Brandon Graham looks at Detroit, and he doesn't see a once-prosperous metropolis that decayed. He sees a city on the rise, one that has been "bad-mouthed so long" but offers more promise than perception would suggest.
"People come in and say, 'I didn't know it was like that,' " Graham said. "We're in a rebuild right now. And I want to be a part of that."
Sound familiar?
Graham - once labeled a draft bust and an underachiever who has been on the trade block and been a lame duck - returns to his hometown of Detroit on Sunday playing at perhaps the highest level of his seven-year career.