Our player preview series for the 2024 Clippers season continues with Kobe Brown, the Clippers’ first round pick from the 2023 NBA Draft.
BASIC INFORMATION
Height: 6’7”
Weight: 250
Position: Forward
Age: 23
Years in NBA: Rookie
Key Stats: 15.8 points, 6.4 rebounds, 2.5 assists, and 1.5 steals per game on 55.3/45.5/79.2 shooting splits across 34 games as a senior at the University of Missouri.
Contract Status: Signed a four-year / $12.4m deal this summer with team options on the last two seasons
EXPECTATIONS
Short-term? The expectation for Kobe Brown is to perform in the NBA G League as well as he did in the NBA Summer League. Given the struggles for younger role players who should be ahead of Brown in the pecking order players, like Amir Coffey and Brandon Boston Jr., even in a hypothetical situation in which the front office consolidates some depth to swing big for a third star it’s hard to imagine Brown getting many opportunities with the big boy club. The real plan and expectation for him this season should be to check boxes that’ll have him prepared to fight for minutes in Years 2 and 3 as a pro. Such boxes include working on his body, finding what he does well on the court, and perfecting it.
STRENGTHS
For lack of better words, Kobe Brown is built like a tank. He’s not necessarily chiseled and cut-up like Kawhi, but he’s not exactly put together in a way that resembles Zion Williamson. He’s somewhere in the middle, which he used to his advantage as an amateur most of the time around the basket. And whether I’m right or not, I truly believe that physical strength will translate to the NBA and play to his advantage immediately. No, Brown won’t have the opportunities to bully-ball in the post, and nor should he. But on the defensive end, he’ll be able to stand his ground against bigger players in a way that former Clipper Eric Gordon did.
Another strength could be Brown’s three-point shooting. It’s not textbook, and it doesn’t look natural coming off of his hand. Yet, the ball goes in. If you ask me, the jury’s still out — three years of inefficiency is hard to overlook. However, he’s been lights out for almost a year now, so perhaps a corner’s been turned, and this new-found strength could be what changes his timeline as an NBA player.
WEAKNESSES
Feet. Particularly slow feet. I mentioned Brown’s tank-like build in a way that’ll be advantageous for matching NBA physicality, but let’s not forget that today’s game is played in a spread-out way that requires players to be able to move in space. Such a style of play is why I noted earlier how Brown will need to work on his body this season — slimming down a bit might help with some needed mobility, especially if he ends up with more reps as a wing than a forward. If those feet don’t get a bit lighter, he’ll need to spend some time in the film room studying how someone like PJ Tucker figured it out as a small-ball center and undersized forward.
SUMMARY
There’s no reason to get overly excited about what Kobe Brown can become as an NBA player, and there’s also no reason not to feel encouraged from the little we’ve seen thus far. But the reality is that we’re most likely not going to actually know who he is as a player for a while. The path to playing time just isn’t there, and Brown will likely spend most of his first professional season in Ontario and potentially his second season, too, if things go well for the Clippers this season. So, we wait.
