-up Bullying?<\/h3>\n

Look \u2014 Kwame Brown wasn\u2019t a great basketball player. No reasonable person would argue against that. Especially as a number one pick, his career averages of 6.6 points and 5.5 rebounds per game absolutely qualify him as a bust. And yes, Smith and the \u201cAll The Smoke\u201d crew are right when they say that a professional basketball player, by nature of their status as a public figure, has to be able to take criticism.<\/p>\n

But criticism and bullying are two different things entirely \u2014 and the ridicule of Brown from the media and the fans alike has always veered closer to the latter.<\/p>\n

A lot of that has to do with Smith\u2019s infamous \u201cbonafide scrub\u201d rant following Brown\u2019s departure from the Los Angeles Lakers<\/a> in 2008. The virality of that clip normalized \u201cKwa-may\u201d mockery in the public conscience, cementing him in the basketball cultural zeitgeist as the poster child for failure. Suddenly, Brown wasn\u2019t just a disappointing NBA player; he was a laughingstock. A meme. \u201cAlmost 12 years later and this is still one of the funniest things ever,\u201d reads the top comment, upvoted 7.2k times, on the YouTube video of Smith\u2019s rant.<\/p>\n