{"id":16638,"date":"2018-12-23T23:25:18","date_gmt":"2018-12-23T23:25:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.celtic-nation.com\/blog\/?p=16638"},"modified":"2018-12-26T03:32:54","modified_gmt":"2018-12-26T03:32:54","slug":"the-dee-brown-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.celtic-nation.com\/blog\/the-dee-brown-interview\/","title":{"rendered":"The Dee Brown Interview"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Written By:  Michael D. McClellan<\/strong> | It\u2019s the same everywhere he goes. Not a day passes that Dee Brown isn\u2019t asked about The Dunk, a spontaneous act of showmanship that makes him famous, draws Michael Jordan\u2019s ire, and brings urban sneaker culture one step closer to the mainstream. Mistaken for Shawn Kemp\u2019s little brother during the 1991 NBA Slam Dunk Contest, Brown, an unknown rookie out of Jacksonville, becomes a household name when he takes down Seattle\u2019s \u201cReign Man\u201d with a jam so original that it ushers in the contest\u2019s prop era, replete with dunkers soaring over cars, teammates, and mascots. Sure, Brown only uses his arm, but when you close your eyes and dab in midair . . .<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pump the brakes: Dab? In midair?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The dunk contest, which begins in 1984, is still something of a novelty when Brown signs on as a late add. He\u2019s 6-foot-1, rail-thin, practically a runt standing next to the muscular, 6-foot-10 Kemp. There are others in the contest\u2014leapers like Blue Edwards, Kenny Smith, Kendall Gill, Otis Smith, Rex Chapman, and Kenny Williams\u2014but the SuperSonics\u2019 precocious man-child is the odds-on favorite. Kemp can leap like Nique and destroy the rim like Chocolate Thunder. Brown? He barely fills out his uniform.
Julius Erving is one of the judges on this night. A student of the game, Brown has Erving\u2019s dossier memorized. He knows all about Rucker Park, the Virginia Squires, and the New Jersey Nets. He knows about that sick reverse layup against the Lakers in the 1980 NBA Finals, a scoop shot for the ages. He also understands that while Doc isn\u2019t the first player to levitate, he\u2019s the first to transform dunking into an art form. Erving is Jackson Pollock, the ball his brush, the court his canvas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA lot of guys can dunk. Very few leave their mark,\u201d Brown says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On this night all those years ago, Dee Brown decides to leave his mark.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Let\u2019s not get ahead of ourselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dee Brown\u2019s story is bigger than the night he delivers that jam for the ages. The dunk makes him a star, but there\u2019s more to the Dee Brown mosaic than a singular night in Charlotte midway through his rookie season. That doesn\u2019t keep the haters from dissing Brown\u2019s 12-year career\u2014he doesn\u2019t win a championship, his basketball r\u00e9sum\u00e9 never fulfills the glitz promised by that dunk contest\u2014but the critics who throw shade fail to grasp the NBA landscape onto which he lands. Everything starts to unravel in Boston when Auerbach\u2019s maneuvering for Len Bias backfires and compounds a year later when the Celtics select Northeastern\u2019s Reggie Lewis, two future cornerstones wiped out in tragic fashion. The C\u2019s still have stars on the roster when Brown arrives via the nineteenth pick in the 1990 NBA Draft, but age and injury limit the effectiveness of all-time players Bird, McHale, and Parish. Brown can\u2019t possibly fill their shoes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPeople forget what it was like back then,\u201d Brown says. \u201cThose teams in the \u201990s struggled to recover from the deaths of Len Bias and Reggie Lewis. The Big Three were breaking down. The team was in decline.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Welcome to the post-apocalyptic world that is Boston Celtics basketball through much of the \u201990s\u2014dark days fueled by tragedy, exacerbated by miserable ownership, and prolonged by a string of forgettable draft busts. Drop Dee Brown into a different era\u2014when the Big Three were going gangbusters\u2014and the Celtics might have another banner hanging from the rafters. That\u2019s not meant to diminish Brown\u2019s legacy in Boston. He epitomizes Celtic Pride during his time with the team, joining a list of uber-legends as team captain. He plays alongside the Big Three, and he\u2019s on the floor during the last game in the Boston Garden. He represents the organization with class while bridging the chasm between Bird and Pierce. Get to know Brown for more than a dunk contest, and it\u2019s easy to see why his light shines brightest during the team\u2019s darkest days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Jacksonville is hardly a basketball hotbed, but Jax is where this NBA-bound story starts. Brown grows up there auspiciously, which is to say that his isn\u2019t a discourse on hood life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was the oldest of three kids,\u201d Brown begins. \u201cMy parents were young when they had me\u2014my mom was 16 and my dad was 17\u2014and they\u2019re still together today. We weren\u2019t from the ghetto, we weren\u2019t hood. Both of my parents worked. I always had a roof over my head, and there was plenty of food to eat, so it wasn\u2019t that story.