Mike Brown fine with Metta World Peace appearing on Conan O’Brien

The text message popped into Mike Brown’s phone, leaving him laughing at the absurdity of it all.

One of his son’s friends alerted the Lakers coach about his favorite player’s whereabouts on the late-night talk-show circuit.

“Metta’s on Conan!,” Brown said, recalling the text message. “He was hilarious.”

Brown had to take his son’s friend on his word — he didn’t bother watching World Peace’s appearance Monday night on the Conan O’Brien’s TBS show. Brown was too busy attending a school event where Santa Ana Mater Dei’s girls and boys basketball teams were honored for winning state championships.

“That was basically the extent of what I found out about Metta,” Brown said.

There, World Peace agreed a suspension was warranted for elbowing Oklahoma City guard James Harden, but believed a seven-game suspension was too severe. World Peace blamed his excessive foul on his emotional high for a dunk. He suggested Harden has a reputation for flopping. World Peace admitted he’s still refused to apologize to Harden directly, claiming he wants to maintain a competitive edge presuming the Lakers meet the Thunder in the Western Conference semifinals. And he took offense to the general public believing the incident sours the recent goodwill he built in raising money for mental health charities.

Brown hardly sounded concerned with any of those statements. World Peace had mentioned these issues already with reporters shortly after his suspension, his own podcast and on various tweets.

“They’re all grown men,” Brown said. “If they make a mistake, they’ll have to deal with it and we’ll support him as best as we can. But I don’t expect or try to control anybody in that situation.”

Beyond Brown remaining more concerned with the Lakers closing out their first-round series against Denver on Tuesday at Staples Center, he’s more focused on World Peace’s on-court activity. Brown said “He’s working his tail off,” which has included arriving early and staying late at both practices and morning shootarounds. He’s also gone through shooting exercises at Staples Center and Pepsi Center, though he’s required to leave the respective arena two hours before tipoff.

Via Twitter, World Peace revealed he has slimmed down considerably since the season started. The 6-foot-7 World Peace weighed 268 pounds early in training camp on Dec. 11 before losing 22 pounds by April 30. Meanwhile, his body fat percentage dropped from 35.7% to 21.4% over the same period.

“We love him,” Brown said. “But I can’t worry about him too much right now.”

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