But Larrañaga shut it down, fearing reinjury after weeks without live practice. In March 2018, Miami team doctors cleared Brown to return from his broken foot just in time for the NCAA Tournament. But he understood more than most that screening wasn’t how or why his pupil had made it to the league. Larrañaga watched from afar and admired how tactfully Brown handled that job. “In Brooklyn, that’s when I had to (watch highlights) the most,” he told The Post. He never envisioned himself as a small-ball center, even if he had the adaptability to pull it off. Brown said before the Finals that “nobody really wanted me” afterward in free agency because he was unproven as a guard. With the Brooklyn Nets, he served mostly as a screener for Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving and other ball-dominant players. The groundwork was laid for Brown to eventually land in Denver as a second-unit guard, but only after taking a few literal bumps. (Photo by AAron Ontiveroz/The Denver Post) “I didn’t work out with Detroit at all,” Brown said, “so that had to work.” Bruce Brown (11) of the Denver Nuggets sits on the bench before the first quarter against the Houston Rockets at Ball Arena in Denver on Monday, Nov. Don’t draft him as a two guard expecting him to drain 3-pointers, Larrañaga warned. Larrañaga pitched Brown as being able to find the open man, guard one through three and switch onto anybody. This guy is going to be really, really good, and his best position in the NBA is likely to be the point guard position.” “I don’t know if Bruce will get to the second round,” he remembers saying, “but if he does, you guys have a couple of second-round picks. While he was sidelined for a broken foot during Stefanski’s visit, Larrañaga advocated for his injured star. Brown had gotten out his slump, but now he was out for the year. The verdict: Brown wanted to improve his handles and point guard skills.ĭetroit Pistons executive Ed Stefanski scouted a Miami practice the next season. After the 2016-17 season, they had a long conversation about whether Brown should enter the NBA draft as a one-and-done or return to school. Then Larrañaga started transitioning him to the one. In high school and at the beginning of his first college season, he played the three. From the time Miami recruited him and through two seasons for the Hurricanes, Brown remembers, “he would just always say that I was going to be a point guard if I wanted to play in the league.” But how Denver saw Brown is the same way Larrañaga did. The specific tool deployed on the Swiss army knife has varied from team to team. “Whatever the coach is going to ask you to do, the first thing you have to do is have a great attitude toward that. “I’ve always thought that Bruce is like a Swiss army knife,” Larrañaga told The Post. From the psychological to the positional, his college origins under Larrañaga are directly linked to his current role, in which Brown shepherded the Nuggets within a win of an NBA title Friday night. It’s one of the ways “the U” left an indelible mark on Brown that shaped him into the Nuggets’ indispensable sixth man this season. To this day, Brown pulls up videos of his own highlights to gas himself up before games, especially when he needs some extra gumption. “All he told me to do was go watch some highlights,” Bruce told The Post, smiling in a Miami Hurricanes ballcap. Coach Jim Larrañaga took notice and offered Brown a solution. A shooting drought had ripple effects on his aggressiveness. It was his second year at the University of Miami, where his responsibilities were heightened as the team’s top returning scorer. ![]() It will forever inspire comfort and confidence. ![]() Game 4 of the 2023 NBA Finals, where else but the city he was taught the ritual, belongs in the highlight reel rotation from now on. MIAMI - If time is running out on the Nuggets’ symbiotic relationship with Bruce Brown, at least they’ll always have a special place reserved in his pregame routine. Digital Replica Edition Home Page Close Menu
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