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Former Los Angeles Lakers star big man Pau Gasol is enshrined in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, and it was a well-deserved honor.
While the Lakers and the late Kobe Bryant helped unleash Gasol’s full potential, Gasol also rescued the organization from the grim mediocrity it was stuck in.
It traded for him in February 2008. At the time, it had gone through three and a half years of being stuck between a rock and a hard place following Shaquille O’Neal’s departure. The one player who perhaps symbolized this purgatory more than anyone else was Kwame Brown.
Arguably the biggest bust in NBA history, Brown was an albatross keeping the Lakers down. His lack of an offensive game, lack of heart and inability to catch simple passes frustrated many fans on a nightly basis.
When Brown was traded in the Gasol deal, ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith gave a scathing criticism of his game. Although some claim it was hyperbolic, it’s hard to argue with what Smith said.
In the years since, Smith has had more harsh but true things to say about Brown, and eventually Brown fired back at the commentator.
While on “Podcast P with Paul George,” Smith actually pulled back a bit and regretted going off on the former Laker (h/t Lakers Nation).
“Kwame Brown, I wish I could do that over. I wouldn’t do it. I know what I said, I did mean it. I ain’t gonna sit here and tell you I ain’t mean the (expletive) I said. But I didn’t know it was gonna be like this. (…) Remember I said it before Twitter, Facebook. I didn’t know, 15 years later they gonna have memes and videos and when I see what he says I realize how hurt he is. I mean it was a sound bite, they had just traded for Pau Gasol, they asked me this question and I’m psssh, what?
“One time I had to address it cause I felt like he was coming at me like I was scared. I can’t even tell you when I did that, the stars who called. I ain’t gonna mention no names, practically all of them was Hall of Famers and they’re like ‘nah’ and I was like where were y’all when he was saying all of this stuff for weeks, you know I didn’t say anything. (…) And as I see some of the clips now and some of the stuff that he says I just be like go ahead bro, say what you gotta say.”
While Gasol went on to greater heights and won back-to-back NBA championships following his trade to the Lakers, Brown played for five teams over the next five-and-a-half years. He was out of the league following the 2012-13 season.
Today, it seems he is more well-known for his social media presence and rants than he is for being a former NBA player.