YouTube Gold: Elton Brand’s Duke Highlights

Brand brought a fun ferocity to Duke Basketball

It’s hard to remember now, but when Elton Brand arrived at Duke in 1997, he wasn’t the most celebrated player in his class. He wasn’t even the most celebrated big man.

In both cases, that would have been Chris Burgess. The California big was celebrated for his rare athletic ability and in particular how well he ran the floor.

As it turned out, Brand supplanted him fairly quickly. His combination of quickness, power and agility were hard to top, as you’ll see in this video.

At 6-9 and about 255, Brand was a real load. He was powerful, to be sure, and played hard. But he also had a nose for the game, knew exactly what he was capable of, and played with a mean streak that even Sports Illustrated lauded with a cover that said: “Preppies No More! The Blue Devils are on top again - but now they're nasty.”

Most of that was because of Brand. Duke had had Mike Gminski just before Mike Krzyzewski got to campus and of course Christian Laettner had a brilliant career at Duke. There wasn’t really a tradition of strong centers though in the K era prior to Brand’s dramatic ascent.

It’s hard to remember now, but there was an era where people said that Duke didn't produce big men. This certainly wasn’t true for Brand, who went on to become the #1 pick in the 1999 NBA Draft and an outstanding pro career. Today, he’s the GM of the Philadelphia 76ers.