Aborted Trade Is Not Forgotten, but Kemp Becomes a Rich Sonic

Do you really think $46 million can buy happiness? Do you really think it can make a person feel secure?

Do you really think it can salve old wounds?

We’ll see, won’t we? We’ll see as the rest of Shawn Kemp’s basketball career unfolds.

Given a one-year contract extension worth $20 million that pushes the value of his total contract to more than $46 million, Kemp reported to the Seattle SuperSonics camp last Monday, three days late.

Better late than never, they say.

Was the re-writing of his contract done to bring it in line with what power forwards in the NBA are being paid or was this a way to try and take the hurt out of his bruised ego from the draft day trade that wasn’t made: Kemp for the Chicago Bulls Scottie Pippen?

It was no doubt meant to serve both purposes.

But do you really think Kemp is going to get over the trade that wasn’t consummated anytime soon?

Put yourself in his shoes.

You’re a star in the NBA. The guy on your team. Loved by the hometown fans. Respected by your NBA peers. A fixture on the Sonics. Or so you thought.

Then one day you wake up and hear that they’re trying to trade you.

“They want to get rid of me? A great player like me? What’d I do to deserve this? Don’t they love me anymore?”

If Shawn Kemp were 34 years old and on the decline, he might be better able to accept a trade. But Kemp is 24 and not even in the prime of his career.

You bruise more easily when you’re young than when you’re old and near the end of your career.

When you’re young, you are the greatest. You are indispensable.

Trade me? Perish the thought. I’m the straw that stirs the drink.

Trade me and the fans would revolt.

Trade me and the franchise would fold.

Trade me and . . . what’s that? They want to trade me? For Scottie Pippen? That no-account deadbeat who refused to come off the bench in the final seconds of a crucial playoff game last season?

What’s that say about me?

Haven’t I done everything they asked? Haven’t I played hard? Haven’t I played well? Haven’t I been an All-Star? Haven’t I behaved off the court? Haven’t I signed autographs? Haven’t I made those critics choke who criticized the Sonics for drafting a 19-year-old kid who hadn’t played college ball?

And this is how they thank me?

It’s not like failing to make the cut for the eighth-grade team. No, it’s several million times worse than that.

When you’re cut as an eighth-grader, only your family and friends are aware of it.

When they want to ship you from one city to another in the NBA, everybody knows about it.

It’s enough to make a guy want to slip into seclusion.

You’d want to rip your phone out of the wall and go hide under the covers.

To try and keep his mind off the reported trade, Kemp stayed busy. Yeah, that might do it. Until you were alone late at night.

Then it would have to gnaw at you.

Kemp might say all of that is behind him. Forgotten. A dead issue.

Baloney.

It’s there and it’ll be there for a long time. It doesn’t matter how much new money is written into his contract or how much Sonic management says they love him or how much they claim he means to the team.

Shawn Kemp will remember.

Will he ever forgive the Sonics for even thinking about wanting to trade him? If you were he, would you?

Not that it’s solace, but Kemp ought to remember one thing. He isn’t the first star ever involved in trade rumors, or to be traded.

I’m almost sure he’s heard of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. And Wilt Chamberlain.

And how about Babe Ruth? The Yankees got him from Boston for $125,000 and a $300,000 loan to Red Sox Owner Harry Frazee.

At least the Sonics were demanding a warm body for Kemp, not cold, impersonal cash.

In the end, Kemp will get the cash. But will he get to stay in Seattle. And even if he does, will he ever feel secure? Or every time he sees Coach George Karl and President Wally Walker disappear into a room and close the door, will he wonder: Are they talking about me?

Forty-six million dollars will buy you a lot of Mercedes.

But it won’t buy you peace of mind.