LAS VEGAS — Spencer Hawes was preparing to jet home to Seattle last month when he got the news: Jon Brockman, his good friend and former Washington teammate, had been drafted by the Portland Trail Blazers, then traded to the Sacramento Kings.
Hawes and Brockman had been teammates since their AAU days with Seattle's Friends of Hoop. They won national summer tournaments together. They won Pac-10 games together. Now they were going to be reunited in the NBA in Sacramento.
Hawes, the Kings' center, was so excited he still was text-messaging friends when he settled into his first-class seat that night and, as the plane was about to push back from the gate, a flight attendant asked him to shut off his phone.
"You don't understand," Hawes said. "We just traded for Jon Brockman."
The flight attendant didn't care. She was more concerned about the FAA than the NBA. She asked again, firmer this time.
"Just a few more texts," Hawes said.
"I don't want to have to take you off the plane," she said.
Reluctantly, Hawes put away his phone and continued spreading the news when he landed in Seattle.
Brockman was in ninth grade and Hawes was in eighth the first time they played together.
"He was a tall, skinny kid with bad knees," Brockman said of Hawes when he joined his Friends of Hoop AAU team. "He came to play with us, and he struggled. I remember his first tournament, [former O'Dea High School and Stanford guard] Mitch Johnson just lit into him.
"It's funny, but from that moment on, it seemed like every time I saw him, he just kept getting better. You could visibly see his improvement, step by step."
Knowing that Hawes, now in his third season with the Kings, is a teammate is comforting to Brockman. He laughs about the fact that he was Hawes' mentor when Hawes joined the Huskies. Now the roles are reversed.
"I think Spence will tell you this: He was kind of shocked and a little lonely at times in his rookie year," Brockman said at lunch this week at a Las Vegas hotel. "Now, the fact that one of my best friends is on my team with me, and he's been through it all, I'll be able to go to him for advice. It's like I went from being the big brother at Washington, to the little brother here."
Unlike Hawes, Brockman has no guarantees. At times in the NBA Summer League he has struggled with his defense. And his shooting has been hampered by a sprained right index finger suffered in the first quarter of the first game.
But Brockman has played these games in Las Vegas just as he played at Washington.
On Wednesday, against the D-League Select team, he saved a loose ball, jumping over the first row of seats and crashing into the press table. Typical Brockman.
"I've seen exactly what he's advertised as being," new Sacramento coach Paul Westphal said. "A guy that will get rebounds in any league. He's a guy that understands the game really well. He's great at rotating and taking charges, plugging up where he's supposed to plug up.
"I think that his shot looks good, but he's not hitting his free throws. I think that he has the ability to knock down the open shots if they're going to leave him open. But really he's everything that people say he is. He's a rock out there. He does what he's supposed to do. He gets his rebounds."
The Kings won't ask him to change his relentless fury. The Kings won't demand he add a three-point shot to his repertoire. They want Jon Brockman to be Jon Brockman.
"Guys are paid to do what they do well," Brockman said. "I know, on our team, we have a lot of scorers. Guys who can fill the cup. Guys who are great passers. That's what they do. For me, I look at what I can do to help the team, and that's rebounding."
In his first four games, all Kings losses, Brockman has averaged 6.2 points and 7.7 rebounds, playing 18.7 minutes per game. He is 9 of 20 from the free-throw line.
He appears leaner and looks to be in the best shape of his life.
"He looks more like an NBA player now than he did in college," Dallas Mavericks assistant coach Dwane Casey said. "He's done a great job of getting ready."
Brockman will make the Kings' roster if he can grab rebounds and if he is willing to beat up on his teammates, including Hawes, in practice. He will stay in the league for a decade if he develops a midrange jumper.
"I feel confident I can hit that 15-foot jump shot," he said. "But I know that I don't have to take a ton of them to try and prove myself. I need to rebound and make hustle plays, and that's going to get me where I need to go."
The 6-foot-7 Brockman laughs whenever he hears the rap that he is undersized.
"Oh, well," he said. "That's not going to change." He thinks he can play the game the way former Sonic Reggie Evans plays. He has the potential in his game to be the next Paul Millsap or Jason Maxiell.
Former Sonics coach Westphal said Brockman reminds him of another ex-Sonic.
"Paul Silas was a bit of an undersized guy who got rebounds any time he played," Westphal said. "Paul didn't make it in this league by scoring. He was where he was supposed to be, and he got his rebounds. I think Jon has a lot of that."
Are there minutes for Brockman this season?
"I think the best thing about Jon is you always know what to expect from him," Westphal said. "He's going to be where he's supposed to be at both ends of the floor. You can count on penciling him in for more than his share of boards."
Brockman never will dazzle the league with his aerial game, but he can win over fans with his 24/7 aggression.
"I'm not a SportsCenter-highlight-type player," he said, "but I can dunk. I can do all that kind of stuff, too. I've got a couple trick dunks I can do. But that's not what I'm going to get paid to do."
Yeah, Brockman, who always played the game as if his livelihood were on the line, now will get paid to play.
"Sometimes I'll wake up and lie in bed and think about what I have to do today. I have to play ball. I have to lift weights," Brockman said. "Then all of a sudden it will hit me: That's my job now. It's like the court is now my office. This is what I've always wanted to do. This is my dream job, and to know that I'm doing it now is a cool feeling."
The coolness of Jon Brockman getting drafted into the NBA is all Spencer Hawes wanted that flight attendant to understand.
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