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Browns are a sports family. His dad is a basketball junkie, a rec league baller with instincts he passes down to his son. Dee\u2019s uncles aren\u2019t much older than he is, so it\u2019s like having a pack of big brothers around. They\u2019re always at the park, where Dee learns to pitch, pass, and shoot. Soon he\u2019s playing organized sports year-round.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBeing from Florida, I played whatever sport was in season. I was really good at baseball and football, but basketball was something that I loved.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brown doesn\u2019t hone his game on a Jacksonville equivalent to Rucker Park, and those looking to perpetuate the gangsta stereotype are sorely disappointed. He attends the Bolles School, a private college preparatory school with an international reputation for both academic and athletic excellence. More than 50 Olympic swimmers graduate from Bolles. Chipper Jones, the \u201999 Major League Baseball MVP, is a freshman when Brown is a senior. Jackie Crosby and Kevin Sack, both Pulitzer Prize winners in journalism, are Bolles alums. Brown is the only African American in his graduating class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI got the chance to be around a lot of affluent people that weren\u2019t my color,\u201d he says. \u201cIt helped me to see things in a completely different light.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Brown, basketball isn\u2019t his only passion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBreak dancing was big during the \u201980s, and I was a breaker,\u201d Brown confesses with a laugh. \u201cI had a cardboard box in my garage, and I had that big boom box with dual cassette decks. I remember taking it to the park and blasting the music as loud as we could, and those batteries would be dead within an hour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBack then, hip-hop was just starting. My high school years were 1983 through 1986. I was listening to the Sugar Hill Gang, Kurtis Blow, and LL Cool J. For me, that whole period was really about the New York rappers because there really weren\u2019t any Florida rappers or hip-hop artists. Heavy D & The Boyz had that album Big Tyme. I wore it out.
\u201cWe had a group, and we would go to these dance competitions at the local skating rink. We would play basketball all day and break dance at night. I\u2019d listen to the New York rappers and various deejays like DJ Kid Capri. From there I started listening to acts like Public Enemy, Eric B. and Rakim, and Heavy D. Today they are considered old school, but to true fans like me, they are better known as the Godfathers of Rap.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What the Bolles Experience doesn\u2019t do is give Brown street cred with college recruiters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNot a single Division I college was interested in me,\u201d Brown says. \u201cZero. I was 30th in my graduating class, I had a 3.7 GPA, and I scored 1200 on the SAT, so it wasn\u2019t an academic thing. Florida is a football state, and there weren\u2019t a lot of big-time basketball players coming out of Jacksonville. Bolles was a small, private school with an AA classification, and it was basically all-white, so even though I was one of the best players in the state, I wasn\u2019t on anyone\u2019s radar when Florida basketball prospects were discussed. I only had one scholarship offer coming out of high school. That was an NAIA school, Presbyterian College, in North Carolina.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brown decides on a local junior college instead. His plan is simple: Prove that he can play and hope that a D-I school offers him a scholarship. All of that changes late in the summer of \u201986.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFlorida holds an annual Olympic-style festival called the Sunshine State Games,\u201d Brown explains. \u201cOther states do something similar\u2014in New York, it\u2019s called the Empire State Games. There are all kinds of events: track and field, swimming, boxing, basketball, and so forth. I went to Lakeland with my high school team and competed against all the top players, including Florida\u2019s Mr. Basketball. I averaged 37 points-per-game and broke the scoring record.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Thursday before the tournament, I had one offer from an NAIA school. The following Monday, I had 15 Division I scholarship offers. Every major college in the South wanted me because I was still eligible to sign. School was starting in one week, so I had to make a snap decision. Since I was already mentally prepared to stay home and go to school, I signed with Jacksonville University.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Dolphins are D-I but barely a blip on the national hoops scene. The school\u2019s most famous baller is Artis Gilmore, a Consensus First-Team All-American in 1971 and a Hall of Famer. Otis Smith (the same Otis Smith in that 1990 dunk contest) is a senior when Brown is a freshman. From 1987\u201390, Brown carves out his own legacy. He scores 1,503 points, sets the school\u2019s single-season steals record, and leaves with zero regrets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cJacksonville was right for me,\u201d he says. \u201cIt was a small school in the Sun Belt Conference, which had competitive programs like Virginia Commonwealth, South Alabama, and UNC Charlotte. And our non-conference schedule was tough\u2014we played schools like Virginia and North Carolina, so I had experience going against some of the best competition in the country.