Among the young people who grow up with the NBA, there are those, in the majority, whose idols are the greatest attackers in history, and those, undoubtedly rarer, for whom the desire to play basketball is transmitted by the most altruistic players who have walked the boards of the Great League.
Kobe Brownthe rookie of Clippers chosen in 30th position of the last Draft, is of the second category. The 23-year-old winger, convinced by his father from an early age, is a lifelong fan of Magic Johnson, one of the most talented playmakers of all time. Over the years, he was inspired by his versatility and altruism.
” We’ve always had one rule at home: be the type of player others want to play with », remembers his father Greg Brown. ” When [Kobe] was small, with his brother, they watched a lot of games and videos with me. I hoped they were among the players inspired by Magic Johnson. So we watched lots and lots of Magic Johnson videos. »
An altruism which at first served him
Never a natural scorer, therefore, Kobe Brown, over the years, has never been the flashiest of players. More interested in a pass than in a basket, he then rubbed shoulders, throughout his high school years, with a caricatural reality but very representative of the “high school” system.
” I was attending camps, and most of the players there were desperate to take a certain number of shots. So I had a hard time getting out of the game, because I wanted to get the ball rolling and get everyone involved. »
A hard observation to accept at first for his father, the architect of this altruistic vision of basketball for his son, even if everything was finally settled afterwards.
” It was a difficult moment, I wondered about the vision that I had instilled in him. In AAU, players were ranked higher than him in the age group rankings. They weren’t necessarily more talented, but they were scoring 20 points per game, taking 17 or 18 shots “says Greg Brown. ” I told him just to keep playing fair, and that it was going to pay off in the future, that he would go further than those other supposedly better players than him. And, obviously, it worked out well for him, in the end. »
Arrived quietly on the Missouri campus in 2019, Kobe Brown actually ended up doing very well, with 10.8 points, 6 rebounds, 1.7 assists and 1.1 steals per game in four college seasons before being selected in the first round of the Draft 2023, last June.
” He can do a lot of stuff on the pitch, without even having the ball in his hands “, Appreciated in conclusion Dahntay Jones, coach of the Clippers in the Summer League in Las Vegas. ” He has a complementary profile to the qualities we already have. In fact, he understood that he is above all a basketball player. He doesn’t care if he’s a scorer or not. He takes pride in having a positive impact, in any way, on a basketball game. »
