Jazz's Brown happy to return to Utah

0 Comments | Deseret News (Salt Lake City), Sep 15, 2005 | by Linda Hamilton Deseret Morning News

The newest Jazzman, Devin Brown, says he's had the opportunity to see a lot of basketball the last several years as a member of the NBA-champion San Antonio Spurs.

"It looks like a lot of fun out there," Brown said, making a little light of the circumstances that have brought him somewhat full-circle, back to the state in which he was born and where his grandparents still live (in Roy).

He didn't really want to leave his hometown team -- he's been in San Antonio since he was 7 months old -- as a restricted free agent, but the Spurs have always been loaded at shooting guard and just signed Dallas' Michael Finley, adding to a rotation that already has Manu Ginobili, Bruce Bowen and Brent Barry.

The Spurs chose not to match Utah's offer sheet of two weeks ago.

So Utah it is, and Brown is so eager to get a chance to play, probably in the Raja Bell rotation with Gordan Giricek, and so eager to prove to all the world that his back (herniated disk, March 21) is healed that he will be back in Salt Lake City by next week to begin workouts and reacquaint himself with the rare air.

Brown met the Utah media Wednesday in the Zion's Bank Basketball Center where he will practice -- and had already taken a few shots prior to his press conference.

Accompanying him were his agent, Derrick Powell, his mother, Ann Brown, and his grandparents, Lee and Dee Florence.

"We're so tickled we can hardly stand up," said Grandma Dee that Devin has become a member of the Utah Jazz, signing a two-year contract earlier Wednesday following passing a Jazz physical. "We're doubly pleased that Ann is going to move here.

"It's awful to be here in Jazz World rooting for San Antonio," Dee Florence said.

Brown's mother, Ann, was working at Hill Air Force Base as an accountant when she had Devin.

Trying to be the good young mom, she asked husband James, a hair stylist, if he'd mind moving south seven months later. She was homesick for her family in Baton Rouge, La. (they all made it through Hurricane Katrina in good shape, with only some downed trees to worry about), and she was worried about baby Devin being able to go outside and play in the cold and snow.

"Yeah, isn't that ironic?" Ann Brown said about her 26-year-old son now moving back to Utah, snow and all, to get more chance to play.

Brown, who grew up attending Christian schools through ninth grade, spent last weekend raising money and soliciting supplies for hurricane victims in San Antonio.

He's known as a strong community-minded player, and he talked Wednesday about having the kind of old-style basketball philosophy that dominates the Jazz and coach Jerry Sloan. The Spurs are much the same way, preferring to do their talking by their play and teamwork and taking their lead from the near-silent MVP, Tim Duncan.

And Spurs coach Gregg Popovich is as no-nonsense as is Sloan, and Jazz senior vice president of basketball operations Kevin O'Connor advised Brown ahead of time that he'll "hear a lot of the same (four- letter-type) adjectives" from Sloan. "Pop is a little more laid- back," Brown said, "but both want you to play every night like it's your last game."

He is of the same opinion, Brown said, expecting the transition to Sloan's game to be "real easy" for him.

Brown said he learned a lot from San Antonio's strong veterans, whose idea of swagger is to walk on the court knowing they're going to win," and whose expectations of youngsters and backups is that they be ready when needed.

Brown, with about three years in the NBA -- and some of that time in the NBDL and USBL -- was already talking about taking some leadership role with the Jazz. He learned that leadership style from Duncan, who spoke up only once during the playoff run, when the Spurs lost an early game to Denver, but led on the court always.

If, as a leader, Devin ever got in someone's face, said Ann about her respectful son, "I would probably faint."

E-mail: lham@desnews.com