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brown proves that he can ball with the best, but, in the pre-Internet world in which he lives, word is slow to spread. With the 1990 NBA Draft looming, Brown\u2019s draft status is anything but a slam dunk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe draft was reduced to two rounds the year before I came out,\u201d Brown says. \u201cI had a great senior season, but I wasn\u2019t an All-American so there was no guarantee that I\u2019d get drafted. It was just like high school all over again\u2014the Sun Belt Conference was inferior to the ACC, I hadn\u2019t proved myself consistently against blue-chip schools, the NBA was too physical for me, and on and on.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Determined to change minds, Dee Brown hits the road.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere were all of these different camps during the summer,\u201d he says. \u201cMy first camp was the Orlando Invitational. All of the top players played, except for guys like Derrick Coleman, Gary Payton, Dennis Scott, and Chris Jackson, who were already locked into the top five spots. I made the all-tournament team and showed what I could do against guys like Bimbo Coles and Travis Mays. That\u2019s when I started moving up in the draft. I went from maybe being selected in the second round, to being a solid second round pick, or maybe even being picked early in the second round.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe next camp was in Chicago. I played well there and impressed teams during the interview process, and all of a sudden there was talk about me being a high first-round pick. Those camps helped teams see me in a different light.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The rest of the summer is a blur. Brown, no longer a fringe player, now has multiple suitors wanting closer looks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI visited three teams ahead of the draft,\u201d Brown says. \u201cI went to Detroit\u2014they were still champions at that time\u2014and I also visited Houston and Boston. Back then, there weren\u2019t any rules. You could stay with a team for days on end. I went to Houston for a week and played pick-up ball with the veterans. That was how the coaching staff ran their pre-draft workout\u2014no drills, no analytics, no scientific evaluation. Just go play. If the players like you, we like you. It was the same thing in Detroit. Boston was different. When I visited the Celtics, I had a very short workout. I figured they weren\u2019t impressed with me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More memorable for Brown is what happens off the court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI had an interview with Red, in his office on Causeway Street. I was a basketball history buff anyway, so walking into his office was better than walking into the Hall of Fame. There was so much history on the walls, on his desk, everywhere you looked. I sat there, awestruck, unable to believe that I was having a face-to-face conversation with Red Auerbach. It was surreal. Me being a 20-year-old kid from Jacksonville, who\u2019d never left home before, and suddenly I\u2019m in Boston and talking to the man who\u2019d started it all. I knew the history of the team; I\u2019d watched so many Celtics games on CBS when Tommy Heinsohn was broadcasting. I\u2019d been glued to the TV during all of those \u201980s battles between the Lakers and the Celtics. To be in Red\u2019s office was a life-changing experience. Even if I didn\u2019t get drafted by Boston, I knew that I\u2019d talked to one of the greatest basketball minds of all time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brown\u2019s dream comes true on June 27, 1990, when the Celtics select the athletic combo guard with the 19th pick in the first round.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe best thing about being drafted by the Celtics is that Red Auerbach made the pick. People talk about the dunk contest, but the draft was the best moment of my life. Just to think about all of the other players he\u2019s selected in the past\u2014Russell, Havlicek, Cowens, Bird . . . for me to be put in that company is unbelievable. You couldn\u2019t ask for a better feeling.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dee Brown plays nearly eight seasons in a Celtics uniform. The best days come early. The team sprints out to a 29\u20135 record to start the 1990\u201391 regular season, finishes 56\u201326, and falls to the hated Pistons in the Eastern Conference Semifinals. He lands on the \u201991 NBA All-Rookie First Team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Big Three were older when I got drafted, and the Celtics had started transitioning from a frontcourt-oriented team to a team that featured the backcourt,\u201d Brown says. \u201cThe offense featured younger, faster players like Brian Shaw, Reggie Lewis, Kevin Gamble, and myself. For the first time in a long time\u2014or maybe ever\u2014the Celtics were throwing down alley-oop dunks, running backdoor cuts, dunking on people, and doing windmill dunks during the game. The fans didn\u2019t know what to think. They called us the \u2018Zip Boys.\u2019 Tommie Heinsohn gave us that nickname.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite the injection of youth, the Boston Celtics are slowly crumbling when Dee Brown arrives, the fissures almost imperceptible at first.