Where Are They Now, 2010; Part 9
January 8th, 2010
– Michael Bramos
After going undrafted out of Miami Ohio, Bramos played for the Pistons in summer league, and played pretty well. He then used his Greek heritage and Greek passport to go to Greece, where he is signed with Peristeri. Unfortunately, his first professional season is not going too well; Bramos averages only 5.1 points, 1.7 rebounds, 1.1 assists and 2.7 fouls in 21 minutes per game, shooting 34% from the field. Peristeri have had some turnover with their imports this year, and it doesn’t help that those documented here haven’t played well either. But more on that later.
– J.R. Bremer
Earl is in Russia this year, played for Samara. He’s averaging 11.8 points, 5.8 assists and 3.1 rebounds per game in the Russian league, alongside 4.8 points, 6.3 assists and 3.3 rebounds per game in the EuroChallenge. However, he hasn’t brought his jump shot with him to Russia; Bremer is shooting only 30% from three in the Russian league, and only 12% in the EuroChallenge, which explains his low scoring output there. Did you realise it was seven years ago that he was a starter for the Celtics? Me neither. Makes a man feel old.
J.R. Bremer fact: J.R. Bremer has a Bosnian passport. Is he actually Bosnian? No. Does he have any Bosnian heritage? Not that I know of. Has he ever been there before? Actually, yes; Bremer played in Sarajevo for three months in early 2007, and won the Bosnian regular season title. Apparently that was enough.
– Jamison Brewer
After two years out of the game, Brewer has returned to play professionally in Brazil. As far as I can tell, Brewer has played one game for his team Pinheiros, totalling 30 minutes, 17 points, 4 rebounds, 1 assist, 0 tocos, 0 enterradas and 2 errors. I’m guessing those latter three mean steals, blocks and turnovers. God bless Google translate.
If Jamison Brewer, Jamison Brewer’s agent, Jamison Brewer’s representatives or Jamison Brewer’s family members are reading this, please contact me by email, because someone wants me to help them return some personal artefacts to him.
– Tierre Brown
Tierre Brown is unsigned, and last played in January when he was playing for the Anaheim Arsenal. Brown was averaging 15.8 points, 5.2 assists and 3.7 turnovers per game for Anaheim, shooting 53% from the field and 20% from three-point range, before The Arse waived him due to injury. He hasn’t been heard from since.
– P.J. Brown
P.J. Brown is retired. Properly, this time.
P.J. Brown fact: P.J. Brown finished ahead of Kobe Bryant in the MVP voting in the 2004-05 season. That was the season that Kobe Bryant shared a backcourt with Tierre Brown. Kobe averaged 28/6/6 that year and didn’t receive a single MVP vote; no one felt he was one of the most five valuable players in the league that year. Yet someone felt that P.J. Brown and Shawn Marion were. All right.
– Kedrick Brown
Brown was out of the game for the best part of three years between 2004 and 2007, but spent the last two years before this one in the D-League with the Anaheim Arsenal. Last year he averaged 17.9 points, 6.7 rebounds and 2.7 assists, and this year he’s moved to Turkey to play for Bornova. He is averaging 16.9 points, 5.8 rebounds, 2.8 assists, 1.5 steals and 0.7 blocks per game, shooting 62% from two-point range, 63% from the free throw line, and 29% from three-point range. For some reason he’s known as Albert Brown over there.
– Damone Brown
Like Tierre Brown, Damone Brown was in the D-League last year, but is not anywhere now. He started the season with the Reno Bighorns, the first player ever acquired by the expansion franchise, and averaged 15.8 points and 7.3 rebounds in 29 games for the team. However, he was released by the team in February after being arrested and charged with money laundering, after a safety deposit box that he was leasing was found to be being used to stash the proceeds of a local drug lord. Here’s some kind of official document about his arrest. As I can find no evidence either way that he was acquitted, convicted, or anything of that nature, then I will assume that the case is still ongoing until proven otherwise.
Brown has not signed anywhere after being released, and while he did attend the Korean Basketball League’s pre-draft camp in Vegas in the summer, he was not drafted by any Korean team.
