Learning from Celtics Big 3, Dee Brown happy to pass it forward

FOR the 1991 Slam Dunk Contest winner Dee Brown, he’s just elated to see the cornerstone of the All-Star Saturday Night come back to relevance.

“It’s great to see the dunk contest back and healthy again,” he said on Monday, as he and Phoenix Suns guard Brandon Knight grace the country for NBA FIT Week. “I enjoyed watching these guys do some amazing things, things that I probably couldn’t do.”

Seeing the epic dunk duel between champion Zach LaVine and Aaron Gordon in this year’s iteration, Brown is happy to see the competition evolved over the years.

“It has changed. There’s more marketing now, but I was the first one to do the marketing to the fans with the pumps and the no-look dunk,” looking back to the 1991 affair which saw him strut his Reebok Pump Omni Lite before his first attempt and win the whole thing with what is now knows as the “Dab slam dunk.”

But it’s not just the slam dunk competition that has changed over the years, but the sport of basketball itself.

Looking past the numbers

Brown, a 12-year veteran, has seen the game evolve as he transitioned from a player to an assistant coach.

Serving as director for player development in his stops in Orlando, Detroit, Sacramento, and Denver, Brown has made it a point to look past the gaudy numbers for his prospects and look at the intangibles.

“Personally, you’re just looking how great of a teammate they are, what kind of workers they are, and if they do have the NBA skillset. Is he a shooter, a defender, or can he do both and be a great passer? How do they interact with adversity and work in 40 games? It’s just different things you see that the stat sheets don’t show,” said Brown, now a scout for the Los Angeles Clippers.

“A player may get 20 points and 10 rebounds, but was it a selfish 20 points or was he a good teammate doing it? Was he cheering when other guys score? Those things, when you’re scouting personnel, you got to look at all the facets of trying to grow the player and see if he’s right for your organization,” he continued. “Being a player development guy, I can tell in 15 minutes if a guy can play or not. But now, I got to look at the total player, not just on the court, and I’m very excited about that.”

Learning from the best

Transitioning from a player to a teacher wasn’t really that hard for the 48-year-old Brown.

After all, he got to experience rubbing elbows with the game’s greatest players in Boston.

Selected 19th overall by the Celtics in the 1990 NBA Draft, the 6-foot-1 point had an enviable position as he got to pick the brains of the franchise’s elite.

“Being drafted by the Celtics was an honor and that was the best experience of my career,” he said.

“Being around Red Auerbach, Hall of Fame players like Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, and Robert Parish, who I all consider as the original Big Three, being around Reggie Lewis before he passed away, Bob Cousy, Tommy Heinsohn, KC Jones. The list goes on for Hall of Fame guys who I was around on a daily basis that made me a great player.”

Brown shared that the partnership between Bird, McHale, and Parish truly was a great mix that allowed the rest of the team to pick up the pieces and follow suit.

“Playing with those Big Three, Larry was the hardworker, Kevin was the jokester, and Robert was like my big brother. Those three gave me a lot of things and they inspired me become a better player,” Brown said, putting those learnings to his new role and passes it forward to the new generation. “They also helped me become a better teacher and inspired me to give back because that’s what they did to me.”