A LOOK AT THE 1992-93 NBA SEASON : He Makes the Leap : Years After Forgoing College Basketball to Go to the Pros, Shawn Kemp Is on the Verge of Becoming One of the NBA’s Elite

Umbrellas were everywhere. Slender ones, small ones, thick ones, tall ones, tattered ones, tanned ones, Husky blue ones and black ones. Umbrellas for the fashionable. Umbrellas for the practical. Everyone was having a brolly good time.

Everyone, it seemed, except Shawn Kemp.

Kemp did not need a parasol this drenched autumn afternoon. The empty and hollow arena where he spends many an off-day provided ample shelter for what he had in mind.

Inside, Kemp was playing basketball like a shadow boxer, putting himself in imaginary situations against the game’s giants.

Game 7. NBA finals. Seattle SuperSonics against the Chicago Bulls. Kemp vs. Jordan. Five seconds left. Kemp takes the inbounds pass, fakes two defenders and drives . . .

It is, perhaps, a timeless endeavor; the childlike innocence of playing the hero against impossible odds. Yet for Kemp, who will turn 23 this month, there exists a reality in all this make-believe.

Many in the NBA say the tableau has been set. Shawn Kemp, SuperSonic forward, is on the verge of SuperStardom.

“I think we all see it on the court, it’s there,”

said his coach, George Karl.

As Kemp enters his fourth professional season, he no longer is considered an anomaly--the teen-ager who pole vaulted college basketball en route to an NBA career. He no longer is merely another roadside attraction, taking his place alongside Joe Graboski, Bill Willoughby, Moses Malone and Darryl Dawkins, others who played in the NBA without going to college.

Last season’s sparkling postseason put all that to rest.

So much so that it is easy to forget Kemp was part of a 1988 high school class that included Don MacLean, Chris Mills, Alonzo Mourning, Anthony Peeler and Stanley Roberts. MacLean, Mourning and Peeler are entering their rookie seasons, Mills is a college senior and Roberts is in his second year.

“At times, it seems like I went from the age of 17 to 25,” Kemp said.

A past littered with controversy underscores that observation. Simply by being a highly touted recruit, Kemp was entangled in one of college basketball’s biggest scandals at the University of Kentucky four years ago.

Controversy, said his Elkhart, Ind., high school coach, Jim Hahn, followed Kemp off the court for no other reason than the fact he was such a talent. Perhaps that is why it was easier to break his mother’s heart and forgo a college scholarship for a professional contract in 1989.

Looking back is more difficult than looking ahead. So, Kemp concentrates on the basket in front of him as he suddenly stops, twists and shoots. He scores. Is that the roar of a crowd, or just the sweet chorus of another rainy day in Seattle?

Said Mills, a University of Arizona forward who befriended Kemp in eighth grade at a junior national tournament: “He scowls, looks tough and plays a mean, strong game. He will slam it down your throat, but off the court he’s just another 22-year-old kid.”

Yes, the kid inside has not been lost.

LOST IN LEXINGTON

At Concord High, an upper middle class school in the industrial northern Indiana community of Elkhart, Kemp’s reputation grew as he went from a willowy 6-foot-6 freshman to a formidable 6-10 senior.

In another community he might have been shielded from some of the adulation, but not in Indiana, where high school basketball is a statewide institution. Kemp helped lead Concord to a state championship in 1988 and brought college recruiters from across the country to the South Bend suburb.

Accompanying the recruiters was hearsay.

“They said he was lazy, he was a poor student, that he was illiterate,” Hahn, his high school coach, said. “It was far from being true.”

Still, appearances were everything. Kemp was an academic non-qualifier and ineligible as a Kentucky freshman because he failed to score a minimum of 700 on a Scholastic Aptitude Test three times.

“The only person who held me back was myself,” Kemp once said of his academic failures.

There were distractions. Kemp was caught in a tug-of-war between bitter rivals Kentucky and Indiana, eventually choosing Eddie Sutton’s program over Bobby Knight’s.

While deciding, Kemp was stung with his first recruiting controversy when Rick Calloway, a former Indiana player, told a newspaper that Kemp was looking for a handout when he visited Indiana. Nothing came of the allegation, but Kemp was forced to defend himself. He denied the charge.

Deflecting the allegations at Kentucky was more difficult. Kemp’s mother, Barbara Brown, was investigated by NCAA officials because she visited Kentucky’s campus before her son made his decision. It was later determined that she paid her own transportation and expenses.