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen I got there, Larry, Kevin, and Chief were still playing at a high level. This was before Larry got hurt, before Kevin got hurt again, and before Reggie passed. So even though we lost Lenny, we had an opportunity to be a great team. Unfortunately, it wasn\u2019t meant to be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy first eight years in the league, there were only two NBA champions: Chicago and Houston. That was it. Like most players of that era, I came around at the wrong time because my career coincided with Jordan\u2019s prime. But then again, Patrick Ewing, Karl Malone, Charles Barkley, and so many other great players could say the same thing. They just came around when the greatest player who ever lived happened to be playing basketball.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brown\u2019s early years in Boston are spent balling in the game\u2019s most storied venue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPeople talk about Chicago Stadium and Madison Square Garden, but the old Boston Garden was great,\u201d Brown says, smiling. \u201cIt was all about one thing: Basketball without distractions. There were no cheerleaders. No dancers. You had the organ. You had the dead spots. You had the obstructed view seats. You had the conspiracy theories of Red turning off the hot water to the showers or turning off the air conditioning during the playoffs. It was pure basketball, played in front of the best fans in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A young Dee Brown loves talking shop with the Celtics\u2019 aging patriarch. Auerbach takes an instant liking to the acrobatic dunker with the old school vibe and pogo sticks for legs. The memories made are priceless.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe were playing a home game, and I\u2019m sitting in the locker room when Red walks in,\u201d Brown says. \u201cI think it was the year that Reggie Lewis had passed away, and I was playing close to 38 minutes a game. By this point in the season, I\u2019m exhausted because I\u2019m playing both guard positions. One game I\u2019m guarding Mitch Richmond, the next game it\u2019s Michael Jordan, and the next it\u2019s Tim Hardaway. I\u2019m guarding these guys, and I\u2019m giving up 20 to 30 pounds. They\u2019re bigger and stronger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo I\u2019m sitting in the locker room and Red walks in. I never called him \u2018Red.\u2019 I always called him \u2018Arnold.\u2019 He loved it. I said, \u2018Arnold, I\u2019m exhausted, sore, and beat up.\u2019 He looks at me and says, \u2018Dee, let me tell you something. One year Bill Russell averaged 47 minutes per game for an entire season. And guess what? He owes me a minute. So you\u2019d better never complain about playing all of these minutes because he played 47 and he owes me a minute, and until I get it from him, I\u2019m going to keep chasing him.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brown laughs at the retelling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI never complained about minutes again,\u201d Brown says. \u201cFor him to be pissed off because Bill Russell didn\u2019t play 48 minutes a game, the greatest Celtic of them all, who am I to complain [laughs]? Besides, playing 38 minutes a night was a lot better than sitting the bench. I loved Red. He always came into the locker room with a story.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Away from the court, Brown soaks up Boston\u2019s nightlife. His musical tastes continue to grow and evolve, but he\u2019s still hooked on hip-hop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was the early \u201990s, so Biggie had just hit big. I listened to Busta Rhymes and EPMD, so I still liked the New York rap scene. There were a couple of Florida groups coming out of that time, like 2 Live Crew. People were like, \u2018You can\u2019t listen to that in Boston.\u2019 But I was from Florida, so I had to represent. 69 Boyz were from Jacksonville. So was 95 South. They had a hit with \u2018Whoot, There It Is.\u2019 Living in Boston, I also go to see plenty of concerts. I was a Janet Jackson fan, a Faith Evans fan, a Stacy Lattisaw fan. Whitney Houston. I saw them all in Boston.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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If you\u2019re a Boston Celtics fan during the \u201990s, your allegiance to the team is sorely tested. Brown understands this perhaps better than anyone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA lot of people tend to dismiss that era of Celtics basketball,\u201d Brown says. \u201cThey remember me winning the dunk contest, and then it jumps to Paul Pierce. The best years were early in the decade and were bookmarked by two tragedies that disrupted the future of the franchise. Len and Reggie weren\u2019t lost due to injury. They weren\u2019t traded away for other players. These were great talents who passed away tragically. You can\u2019t plan for that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPeople forget that I joined the team just a few years after Lenny died, and I was part of the whole Reggie situation. I was there for eight years, and the Celtics were still trying to recover when I was traded to Toronto. We had some good players. Dominique Wilkins was there for a couple of years. Xavier McDaniel. Sherman Douglas. Dino Radja. Rick Fox was there before he went to Los Angeles. Chris Ford was one of the best coaches that I ever had.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNobody even talks about the \u201990s, and nobody really brings up my career in Boston,\u201d Brown continues. \u201cThat era has become a footnote in Celtics history. I consider myself lucky. I played in the last game in the old Boston Garden and the first game in the Fleet Center. I was the last person to play with the Big Three. I was the last of Red\u2019s last picks to make significant contributions in a Celtics uniform. Those are the things I back on with pride.