Thursday, August 23, 2007

   The last we heard from Dee Brown, the Jazz guard was traveling around Utah and Wyoming honoring his commitment to help out at junior Jazz basketball camps. This even though the Jazz signed Ronnie Price to essentially take Brown's job as the No. 3 point guard.

    Brown checked in with a new blog entry Wednesday and his contract situation is still unsettled. He's back in Chicago, hanging out with friends and family, partying up on his birthday, playing a lot of Madden and getting ready to release a mixtape entitled Unwritten on Sept. 1.

    He's also working out regularly and has plans for cutting a DVD of his workout regiment. The one thing Brown doesn't want to do is play pickup games out of fear of getting injured. He caught a pass wrong the other week, apparently, and dislocated a finger before popping it back into place.

    Here's his take on his basketball future. The one-year qualifying offer the Jazz made to Brown back in June is not believed to be guaranteed. You can read for yourself at www.deebrown11.com/blog.

    "With my contract situation, I'm still patiently waiting just like you are at home right now," Brown wrote. "I'm thinking the same things you are thinking right now 'why not signed yet,' 'thinking about overseas,' 'What's up with UTAH,' a lot of things are going through my head right now, but I'm not going to speak about anything until I sign with a ball club.

    "A lot of people are questioning my agent, questioning me about the comments made by Larry H. Miller Jazz owner, things happen for a reason and I really do feel like something special will happen to me, because no one questioned my heart, attitude, work ethic, character, ability to play the game of basketball.

    "Basketball is what I do and when people watch me play its entertaining because I love it and make it look so fun. I really do appreciate the game of basketball and will continue to aim high and stay focused on being the best player I can be."

    Brown said he had finished watching tape from all his games in the Rocky Mountain Revue and graded himself an 8 on a scale of 1 to 10. He delivered the ball to the right places, in his mind, was patient with the ones that didn't know the offense and shot a high percentage when he did look for his shot.

    "I could have shot better from the three point line and free throw line, I must improve which I'm very excited to start tuning that part of my game up. I was in great shape and played great team basketball. I was very happy with my performance at the Rocky Mountain revue."

    There's also a message to Brown's Jazz fans: "I pray and believe that something will come up for me and for all my Utah fans, I would love for it to be there remember that."

    Brown plans on traveling a little around Illinois, stopping in Champaign to see friends on the basketball and football teams and watching a Cubs game in Chicago. "Your boy is enjoying Chicago, working hard like always, and patiently waiting to see what jersey I will be putting on for opening day."

    My take: It's going to be interesting to see what Brown decides to do. He could opt to head overseas and make something near NBA money. Or he could opt for the D-League, where he would be a likely candidate to get called up somewhere on a 10-day contract (for starters) sometime during the season. The max salary in the D-League, however, is $4,000 a month.

    --Ross Siler