Braun ‘couldn’t wait’ to get back to Kansas after winning NBA title
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Kansas alum and guard with the NBA-champion Denver Nuggets, Christian Braun gets down for some ball handling drills with the campers during the Champ Camp run by his former high school basketball coach, Ed Fritz at Drive5 in Overland Park on Tuesday, June, 27, 2023. Photo by Nick Krug
Overland Park — As Christian Braun puts it, he’s “not really big into vacations, not really big into traveling.”
That’s why the newly minted NBA champion ended up trading the revelry of the Denver Nuggets’ championship parade for the high-pitched din of a kids’ basketball camp in Overland Park, just 12 days later.
“I couldn’t wait,” Braun told reporters at the Drive5 Sports Center, where he was hosting a “Champ Camp” with his high school coach Ed Fritz. “The first thing I wanted to do, we got done with the parade, we got done with our trip and I came immediately back. This is where I want to be … Everything I love is here, I get to go back and watch my brother, so this means a lot to me.”
One could forgive Braun if he wanted to take some time to bask in his accomplishment — the three-year Kansas basketball standout just became the fifth player ever to win NCAA and NBA titles in consecutive years, and even as a rookie he played a role in the Nuggets’ triumph, particularly when he provided 15 points and four rebounds in Game 3 of the NBA Finals.
But Braun has followed up the jubilation of the title and carousing at the parade by visiting the NBA Draft in New York to support Jalen Wilson, then returning to Kansas to watch his brother Parker join the Jayhawks, and to host events like Tuesday’s camp.
After Braun’s and Ochai Agbaji’s departures gave Wilson a chance to shine last season, Braun said there was “no one more deserving” of getting drafted than Wilson.
“Just to be around Jalen and to see how good of a person he is, and him to invite me in with his family, means a lot,” Braun said.
As for Parker, Christian’s older brother and a recent graduate transfer from Santa Clara to Kansas who began his career at Missouri, Braun said he’s a “perfect player for the team.”
“All he wants to do is win,” Braun said. “He’s an older guy, he’s a guy that has a lot of knowledge of the game, and I think he’s a perfect piece for them and what they need.”
Plus, even after being the last scholarship player to arrive in Lawrence, Parker already has the endorsement of point guard Dajuan Harris Jr., Braun said.
“If Dajuan thinks he’s good enough and Coach Self thinks he’s good enough, I know he’s good enough, and that’s all that matters,” he said.
As for his title victory — still fresh after a couple weeks — Braun said that he and the rest of the team took their cues and their inspiration to win from veterans like Jeff Green and DeAndre Jordan.
“They’ve been in the league for 16 years so you can imagine how bad they wanted to win one,” he said. “When everybody wants to win one as bad as they do, and we want to win one for them, that’s what made us click really well.”
He credited his immediate success, not just in the NBA but at KU or when he won three straight high school titles with Fritz at Blue Valley Northwest, to the people around him.
“I think I’ve been very very fortunate to play with the teams I’ve played on,” he said, “and I’ve been put in really, really good positions for myself.”