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brown understands that winning the \u201991 NBA Slam Dunk Contest is a sexier headline and the thing people still remember most. But for him, being named Celtics captain is the ultimate honor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey don\u2019t give that title out every day, nor do they give it away lightly. You have to earn it. I never thought in my wildest dreams that I\u2019d be a Celtic captain. It helped being around Larry, Kevin, Robert, and DJ on a daily basis. Through them, you learn that Celtic Pride isn\u2019t a catchphrase. It\u2019s a way of life.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown. Brown, who embraces his new role, quickly appreciates its burden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen I first became captain, I don\u2019t think I fully grasped the magnitude,\u201d Brown says. \u201cIt was great to be recognized as a leader, but I didn\u2019t realize how difficult it was to be captain. It was a handful. And then, when you look at the list of captains that came before\u2014Cousy, Russell, Havlicek, Cowens, Bird, Parish\u2014you\u2019re talking about some of the greatest players to pick up a basketball. That\u2019s pressure. Just to be mentioned in the same breath with these guys is an honor. I didn\u2019t have a career to match theirs, but I felt like I carried the same respect for what it means to be a Boston Celtic.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the team\u2019s fortunes sag through the \u201990s, Brown\u2019s career stalls like a hurricane over the Florida coast. He battles a knee injury, watches legends retire, and endures a string of draft busts. There\u2019s negativity at every turn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was the biggest name on the roster at the time, but I was thrust into a situation that I really wasn\u2019t prepared to handle. Reggie Lewis dies, and all of a sudden you go from being a complementary player to being the face of the franchise. There\u2019s no way to prepare for that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Dunk. It always comes back to The Dunk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Funny thing is, Brown\u2019s iconic sky dab almost never happens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI had a lot of dunks during my rookie year,\u201d Brown says. \u201cThe All-Star Weekend was coming up, and Jon Jennings, a Celtics assistant coach at the time, was telling everybody that I needed to be included in the dunk contest. Thanks to his lobbying I was added as an alternate, and eventually slid into the lineup when one of the top guys pulled out.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shawn Kemp creates all of the buzz, while Brown arrives in Charlotte to little fanfare and even less recognition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a few hours before the contest, and I\u2019m sitting in the stands with Shawn Kemp and the rest of the guys,\u201d he says. \u201cWe\u2019re dressed in regular clothes, and I\u2019m right beside Shawn, and this kid comes up and asks for his autograph. The kid points at me and says to Shawn, \u2018Hey is that your little brother?\u2019 I just looked at the kid and thought to myself, \u2018You have no idea what I\u2019m about to do in this contest.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brown draws the seventh slot in the dunk order and wastes little time making an impression. Before his first dunk, he stands near midcourt, bends over and pumps the inflatable air bladders in his black Reebok Pump Omni Lite sneakers with both hands. The crowd, which includes an array of megastars like Will Smith, goes wild.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019d already signed a contract with Reebok, but pumping up my shoes before that first dunk wasn\u2019t scripted,\u201d he says. \u201cI just said to myself, \u2018This is for fun, you may never be in this situation again.\u2019 I\u2019d seen the contest on TV plenty of times, and I want to do something different. I want to get the crowd into it. Obviously, it worked.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With that single act of showmanship, Brown accelerates the convergence between sneakers, hip-hop culture, and the American mainstream. An unknown wisp at 6-foot-2, 165 pounds just seconds before, the scrawny Boston rookie\u2014Brown\u2019s words\u2014is suddenly the star of the NBA All-Star Weekend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPeople could relate to me,\u201d he says. \u201cI looked like an average guy, not a superhero in basketball shorts. There was an instant connection with the fans.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brown continues pumping before each subsequent dunk. After eliminating Kemp in the final round with a two-ball double-stuff that includes raking a ball placed on the back of the rim, followed by a 360 dunk off a bounce, Brown lines up for that final, iconic assault on the basket.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019d never done that dunk before,\u201d Brown says. \u201cI literally made it up on the spot. I wanted to do something that everybody would remember, like Michael Jordan taking off and dunking from the free-throw line, or Dominique Wilkins throwing down a vicious windmill dunk. I wanted people to remember Dee Brown doing something that nobody had ever done before. All those thoughts ran through my mind as I started running from half-court. When I jumped, I closed my eyes and put my head in my elbow. I knew that I was either going to make it, and everybody would be talking about me 25 years later, or I was going to miss it, and everybody was going to be talking about it 25 years later [laughs].