Curry gets a positive vibe from Kwame Brown

Michael Curry is well aware of the rap on Kwame Brown. His work ethic as a young player wasn’t what it should have been and he didn’t accept responsibility for his fate. But when he sat down with Brown, the vibe and the reputation didn’t mesh.

“What I was hoping for with him and what I got is that he didn’t use anything as an excuse,” Curry said of the most significant off-season addition to the Pistons’ roster, the 6-foot-11, 270-pound veteran big man signed as a free agent. “He put it all upon himself. He didn’t use the way the coach used him or injuries or being young when he came in the league – none of that.

“He took responsibility for himself and, really, once he did that, for me it was easy. That’s one of the biggest things – to get athletes to hold themselves accountable. Whether he did that when he was 18 or 19 – I’m pretty sure I was mature at 18 or 19, but I wouldn’t have been ready to be thrown into a No. 1 pick or right into the NBA and handle that kind of responsibility. Whether he acknowledged responsibility at that time didn’t really matter to me. The fact that now he does is the only thing I want to judge him on.”

At 26, Brown still has another productive decade of basketball ahead of him, Curry feels, and with both Rasheed Wallace and Antonio McDyess turning 34 before next season tips off, Curry felt Brown represented too much protection and potential to pass on at what appears a relative bargain. Brown’s contract has been widely reported as a two-year deal worth $4 million annually with Brown having the right to terminate the contract after one season.

But if the marriage of Kwame Brown and the Pistons turns out as mutually beneficial as Curry envisions, it’s certainly possible theirs could be a long-term union.

“We look at our team going forward, our two best post players are up there in age, Rasheed and Dice,” Curry said. “We have a good group of young post players coming along with Jason Maxiell, Amir Johnson, Cheikh Samb and Trent Plaisted, but we didn’t have anybody with massive size. Looking for a young player like that, most of the time it’s very difficult to get. Kwame has had some ups and downs in his career, but I still look at Kwame as a young big guy who can play and do well in this league another 10 years or so.

“To have a chance to get Kwame is great. Now it’s on me and the rest of my staff to continue to work him and push him and use him to the best of his abilities.”

Curry has said consistently since succeeding Flip Saunders that he considers both Jason Maxiell and Amir Johnson members of his rotation, but he doesn’t think the addition of Brown will greatly affect their roles.

“We’re playing Phoenix and we go to the bench, you can’t give Max or Amir a steady diet of Shaquille,” he said. “I think when you talk about some of the elite big guys in our league, Max can come off the bench or start and play them for a while. But he can’t play them over the long haul. It wears on his body. The couple of games he started on Dwight Howard (in the 2008 playoff series vs. Orlando), he was really good – and then for a couple of games, he didn’t have the same lift and explosion. It’s hard to play a guy like that and give up that much size.

“I think (adding Brown) causes competitive balance and that’s what you want. When you have that balance and that competition among positions, then you should never have to worry about playing a guy that doesn’t have it that night or if a guy is fatigued. You know you’ve got some other guys you can go to and that’s what we want, whether it’s in the post or on the perimeter.”

Curry said he watched a great amount of tape of Brown’s play from the past season before coming to the decision that he would be a considerable asset and was struck by how effective Brown was when he was healthy.

“I looked at all his statistics and compared them during times when he was healthy and when he was injured,” Curry said. “I watched a lot of tape on him. So I had drawn a pretty good conclusion that when he’s healthy and he plays, he’s a pretty good player.”

• The Pistons officially announced the signing of Walter Herrmann on Monday, as had been widely reported after Herrmann more or less announced the deal himself a few weeks ago. They liked what they saw from Herrmann last season after acquiring him in the December trade with Charlotte that was primarily motivated by the salary-cap flexibility gained by getting Nazr Mohammed’s contract off the books, but the Pistons were reluctant to start yo-yoing Jarvis Hayes in the hopes that he would continue to grow into the role of a consistent bench scorer.
  
  With the decision to not pursue Hayes once he hit free agency, Herrmann now has a legitimate chance to emerge as the backup small forward to Tayshaun Prince. Though Rip Hamilton will probably get minutes there to accommodate Rodney Stuckey’s increased role and Arron Afflalo is another solid option, Herrmann’s greater size could make him the first option in matchups against bigger small forwards.
  
  Herrmann’s signing brings the number of guaranteed contracts to 14, one under the league maximum. The Pistons are still waiting on word from Lindsey Hunter about returning for one more season.

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