After the Reign

He has trashed better teams than this one.

From his new perch as the Cleveland Cavaliers’ franchise player, Shawn Kemp looks over a different roster. Instead of Gary Payton at the point, there’s a rookie smurf from Stanford. Instead of Detlef Schrempf at the other forward, there’s another rookie. The center is Zydrunas something-or-other from Lithuania. He’s a rookie too.

Let’s look at the bright side. If Kemp didn’t like that “Man-Child” stuff from his Seattle days, he doesn’t have to worry about it here. On this team, he can be “Gramps.”

And then, there’s always his new $100-million contract.

Kemp went through a lot for that $100 million. For the record, he insists--who hasn’t?--he didn’t make the SuperSonics trade him just so he could get the money, although he suggests he didn’t entirely discount it as a factor in his decision-making process.

“Did I not do it for the money?” Kemp asked a couple of days ago. “I’m happy. Put it that way.”

Of course, he was already a popular $3-million-a-year player in Seattle, on a team that had been an NBA finalist. It’s not surprising if some people think his bailout was willful and selfish. Maybe it was, but it was a long story.

Happily for Kemp, the story is almost over, except for a few retellings, leading up to his return to Seattle (Jan. 17, bring ear plugs). He’s a Cavalier now, and it’s working out better than seemed likely, or possible.

The Cavaliers--11-6, winners of seven in a row, five of those on the road--roll into town today to play the Lakers. Kemp’s numbers are in the usual range--18.4 points, 9.6 rebounds--which is good for someone whose teammates aren’t in a position to carry him, who just went from one of the NBA’s fastest-paced teams to one of its slowest.

“He’s done well,” Coach Mike Fratello says. “Obviously, when you’re with one program for eight years and surrounded by such a key group of guys like Gary Payton and Detlef and Sam [Perkins] and [Nate] McMillan and Hersey [Hawkins] and those people, you fall into your niche, you understand where you’re needed and how they use you. . . .

“It’s not the easiest assignment for someone who’s been to the NBA finals, been an all-star, what, five times? Highly competitive people have a tendency to get frustrated. Payton or Detlef would get him the ball at the right time, whatever. Now you’ve got somebody else who’s trying to learn how to travel on the road in the NBA for the first time, let alone make the right pass against Ron Harper.”

Somehow, the pass is still being made most of the time, even with four rookies--Brevin Knight, Derek Anderson, Cedric Henderson, Zydrunas Ilgauskas--getting starts. The guards may shoot like rookies (Knight and Anderson are at 42% and 36%) but they’re trending upward. The 7-foot-3 Ilgauskas is clearly a prospect, as is his backup, 6-10, 280-pound, Ukrainian-born Vitaly Potapenko.

It’s not the SuperSonics, but it’s not bad. Kemp, a volunteer in this kiddie corps, had better be grateful for small favors.

WHO’LL STOP THE REIGN, MAN?

Several people played significant roles in blowing up Kemp’s legend in Seattle. One was Kemp, but you might have to allow for a mistake or two for someone called Man-Child, who was thrust into this at age 19.

Despite fabulous gifts and a good work ethic, it was never easy for Kemp. An Indiana native, he spurned Bobby Knight’s program, after which Indiana players said he asked about money and Kemp’s high school principal threw Knight out of their gym for haranguing Shawn’s coach. At Kentucky, there was an embarrassment about a necklace.

It always seemed to be something. In interviews, Kemp denies it was difficult, but in more relaxed settings, the old slights come up.

“He doesn’t let go of stuff,” says a friend. “He didn’t get Mr. Basketball [as an Indiana prep]. He still talks about it.”

OK, so he’d need some stroking and, given his habit of being late, a lot of looking out for.

For a long time, they managed. Kemp’s scoring and rebounding averages improved annually. The SuperSonics rose, putting back-to-back first-round ousters behind them to reach the 1996 finals where Kemp averaged 23 points and was said to have arrived, matured, etc.

Well, as subsequent events suggested, maybe not.

Unsure of how he was coming off--he particularly disliked TV interviews--Kemp always had a nervous relationship with reporters. Thus, little incidents became controversies and little controversies became big ones. But even for him, his last season in Seattle was tumultuous.

He held out, despite the rule barring the SuperSonics from giving him a cent, since he had renegotiated the season before. He was upset at making less than newly signed Jim McIlvaine. Insiders say Kemp was further distressed by Payton’s new $70-million deal, worried it meant this was now Gary’s organization.

Nevertheless, Kemp returned and played well. At midseason, his scoring and rebounding averages were on track for their seventh annual improvement.

