ORLANDO, Fla.---
Inside an empty gym Chaundee Brown is putting up shots.
“Good job, easy money,” Iren Rainey says as Brown knocks down a three. Rainey is a player development coach that works with players like Aaron Gordon and Nikola Vucevic on the Magic
“I feel like what makes Chaundee so special, first and foremost is his approach to the game of basketball,” Rainey said.
Rainey is helping mold Brown’s game for the modern NBA.
“If he wants to be considered a certified pro he’s got to be efficient and effective with the least amount of effort,” Rainey said. “Which is the ability to realize when he’s open and make shots when he’s open.”
Brown just got similar feedback from NBA teams. He recently pulled his name from draft consideration. He will go back to school, just not the one that’s been his home away from home.
“It was really hard, I cried for like a day,” Brown said.
Brown just spent three seasons at Wake Forest. He averaged 12.1 PPG and 6.5 RPG last season as a junior. A calf injury limited the film he was able to show NBA teams. He is now committed to finish his college career at the University of Michigan.
“If you would have told me ten years from now, fifteen from now that I’d be going to Michigan, I wouldn’t have believed you,” Brown said.
After Wake Forest head coach Danny Manning was fired, Brown started looking at his options.
“It just felt like home when I was talking to them,” Brown said. “Just felt like I was talking to my family. I came to that decision and I’m happy I’m there.
Brown will have to sit out a year unless the NCAA grants him a waiver to play immediately. He says that Michigan has told him they will handle that process. It wasn’t an easy decision, but it helped that he’d experienced it before. In High School he transferred from Dr. Phillips to The First Academy his junior year. That decision helped get him to college. He hopes this one will help get him to the NBA.
“They are really interested in me and they know I can do it,” Brown said. “So just trying to work on my weaknesses basically get them to strengths, but that’s been my dream my whole life and I’m definitely going to get there.”