Hornets’ Phills Is Killed in Crash

Charlotte Hornet guard Bobby Phills was killed Wednesday when he crashed into a car while speeding after practice, police said. He was 30.

Phills and teammate David Wesley were racing each other in their Porsches when Phills lost control and was killed in a wreck, investigators said late Wednesday.

Preliminary estimates show Phills and Wesley were driving at speeds of more than 75 mph when Phills lost control of his car just before 11 a.m. Wednesday, police Sgt. Ricky Robbins, a supervisor in the traffic unit conducting the investigation, told the Charlotte Observer.

The speed limit in the area where Phills wrecked is 45 mph.

Robbins said the players were in a spur-of-the-moment race. Racing on public thoroughfares is prohibited by state law, and the district attorney’s office will determine what charges, if any, should be filed, he said.

Stunned and tearful teammates and Hornet officials gathered at the accident scene less than a mile from the Charlotte Coliseum, where minutes earlier Phills and the other players had been practicing for Wednesday night’s game with the Chicago Bulls. The game was postponed.

Phills was traveling at a “very high rate of speed” when he collided with a car headed toward the arena, police spokesman Keith Bridges said. A minivan rear-ended the other car. Two people in those vehicles were hospitalized.

Phills’ car, with the vanity plate “SLAMN,” left skid marks several hundred feet long and came to rest in one of the opposite lanes, Bridges said. Firefighters had to cut his body from the wreckage.

Listed in stable condition at Presbyterian Hospital were Robert Woolard Jr., 31, of Cornelius, N.C., the driver of the other car; and Yao Agbegbon, 33, of Charlotte, who was driving a minivan taxi, Bridges said.

“This is the ultimate tragedy, and our immediate thoughts and prayers are with his wife, Kendall, children and family,” Hornet owner George Shinn said in a statement. “Not only was Bobby a tremendous person, but a great husband, father and role model that everyone respected and admired. He was someone that you would want your children to be like.”

Phills, a 6-foot-5 defensive stopper and a team leader, started often at shooting guard or small forward for the Hornets.

He joined the Hornets in 1997 after six years with Cleveland and was in the third year of a seven-year, $33-million contract. Phills had averaged 13.6 points in 28 games this season.

Cavalier President Wayne Embry gave Phills his start in the NBA by signing the guard to a 10-day contract.

“Bobby Phills was all that you would want in a human being,” Embry said. “He had extreme high character. A family man. I can’t tell you what he meant to the Cavs. If there’s a person you would want to your children to be, a role model, it’s Bobby Phills.”

Active in the community, Phills volunteered for children’s charities and related organizations. In 1998, he was one of four finalists for the NBA’s sportsmanship award and started the “Bobby Phills Educational Foundation.”

NBA Commissioner David Stern said Phills was “a caring member of the community.”

“Bobby Phills represented the very best of the NBA,” he said.

Phills earned a bachelor’s degree in animal science from Southern University in New Orleans. Ben Jobe, Phills’ former coach at Southern, said Wednesday he tried to steer Phills away from the NBA.

“He could have been one of the foremost black leaders in the country,” Jobe said. “He had the brain power, he had the great family background. He had everything. For years, I tried to get him to go on to med school like he talked about when he was a kid.”

Clay Moser, an assistant coach when Phills played for the CBA’s Sioux Falls Skyforce, said Phills had wanted to be a veterinarian.

“He was a very in-depth person and just a treasure to be around,” he said.

Phills is survived by his wife and two children--Bobby Ray III, 3, and Kerstie, 1.