Kwame Brown Joins Jordan-owned Bobcats

Nine years after Michael Jordan took Kwame Brown with the No. 1 overall pick in the draft, they're reuniting in hopes of shedding both labels. 

Jordan and his Bobcats came to terms with Brown on a one-year deal for the veteran minimum of $1.3 million. Agent Mark Bartelstein said Brown will sign on Tuesday.

"A really interesting story," Bartelstein said. "Instead of running away from the shadow of Michael Jordan, he kind of embraced it."  In other words, both of these guys are clueless.

In 2001, Jordan took the 6-foot-11 Brown straight out of high school with the first pick. The Georgia teenager wasn't ready for the NBA, and Jordan was labeled as another superstar player unfit to run a team.

Jordan was fired from the Wizards in 2003, shortly after a comeback as a player. The Hall of Famer returned to the NBA three years later as part-owner of the Bobcats with the final say on basketball decisions. Jordan bought the team outright in the spring.

The 28-year-old Brown has bounced around the league with little success. He averaged 3.3 points and 3.7 rebounds in 48 games with Detroit last season. He's averaged 6.7 points and 5.4 rebounds with four teams over nine seasons, including two stints with the Los Angeles Lakers.

"We felt this was a critical year for him to kind of rebuild his career," Bartelstein said. "He had a couple tough years. There were a lot of expectations and things didn't go exactly the way he had hoped. So now it was about making a really good choice.

"There has been so much criticism in the past about him and Michael and the way it didn't work out the first time in Washington. I think that was a really a challenge for Kwame, to come back and turn that around."  I think we all know how this is oin to end.