– Denham Brown
Like T-Air and Damone above, Denham played in the D-League last season. He started the year with the Dakota Wizards, averaging 12.9 points, 3.8 rebounds and 2.8 assists in 31 minutes per game, but scoring only 103 points on 98 shots. He was then waived due to injury and reappeared three months later with the Iowa Energy, where he did a bit better, averaging 14.6 points and 4.9 rebounds in 30 minutes per game. He has not signed anywhere this season until this point, but this week he travelled to Venezuela to sign with a team called Marinos. The Venezuelan league does not start for another two months, however.
– Dee Brown
Brown is in Italy and he’s having a strong year. On the season he is averaging 18.0 points, 4.9 assists, 2.7 rebounds and 1.6 steals in 30.4 minutes per game, for an Air Avellino team with a 7-5 record. Avellino tried out someone called Jimmy Bartolotta this October, a graduate of MIT who play in NCAA’s Division III. This isn’t related to Dee Brown, really, but it would have made an interesting story had it worked out. I can’t think of anyone else who went from Division III straight to Serie A. Very very very few go from Division III to the NBA, either.
– Elton Brown
Brown didn’t have a good year last year. After tearing up the D-League in 2007-08, Brown signed with the Chicago Bulls for 2008 training camp, but then performed poorly in preseason and was released. (Not that it would have mattered; Darius Washington had an awesome preseason, yet he was waived too in favour of Michael Ruffin, who had missed all preseason with an ankle injury and who never played for the team.) Brown then went to Maccabi Tel-Aviv, yet he fell victim to the same regime change as Esteban Batista did, and barely played for the team. Things perked up at the end of the season though when Brown joined up with Brose Baskets Bamberg in Germany, and he’s still there, averaging 9.1 points and 5.6 rebounds this season.
Count The Germans; Two. In an eleven man rotation.
– Andre Brown
Andre Brown is in China, playing for the Zhejiang Wanma Cyclones. This season he is averaging the gaudy numbers of 28.5 points, 8.8 rebounds, 4.8 assists, 2.5 steals and 0.1 blocks in 33 minutes per game, shooting 49% from the field, 46% from three point range and 89% from the foul line.
Those numbers are about as un-Andre Brown as you can get. Those are the numbers of an elite small forward, and Andre Brown is a power forward. He’s athletic, no doubt, but he’s never been a shooter. Brown is athletic, no doubt, but he’s never made a three-pointer before this season. Not in the D-League, not in the NBA, not in Italy, not in Turkey, not in the Adriatic league, nor in college. And now suddenly he’s 13-28 from there in eight games.
Even more impressive is the foul shooting; historically, Brown has been a pretty terrible free throw shooter. He never shot more than 55% in college, shoots 50% from there for his NBA career, is shooting 51% from there in his D-League career, shot 55% from there in Turkey last season, shot 40% from there in the Philippines in 2005….etc. Yet this season in China, he’s suddenly shooting 61-68. His free throw stats game by game read like this;
9-9
3-4
7-8
9-10
8-8
5-8
9-9
11-12
That couldn’t be much more jarringly different to the rest of his professional career. Nor could the steals (Brown has 21 in his 30-game D-League career, 14 in his 75-game D-League career, and grabbed all of 12 in Turkey last year, yet we’re now expected to believe that he can grab 20 in eight Chinese games) or the assists (36 all-time in the D-League, 11 in the NBA, 7 in his senior season at DePaul, 14 his junior year, 16 in Turkey, etc). Somehow, we’re supposed to buy that Brown has gone from an offensively-inclined-yet-bad-shooting rebounding power forward, into a do-it-all small forward superstar, in less than the length of a domestic pig’s gestation period.
There’s only one conclusion to draw here; it’s not actually Andre Brown, and someone’s pulled the old bait-and-switch on an unknowing Zhejiang. Has to be. Either that, or Andre Brown just corrected all his flaws in one offseason aged 28. This is pretty dumbfounding stuff.
UPDATE: ..or, I’m just an idiot.
– Keith Brumbaugh
Brumbaugh is spending a second season in the D-League. For the Sioux Falls Skyforce, he is averaging 14.9 points, 4.9 rebounds, 2.1 assists and 1.6 steals in 31 minutes per game, shooting 45% from the field and 32% from three-point range. However, he’s also turning it over 3.1 times a game in that time, and is still far from the finished article. The D-League is designed for players with potential that aren’t the finished article, but Brumbaugh’s window will shut soon if he’s not careful, as he’s already 24 years old. You can’t have potential forever.
