Michael Jordan and Doug Collins, the two most imposing figures in Kwame Brown's professional basketball career, are gone.

"It's a sigh of relief," said Brown, the player Jordan and Collins, then president of basketball operations and coach of the Washington Wizards, respectively, drafted out of high school with the No. 1 overall pick in 2001. "Everyone can breathe easy, well, not so much breathe easy, but everything that happened last year is over. There are no grudges. You get to prove yourself all over again to new coaches and a new staff.

"A lot of us are looking forward to it."

Eddie Jordan is now Brown's coach. Ernie Grunfeld is the team's president of basketball operations and will work from his office, not from the starting shooting guard spot.

"It's refreshing in a lot of ways," Brown said.

As summer league play starts up, it is unclear if the 6-foot-11 Brown will participate. When he does return to the court, he will be playing in his first professional game without Michael Jordan pushing, consoling, comforting or humiliating him, or Collins loving him, hating him, chastising him, playing him and then benching him.