Lorenzo Brown’s Crazy 1st 2 Years

Former NC State Shooting Guard Lorenzo Brown’s two-year professional career has tossed him around like a yo-yo.

Brown was drafted by the Minnesota Timberwolves in the second round of the 2013 NBA Draft, with the 52nd overall pick.  Shortly after the draft the Timberwolves waived Brown on October 25th, 2013.  Exactly one week later he was acquired by the Springfield Armor, the D-League affiliate of the Brooklyn Nets.  In 8 games with the Armor, Brown averaged 13 and 5 assists in 25 minutes per game.  As a result, the Philadelphia 76ers were impressed with what they saw and picked up Brown on November 10th, 2013.

During Brown’s rookie season, he went up-and-down between the NBA and the 76ers D-League team in Delaware 6 different times.  Brown saw action in 26 games with the Philadelphia 76ers that year, averaging 8.6 minutes per game and scored a season high of 8 points on December 14th.  Down in the D-League that same year, Brown averaged 20 points, 7 assists, and 5 rebounds in 12 games with the Delaware 76ers.  Despite that, he was officially waived by the Philadelphia 76ers on March 14th.

After being waived, the offseason after his rookie season was a roller coaster.  He signed with Reyer Venezia, a professional team in Venice, Italy, but he never even suited up for them because he failed his physical.  On September 25th he was picked up by the Detroit Pistons and started playing with their D League affiliate team, the Grand Rapids Drive a month later at the start of the 2014-15 season.  Brown excelled with the Drive, averaging 17 points, 4 assists, and 5 rebounds per game (19 games), and was named to the Futures All-Star Team for the 2015 NBA D-Leauge All-Star Game in February of this year.

The Minnesota Timberwolves, the team that originally drafted Brown, paid attention to his success in the D League, and when Ricky Rubio and Mo Williams went down with injuries, they signed Zo to a 10-day contract on January 28th.  Brown had a great first game with the T-Wolves, scoring 11 points and dishing out 3 assists in 24 minutes of play.  He actually was forced into the starting lineup due to more injuries in just his second game, and played 48 minutes, and picked up 9 assists and 6 rebounds.  The Timberwolves ended up signing Brown to a 2nd 10-day contract, before officially signing him to a contract to finish out the season.  In Brown’s sophomore season with the Timberwolves he averaged 4 points, 3 assists, and 2 rebounds over an average of 19 minutes per game.  He even started 7 games this season.

The future with Brown and the Timberwolves is unknown at this point, but he has shown extreme perservearance, and Wolfpacks fans should be proud of him.