The SuperSonics, however, missed the veterans they axed to sign McIlvaine, who was plainly a bad fit, and found themselves getting hammered regularly by the Jazz, Rockets and Lakers.

Kemp went into a funk . . . and carried it through to the summer.

Coach George Karl took him out of the starting lineup five times for tardiness or missing practices. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported Kemp was seen drinking heavily the night before a home loss to the Bulls, although a follow-up showed only seven drinks served to a party of four. The New York Post’s Peter Vecsey reported Kemp admitted a drinking problem to teammates. The other 11 SuperSonics signed an affidavit, asserting he had not. Kemp told confidantes someone in the organization had leaked the story and simmered anew.

His play deteriorated. Seattle was eliminated in the second round. He demanded to be traded.

If there was a chance the SuperSonics could chill him out by letting him know they’d redo his deal after one more season when they’d have cap room, they let it go by. General Manager Wally Walker, who abides strictly by rules others bend, or dynamite, refused to signal anything.

If they wondered if Kemp was serious, they found out at Payton’s wedding, where the SuperSonic brass was hoping to see if Shawn would mellow in a social setting. Two days beforehand, Kemp, who was to be a groomsman, phoned in his regrets.

Next thing you knew, it was a new season and he was in Cleveland.

GREAT BIG CLEVELAND WELCOME

“The problems that may have been rumored around were between Shawn and Seattle. As he said in the press conference, those days, he had left behind him. . . .

--Mike Fratello

What goes around comes around. Here comes Kemp.

It isn’t every day a 28-year-old star with eight years’ experience demands to be traded to Cleveland, but that was how it worked out for the Cavaliers.

It wasn’t luck. The Cavaliers had watched their Mark Price-Brad Daugherty nucleus succumb to injuries, bitten their bullets and saved their cap room until they had the most, making them the only established team that could satisfy Kemp’s salary demands--and a necessary part of any deal. So Terrell Brandon and Tyrone Hill went to Milwaukee, Vin Baker to Seattle and Kemp came east. For the Cavaliers, who already had lost starters Chris Mills and Bobby Phills to free agency, it was a high price but an easy call.

One day they were nobody. Last summer, they offered Rick Fox a three-year $12-million contract, but he turned it down for $1 million from the Lakers. General Manager Wayne Embry, his roster depleted and his phone calls going unreturned, complained privately he couldn’t find anyone to take his money.

The next day, they had Kemp and a shot at a future.

“Our goal,” Fratello says, “is to put the pieces together around the nucleus that we have here so when the guys that are there right now--the healthy Chicago team, the Miami team, the New York team, the Charlotte team, the Atlanta team--when all those teams are moving on, can we be in the position to be one of the next group to come up and step in?”

The Cavaliers now have a star, some promising youngsters and will be an additional $2 million to $3 million under the cap next summer. Kemp won’t be back in the finals soon, but he could get back.

Not that he’s conceding he would have been there sooner as a SuperSonic.

“We traded all that away,” he says of his former team. “When we got to the championship and we made so many changes to let people go, we gave that up. So I didn’t feel like we were competing at that championship level. . . .

“I don’t know about being young. We weren’t a young team, at all.”

Kemp must feel much older by now, but he’s handling it well enough. He sits manfully for questions, something the Cavaliers expect of a $100-million man. He doesn’t bristle at the suggestion the world thinks he did it for the money.

“I mean, people don’t worry about the contracts,” Kemp says in his machine-gun patter. “They just worry about your performance on the court and see what you’re doing. We’ve won 10 games [currently 11], man! In Cleveland! And we’re happy about it. . . .

“I don’t worry about that [public opinion]. I worry about going out here and winning games. You know, I’m not going to be on a losing team. That’s just not going to happen. People, when they sent me to Cleveland, what they expected was for Shawn to go to Cleveland and us to lose, you know what I’m saying?

“It’s not going to happen. . . . And what happens is, you make that decision and it disappoints people that you don’t lose. It really does. Because they expected you to lose. So if you win, they start to look for other reasons. They want to talk about your money, they want to talk about a lot of different things.”

It isn’t the last laugh, but it’s one of his first laughs in a while as Kemp starts over, Man-Child in another land.

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Then and Now

How Shawn Kemp’s per-game statistics with Seattle compare to his with Cleveland through 26 games (Kemp has played in 16):

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CATEGORY Seattle Cleve. Points 18.7 18.4 FG% 52 46 FT% 73 69 3-PT% 28 33 Rebounds 9.6 9.6 Assists 1.8 1.6 Blocks 1.5 1.5 Steals 1.2 1.4

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