Michael Ventre

If the Lakers acquired Kwame Brown because they want him to mentor Andrew Bynum, they probably made a huge mistake.

Fortunately for them, they didn’t.

They traded for the 23-year-old seven-footer, a former No. 1 overall draft pick of the Washington Wizards, because they could use a prototype power forward who can rebound like Kevin Garnett, defend like Karl Malone, score like Tim Duncan and be a perennial candidate for the NBA’s J. Walter Kennedy Citizenship Award.

Right now, all of that is in their dreams. But dreams sometimes come true. In this case, they’ll take anything remotely close.

The issue for the Lakers is whether Brown’s potential can be squeezed out of him. He already has four NBA seasons under his belt, and the results thus far have looked like the EKG of an unstable heart patient. His immense potential has been exceeded only by his immaturity, which led to Wizards coach Eddie Jordan suspending him for the playoffs last year — even though the team needed his bulk — because Brown boycotted a team huddle and pouted over playing time. Kwame Brown has become a poster boy for why the league needed an age limit, which it finally got under the new collective bargaining agreement.

That was then, this is now, and tomorrow may even be worth looking forward to if the Lakers can work with this kid.

But can they?

Many a savvy NBA mind has been turned topsy-turvy over a young player with promise who turns out not to have the mental capacity to match his physical gifts. Benoit Benjamin was the third overall pick in the 1985 draft, and no less an assessor of talent than Jerry West said at the time that his game bore a resemblance to that of Wilt Chamberlain. Alas, Wilt was fierce whereas Benoit was lethargic, and all the king’s men couldn’t make him care.

The same danger lurks for the Lakers with Brown. But of all the organizations out there that could have adopted this slam-dunking Baby Huey, the Lakers are probably best equipped to give this high school refugee the old college try.

As was widely expected, coach Phil Jackson reportedly had a phone conversation with Michael Jordan about Brown a few days before the Lakers and Wizards concluded their agreement. When Jordan was playing in a Wizards uniform, he tried to berate Brown into growing up, but it didn’t work.  Instead, Brown withdrew and sulked.

But obviously Jackson heard enough positives from Jordan about Brown’s potential to endorse the transaction. The Lakers also introduced Brown to general manager Mitch Kupchak, himself once a power forward with Washington, as well as Magic Johnson and owner Jerry Buss, and Brown supposedly came away impressed by everyone’s level of interest in him. Even though Brown himself probably wouldn’t describe it in these words, for him this is the Michael Jordan of fresh starts.

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