For all the talk about Shannon Brown’s hops, springiness making him a YouTube fixture, asking others about him inevitably leads to mention of his hands.
“He’s got big hands. Extremely big hands,” marvels former Charlotte Bobcats teammate Raymond Felton, who played against Brown in the 2005 Final Four.
“He’s blessed with great hands,” praises Bobcats assistant coach Jim Capel, who grew close with Brown during the guard’s half-season with Charlotte.
“I wish I had those hands,” says Nuggets guard J.R. Smith, former dunk contestant (and sick athlete in his own right) who’s known Brown since their AAU days. “If you get a set of mitts like that, it’s hard to stop.”
“They’re pretty big,” admits Brown with a chuckle as he sits on a medicine ball after Lakers practice in El Segundo.
In a nutshell, dude’s hands are ginormous.
Combined with elevation capable of making a trampoline jealous, they’re a Godsend for dunking a basketball, a skill Brown will be showing off at the Slam Dunk Contest during the All-Star Weekend. But during Brown’s time as a professional, those same hands weren’t just used to smother a Spalding. They were gripping onto an NBA life, and just barely at times.
The Staples Center buzz Brown creates by merely checking into a game makes it hard to remember how before arriving in L.A., his career was an exercise in uncertainty. Three teams in three seasons. D-League stops. The 2008 summer spent sweating a contract offer, wondering if his NBA dream was ending in a blink. But through a combination of perseverance, ridiculous athleticism and unexpectedly landing in the right place at what didn’t initially appear the right time, Brown is finally carving out the NBA existence he always believed possible with a real chance.
Kobe ain’t playing = (
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