Posted by Kevin Arnovitz
Elton Brand spent Summer 2005 as a gym rat, losing 15 pounds, perfecting his 17-foot face-up jumper, and generally training like Stallone in Rocky III after his loss to Clubber Lang. Brand and the Clipper coaching staff were proud to attribute his monster 2005-2006 season to his off-season work. But Summer 2006 was an entirely different story. When Brand struggled out of the gate during the opening weeks of the 2006-2007 season, a significant portion of Clipper naçion (present company included) took aim at his summer regimen - an itinerary that included a lot of attention toward his career as a budding film producer and financier (including a trip to the Toronto Film Festival in September). During a loss over Thanksgiving weekend to Minnesota, Brand told Jim Gray that his legs were tired. Mark Heisler in the Los Angeles Times reported:
Brand's energy level has been a topic of discussion after a summer in which he was married before going overseas with the U.S. team in the world championships and then going overseas again on the Clippers' trip to Russia. Nevertheless, Brand still insists he's OK.
Brand came into Tuesday's game averaging 17.3 points, 10.3 rebounds and shooting 51%. However, in his breakout 2005-06 season, his numbers were 24.7, 10 and 57%. His shot attempts were also 18 a game, as opposed to this season's 14.
Brand ultimately finished the season strongly, but his output was measurably lower than the previous season -- a 23.17 PER vs. 26.67, and only nine 30 point games vs. 25 in 2005-2006. Fairly or not, Brand was now regarded by detractors as a dilettante with too many interests away from the court.
The reviews of Brand's early career as a producer weren't exactly stellar. In May 2006, Michael Hiltzik wrote a piece chronicling Brand's early troubles in the biz:
The Clippers' Brand has tried to transfer his basketball success to Hollywood, but his time as a producer has been marred by lawsuits.
Elton Brand's reputation as an emerging NBA star has risen this season along with the Clippers' fortunes. His more checkered career as a Hollywood movie producer hasn't been getting as much attention...
None alleges wrongdoing by Brand. But they do underscore the difficulties that professional sports celebrities face when trying to leverage their success on the field or on the court into success in other areas.
A Daniel Zalewski piece in the New Yorker was even more scathing, though it was more an indictment of director Werner Herzog vis-à-vis the chaotic production of Rescue Dawn, the first feature from Brand's production company.
But once the smoke cleared and Rescue Dawn was in the can, Brand's fortunes began to turn. Brand had made a film with an art house legend in Herzog, and the movie was picked up by a major distributor, MGM. By and large, the reviews have been solid. A glowing Brand has been part of the perfunctory procession of junket interviews and red carpet photos with cast members. In limited release, Rescue Dawn has averaged around $13,400/screen, an auspicious number for a film that opens wide on July 20.
The great irony about Brand's foray into Hollywood is that the power forward has always been regarded as a lunch bucket player, a hard worker who flew under the radar in Los Angeles because he lacked the intrinsic star power traditionally bestowed to prominent athletes in town. His omission from All-Star games and membership among the NBA elite is generally chalked up to his relative lack of magnetism in a league that puts a premium on charisma.
In retrospect, initial reaction to Brand's extracurricular activities was probably unfair (I was actually more bitchy about his participation in USA Basketball than his gallivanting as a producer). So far as his 2006-2007 performance, John Hollinger predicted a significant falloff last season irrespective of the off-season miles:
...his numbers project to drop back to his previous level, primarily because short power forwards have a history of peaking early.
Aren't professionals entitled to indulge their passions (unless those passions are, say, a pathological hunger for maleficence)? Is it really fair to imprison an athlete because he owes it to the fans to single-mindedly improve his game? If Etan Thomas gets pummeled on the low block this season, are Wizz fans really going to grumble that the guy shouldn't have been globetrotting to East Africa? I realize that a goodwill tour of Kenya is a lot more admirable than traveling to film markets, but is it substantively any different?
Okay. That's the last bit of Clipper-centric posting for the next two days, barring a Steve Francis acquisition or Sam Cassell's mothership landing in Playa del Rey ready to take him home.