Looking back, selecting Kentucky was not the best choice. But Kemp wanted to play with Mills, who also went to Lexington. When Mills, a Fairfax High forward, became the center of an explosive recruiting scandal, all of the Wildcat players were placed under the microscope. Kemp was not named in any of the NCAA violations that led to Kentucky’s probation, but he was nonetheless implicated.

Still, Kemp might have escaped unscathed except for an incident in November of 1988 in which he pawned two gold chains that were stolen from Sean Sutton, a Kentucky player and son of the coach. Sutton did not press charges, and Kemp was never charged with a crime. Again, the perception that he did something wrong lingered, and he has never publicly explained what happened.

“I’m not a thief,” he has said.

Thief or not, the situation left a bad impression. Kemp left Kentucky for Trinity Valley Community College in Athens, Tex., where he never played. He declared himself eligible for the NBA draft by spring and later signed a six-year contract with the SuperSonics worth about $4 million.

“I didn’t blame the school or hold the school responsible for anything,” Kemp said of his experience at Kentucky.

With a bit of distance, Kemp can easily hide the disappointment. But it was a turbulent time for a sensitive youngster. He wanted to stay in school and earn his degree.

“I definitely feel I missed out as far as growing up and experiencing the relationships with friends,” he said.

Still, no regrets.

“He learned a lot at Kentucky,” said Hahn, who remains close to Kemp. “It opened up his eyes. You have to pick and choose people you can trust. He was too trusting of some at Kentucky.”

Kemp, considered one of the league’s hardest working players, said his ultimate goal was to play in the NBA anyway. Circumstances merely helped it along faster than expected.

Hahn said Kemp contemplated the move during his senior year, but the adults in his life advised against it.

“My thinking was, you can’t do it,” Hahn said. “It’s not the normal route. But Shawn was not the normal high school player.”

Because of his age, Kemp needed his mother’s approval before making the jump when he finally decided to go. Brown, a hospital worker in Elkhart, and single mother of two, had to be sold on the idea.

She was not easily impressed with all Kemp’s honors and accolades from basketball. Her idea of an MVP is someone on the dean’s list.

“She’s always told me, ‘You can’t play forever,’ ” he said.

Brown let her son go pro only if he agreed to continue his education. Kemp said it is something he wants for himself, as well, and studies social work at Indiana University at South Bend in the off-season.

He said he hopes to return to Elkhart after he retires to work with youngsters in the inner city. He visits the community at least once a year to help Hahn with a summer basketball camp and has donated money for a downtown basketball facility.

FOUND IN SEATTLE

George Karl was conducting a SuperSonic practice at Seattle Pacific University in frenzied fashion. Karl, who left Spain to take over the team last year, likes his players running at 78 r.p.m. If a team reflects a coach’s personality, than the “Supes” play the game as if they were visiting a video arcade.

This can only help Kemp, whose forte is indomitable, uninhibited play. With unbounded energy, Kemp runs the floor fluidly for a big man. He dribbles and passes, and makes his own offense with strong rebounding. But he is remembered mostly for his thundering dunks.

“I’m watching on film and I don’t know how to stop the guy,” said Karl, who does not have to worry about it.

Karl’s task is to keep his star on an even keel and in a comfortable environment. When he joined the team last year, Karl said he found a undisciplined group. He set some simple rules. Kemp broke one by missing an airplane. Kemp never started again until the playoffs.

Kemp got the message, and Karl understands the need for patience as his forward responded brilliantly after the All-Star break.

“If he plays poorly, I think we can still win,” Karl said of the SuperSonics’ mix of youngsters and veterans.

As his improvement continues, Kemp realizes that opponents will be targeting him more and more. Such was the case two weeks ago in an exhibition game against the Denver Nuggets, when he got into a fight with Scott Hastings. He was fined $8,000, Hastings $2,500.

The next day in practice, his shooting hand wrapped in an ice pack, Kemp had a sheepish look when asked about the incident. He knew it was the kind of play that can only hold him back.

Later, upon reflection, he considered it one of the many lessons he has learned during his NBA education. And one more lesson: He still has lots to learn.

So the off-days are spent alone in the gym perfecting his game. Kemp has more stops and starts than the Paris metro as he plays out imaginary scenes. Alone in this world, the child resurfaces. Thoughts of superstardom can wait.

As his best friend on the team, point guard Dana Barros, said: “This is Kid City.”