Staff Blog
Elton through the eyes of LA
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| from the account of flikr member sixersphotos |
Pretty much everything you read about Elton Brand is along the same vein – they all say that he is a hard worker, a good guy off the court, and someone who would both give you 20 and 10 on the court and no problems off of it.
Being the natural skeptic I have been trying to determine if that is in fact true. Probably more accurately, I’ve been trying to prove that it’s not.
To find out I recently reached out to Jonathan Abrams, the L.A. Times’ Clippers beat writer. Abrams covers the team day in, day out and presumably knows how the players interact with each other, their coach, and Clippers management because of it. From what I’ve seen and read Abrams is smart, interested, and critical when the moment calls for it. Also, as someone covering the Clippers, he would have an axe to grind against Elton if he thought the newest Sixer had wronged the second L.A. organization. If Brand had been getting into little dust-ups with the notoriously crazy Clippers organization, now would be when they would come out.
So is E.B. the stand-up guy that he’s widely recognized as? The answer, it seems, is yes. From Abrams:
Elton is a good guy, very very courteous with the media. He is a good leader for a team, a hard worker. He comes and works out at 5 a.m. just about every day. You’re getting a good teammate.
There is pretty much nothing bad I can say about the guy until this week, and that is just depending on who you believe – on if he had an agreement or not.
It was the only misstep in the time that I’m known him. It just appears he really wants to go back east.
You can see Abrams talking about the move HERE and writing about it HERE and HERE.
Anyway, this might not be the juiciest nugget ever unearthed, but the more we hear about this guy the more it seems like he really is one of the good guys. Between the Charlie Mack Tournament / his expressed interest in helping the community and now this, it hasn’t been a terrible day for the guy P.R. wise.
Lets hope it keeps up.
[...] I’m your agent. Let me do my job.”Dunleavy and Brand have not spoken since.Abrams, who spoke about this with us in July, has been a champion of Brand’s good guy character for awhile now. Brand’s agent? Not [...]