\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even without social media, Brown\u2019s spontaneous improvisation brings instant fame.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLarry Bird said, \u2018Before that dunk, everybody wanted to shoot like me, and now everybody wants to dunk like Dee.\u2019 It was the first time since he\u2019d been in Boston that people would run past Larry Bird to get someone else\u2019s autograph. He thought it was funny, and he didn\u2019t mind at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOutside of Boston, nobody knew who I was before that dunk,\u201d Brown continues. \u201cHaving somebody from the Boston Celtics in a dunk contest was kind of like it snowing in San Diego. I literally became a household name overnight. After the contest, I couldn\u2019t go anywhere in New England without being recognized by people who didn\u2019t even follow the Celtics that closely. I was on TV all the time; I was doing Dunkin\u2019 Donuts commercials, Reebok commercials, car commercials, radio spots. I was doing appearances in Vermont, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island. For a while, I was New England.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brown\u2019s run in Boston ends with the arrival of Rick Pitino. Hailed as a savior when he arrives, Pitino trades away players at a dizzying rate, to his own detriment. Brown is a casualty of the house cleaning when he, along with Chauncey Billups, is traded to Toronto midway through the 1997\u201398 regular season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was a bridge between the great Celtics teams of the \u201980s and Rick Pitino\u2019s Celtics,\u201d Brown says. \u201cI never thought I would leave Boston. I never asked for a trade from Boston. A new regime comes in and they want their own people, their own players. Pitino didn\u2019t want the old Celtics there. He wanted his people there. I got it. Basketball\u2019s a business. But I was very, very hurt.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They say you never know what you\u2019ve got until it\u2019s gone. It works both way for Dee Brown and the Boston Celtics fans he leaves behind, fans who watch Rick Pitino push the Celtics deeper into disrepair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy biggest regret is not enjoying it as much I should have. When you\u2019re in the moment, sometimes you don\u2019t appreciate where you are in life. Then when it\u2019s over, you miss it. That was me. I wish I had enjoyed being an NBA basketball player and the captain of the Boston Celtics more than I did. Back then you were either in the NBA and had a job or you didn\u2019t. There was no D-League to fall back on. I think that fear of losing my job took a lot of the fun and enjoyment away from it. I didn\u2019t savor the good times as much as I should have. I wish I could change that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, Brown looks back on his career and the era of Celtics basketball in which he played with great fondness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy 12-year-old son searches for me on Google. He\u2019ll watch old footage on YouTube, and he\u2019ll say, \u2018Dad, you were pretty good.\u2019 It helps me appreciate my career. When you\u2019re grinding, you lose track of the fact that you\u2019re playing against some of the best athletes in the world. Look at the NBA\u2019s 50 Greatest list, and 20 to 25 of those players played during my era. I played against them. In order to have a 12-year NBA career, you have to play at a very high level. I did that, and I got to spend most of those years playing for the Boston Celtics, the best organization in the NBA. I was twenty when I was drafted. The Celtics raised me. I have nothing but love for Boston. I\u2019ll always be a Celtic.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Written By:  Michael D. McClellan | It\u2019s the same everywhere he goes. Not a day passes that Dee Brown isn\u2019t asked about The Dunk, a spontaneous act of showmanship that makes him famous, draws Michael Jordan\u2019s ire, and brings urban sneaker culture one step closer to the mainstream. Mistaken for Shawn Kemp\u2019s little brother during the 1991 NBA Slam […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16639,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","iawp_total_views":6,"footnotes":""},"categories":[783,773,776],"tags":[112],"class_list":["post-16638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dark-days","category-featured-interview","category-bird-era","tag-dee-brown"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.celtic-nation.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.celtic-nation.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.celtic-nation.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.celtic-nation.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.celtic-nation.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16638"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.celtic-nation.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16638\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.celtic-nation.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.celtic-nation.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.celtic-nation.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.celtic-nation.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}