Because I’m Not Through With This Game Yet, That’s Why
Elton Brand medium.com
The end wasn’t supposed to look anything like this. Not after I’d finally come so close after so many years. Not after I’d paid my dues and proven myself. And certainly not with me splitting a pair…
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Medium
The end wasn’t supposed to look anything like this. Not after I’d finally come so close after so many years. Not after I’d paid my dues and proven myself. And certainly not with me splitting a pair of free throws in the Eastern Conference Finals because the opposing coach made a strategic decision to intentionally put me on the line. I mean, I was once a No. 1 overall NBA Draft pick. An All-Star. A lifetime 74 percent free throw shooter! And now I’m out there because someone else expected me to fail?

No, this definitely was not the ending I’d envisioned when I dreamed of situations like this as a kid. I was supposed to sink the game-winner. I was supposed to be the hero, draining an impossible “No-no-no! … Yessssssssss” shot, like P.J. Brown for the Celtics during their 2008 championship run, or at least going out famously as I suffered a career-ending Achilles tear on a fadeaway three as time expired to win a playoff series.

In reality, though, I didn’t make (or take) the imagined shot. I wasn’t the hero. We got swept, and the only action I saw was from the free throw line. And just like that, it was over.

That’s basically how it went down after I was unexpectedly called into duty in Game 1 against LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers, even though I still believed I had something to contribute on the court. Even though I’d averaged just six minutes a night during the regular season, I felt like the moment was my destiny, my chance to make a lasting mark on the league.

Our Atlanta Hawks were really good last year. We weren’t a fluke. Coming into that series, we all felt like we could beat Cleveland. Though I wasn’t getting much run, I knew I could still ball if called upon. Why couldn’t I be the guy who came through in the clutch? It would have been a heck of a capper to my career. Help the team, win the game, be part of a championship … and ride off into the sunset.

Instead, we lost that game, and then the next three, and before I knew what hit me, three weeks had flown by in free agency with exactly zero offers to continue playing in the NBA. Sorry, thanks for playing, but we’ve got nothing for you here. Game over. Career over.

I know what you’re thinking.

Dude, you’ve made over $167 million in your career.

You’re not a good player anymore. No one wanted to sign you.

What possible reason could you have for joining the Sixers, a team with a 3–33 record?!

The truth is, my decision to return to the NBA isn’t about money, and it isn’t about rings. It isn’t even about me, really, although every athlete would like to go out on his or her own terms. It’s about repaying what’s owed, about making sure that the young men who follow in my footsteps get what they’re entitled to (and what I haven’t always given them).

It’s not so much that I failed the guys I was tasked with mentoring over the years; it’s that I barely even tried. I never took the time to share the legendary Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s writing with them. I never sincerely answered their questions about what David West was trying to warn them about during NBPA meetings. I didn’t tell them why they should be reading Etan Thomas’ essays.

I was simply too busy following the NBA blueprint that had been engrained in me from the beginning: Play well, keep your head down, offend as few people as possible, and get paid. Now, here in Philadelphia, my adopted hometown, I’m excited to have a chance to do things differently — be a positive influence and help the organization get back on track.

You might’ve noticed we’ve got a pretty talented kid on the roster in Jahlil Okafor, someone I happen to share some things in common with. Despite how he’s been portrayed, I know Jahlil. He’s a good kid with a good heart. He’s not unlike most 20-year-olds you probably know, and he’s definitely not at all different than most of his fellow players. Hell, if camera phones were around when Brad Miller, Ron Artest, and I were Jahlil’s age, we might’ve been banned from the league altogether, never mind suspended for a few games.

It’s not like I didn’t have options after no one signed me last summer. I was offered a front-office job. I passed on TV gigs and other media opportunities. But as an athlete who wasn’t quite ready not to be an athlete, nothing really felt like the right move.

That doesn’t mean there weren’t signs that it might be time to move on. As playing careers advance, there is a unique push-pull that develops between the supreme confidence in our own abilities and the slowly creeping realization that our skills can’t last forever. Usually, though, it’s events off the court that illuminate your mortality on it.

I lost my mother, Daisy Brand, to gastric cancer in July 2014, just six weeks after her Stage IV diagnosis. When she heard the news, she asked the doctor if she had five years or one year to live. “Much, much less,” he said without emotion. The woman was my rock — I never met my father — and her passing shook me to my core.

A few months later, my grandfather passed away. Soon after that, Lari Ketner, my draft classmate and good friend, died of a rare form of colon cancer at just 37 years old. Then, last year, friend and former teammate Lamar Odom overdosed and nearly died. For me, these and other experiences were as defining as they were painful. Father Time remains undefeated, and he makes no exceptions. Not for former No. 1 overall picks, not for anyone.

Plus, after being on the road for so many years, part of me was relieved to think my career might be over. Here was a chance, I thought, to begin to strengthen my relationship with my wife and kids. While it’s easy to point to the money and fame professional athletes enjoy — believe me, I’m incredibly thankful for the life sports has provided me — sacrifices were made, often at the expense of the relationships which matter most.

I wasn’t quite ready to let this part of my life go, though.

Looking back on my career, I guess I can understand why some might think I never lived up to expectations. After all, I left Duke after my sophomore season after being named All-American. I went on to average 20 points and 10 rebounds in my rookie season with the Chicago Bulls, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t envision multiple championships and maybe an MVP award or two.

Unfortunately, those dreams and goals never came to pass.

I was traded to the Los Angeles Clippers after just two years with the Bulls. And while I understood why then-GM Jerry Krause did it — pairing seven-foot Tyson Chandler and Eddy Curry must have been a tantalizing opportunity, especially with how the game was played back then — it didn’t make it any easier for me at the time.

We only made the playoffs once in L.A., and playing for Donald Sterling was as weird and unsettling as you might expect. Between him trotting 20-person entourages through the locker room while the players were undressed, to him patting me on the head like I was his property, the man was downright creepy. Even if you can put aside the racism that eventually cost him ownership of the team, it wasn’t a surprise that the Clippers’ culture was a losing one.

When the Miami Heat signed me to an offer sheet in 2003, I would have bet my life that Sterling would not match the deal. And had he not, who knows what might have been possible with me and Dwyane Wade on the same team, entering the peak of our careers? It just wasn’t meant to be.

When I signed with the 76ers as a free agent in 2008, I felt like our future was bright. I was only a season removed from my best year as a pro, when I put up 24.7 points and 10.0 rebounds per game. As I saw it, the hefty $82 million contract the Sixers gave me was just further validation of my value in the league, confirmation that my draft status was justified.

We made the playoffs in two of my four years with Philadelphia, but my production sagged, and the team cut me loose after the 2011–12 season. From there I went into ring-chasing mode, first with the Dallas Mavericks and then with the Hawks.

I have come to accept that I will never get that championship ring as a player. It’s disappointing and frustrating, but I am not the first highly touted guy who didn’t win it all, and I certainly won’t be the last. I am proud of what I have accomplished in this game — from street ball, to AAU, to Peekskill High School, to Duke University, to the NBA. I did it the right way, and no one will ever be able to take that way from me.

So for those of you still asking why I am doing this, I’ll just go ahead and refer you to Coach K. While wrestling over the holidays with the idea of playing again, I knew he was the higher power I needed to consult with. He made it very clear to me that not taking advantage of this opportunity would be something I would likely regret. Now, as I prepare to lace ’em up for one last time, I know he was right.

I am truly honored to be able to pass on what I have learned to Jahlil, Nerlens Noel, Joel Embiid, and my other teammates, and to be a positive influence on a young team with an incredibly bright future. It’s time for me to give back to the game that has given me so much. Let’s do this.