Kemp Becomes Loaded Question

“I think he’s grown.”

--Portland’s Scottie Pippen,

on new teammate Shawn Kemp

*

Man-Child?

Are you in there somewhere?

Man-Child, that’s what they called Shawn Kemp when he broke in at 19 as a long, lean, running-and-jumping machine, but that seems like another time in another galaxy, far, far away.

Ten years and two teams later, Kemp doesn’t seem to have grown as much as expanded, or multiplied into twins. That’s 285 pounds worth of new Portland Trail Blazer out there, which is actually an improvement. He was at 300 in September and heaven knows what last season in Cleveland where they wondered how they would ever get rid of his big, uh, body and bigger contract.

Even for a general manager as daring as Bob Whitsitt, aka Trader Bob, and an owner as rich as Paul Allen, who’s No. 2 on the Fortune 400 to Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, guaranteeing $70 million to this . . . Man-Blimp . . . is a gamble.

Not that they’d put it that way, or appreciate being asked if their new $70-million investment can play the game at this weight.

“You been watching?” asks Whitsitt at halftime of the Trail Blazers’ exhibition opener. “Yeah.

“I mean, did you watch him last year? He can definitely play. Obviously, he’s a different style player today. He’s bigger, powerful. We see him as a two-position guy. Biggest thing he’s got is the experience. He knows how to play . . . There’s no question he can still play.”

It’s true, there’s no question he can play, just whether he can go back to what he was when they gave him that contract, or if not, will he play those two positions at the same time?

It wasn’t so long ago that Kemp was one of the NBA’s most exciting players and hungriest competitors. His scoring average improved every year for his first seven, until he was at 19.6 points and 11.4 rebounds a game, shooting 56% and the SuperSonics were in the NBA finals.

That was in 1996, after which he went into a huge funk, forced a trade to Cleveland and disappeared into the nether reaches of the Eastern Conference for three seasons to reemerge as . . . what?

Now he’s like a more athletic version of Wes Unseld. Kemp may well be the quickest 285-pounder who ever played, but this isn’t the NFL and no one needs a defensive tackle.

Where once he flew to the rim and dunked ferociously, he now barges in, finger rolls the ball up to try to keep it from being blocked and draws fouls. He averaged 8.5 free throws last season, behind only Shaquille O’Neal, Karl Malone and Jerry Stackhouse, but the bottom line was 18 points and nine rebounds a game for the Cavaliers who went 32-50 and finished 12th in the East.

Behind the scenes, Portland insiders say that the Trail Blazers are actually hard at work trying to reclaim the old Shawn, or at least a reasonable, 260-pound facsimile.

After all, who knew the old Shawn better than they do? As Seattle general manager, Whitsitt drafted Kemp and assistant coach Tim Grgurich, who was so instrumental in Kemp’s development in Seattle, is back in charge of him here.

Meanwhile, they’re being . . . uh . . . supportive.

“I just want guys to be in shape, ready to play by the opener,” Whitsitt says. “This isn’t a boxing match. I don’t try to figure out what guys weigh. I look for, how they get up and down the floor. . . .

“Everybody’s different, but I expect Shawn to play the whole season. I expect him to be ready in the playoffs. Just like I do all the guys.”

Of course, all the guys don’t have contracts paying $11.3, $12.4, $21.5 and $25 million the next four seasons. Not even on the Trail Blazers.

Be Careful What You Wish for . . .

“You’ve got to go through times in your life when you’re not going to make the greatest decisions. But the thing is, I always say, you grade a person on what they’ve become AFTER they’ve made some mistakes. Because it’s so easy to make mistakes when you’re young.”

--Kemp, in his first Trail Blazer exhibition season

He wasn’t just young for an NBA player when he arrived, he was young for any 19-year-old. He came from small-town Concord, Ind., and entered the NBA draft without playing at the college level. He wasn’t a thug. He was nice, if very shy, but he had a penchant for the embarrassing involvement. He left the University of Kentucky amid stories about his SAT test and a missing necklace.

Nor was he adroit or lucky in choosing advisors. In the NBA, he kept signing long-term extensions that kept him relatively underpaid. In Sports Illustrated’s landmark story about athletes fathering children out of wedlock, Gerald Phillips, the lawyer who defended Kemp in a paternity suit, confirmed the unmarried Kemp had seven children.

Kemp yearned for the big contract that would make everything right and validate his rise. It all came to head after the SuperSonics lost to the Bulls in the 1996 finals, when they signed center Jim McIlvaine to a $5 million-a-year contract, or $1.3 million more than Kemp made.

He held out, noting he was the sixth-highest paid SuperSonic, despite the fact he was under contract and couldn’t renegotiate more than once every two years.

His behavior grew even more erratic, fueling the local cottage industry of trying to figure out what was going on in Shawn’s head. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer went so far as to report he was out until 2 a.m. before a game, publishing a bar bill showing his party of four consumed seven drinks.

The erratic behavior continued. In the last two months of the season, Kemp was late or absent five times. Management finally obliged him to hold a press conference, where he said he had “personal problems.”

Sports Illustrated later quoted a SuperSonic source, who said Kemp’s paternity problems had been piling up on him, along with a $2 million loan from the team.

At mid-season, his scoring average was up for the eighth season, over 20 points for the first time. His post-All-Star Game averaged, however, tumbled to 15. To no one’s surprise, the defending Western Conference champions were eliminated in the second round of the playoffs.

Kemp demanded a trade and got his wish, a three-team deal that brought Milwaukee’s Vin Baker to Seattle and sent Shawn to the Cavaliers, who signed him to a seven-year $100-million contract.

Unlike the last two seasons, Kemp’s first in Cleveland wasn’t a disaster. His numbers sagged a bit to 18 points and 9.3 rebounds, but he was now in Coach Mike Fratello’s deliberate offense. The Cavaliers, who’d gone 42-40 the season before and missed the playoffs, went 47-35 and got in, briefly.

Then came the disasters.

After the 1998 lockout, Kemp showed up heavy, for the first time. Center Zydrunas Ilgauskas got hurt, left after five games--and didn’t return the next season, either.

Fratello, who’d made sure he was on good terms with Kemp whom he saw as his salvation, was fired in the spring of 1999 after a 22-28 finish.

A new general manager, Jim Paxson, came in too. Paxson told friends Kemp was so upset, he wouldn’t even return his calls.

The Cavaliers went 32-50, finally dropping the charade that they didn’t think it was Kemp’s fault when mild-mannered owner Gordon Gund went public with his disappointment.

“Man,” says Kemp, “it teaches you the other side, about losing. I won so many years in Seattle and then to go to Cleveland. . . .

“I had a pretty nice year the first year I got there and then the last two years, we just weren’t able to make it to the playoffs. And that’s not an easy thing to deal with after you’ve won for seven, eight years or nine years in a row, making it to the playoffs.”

He often played center with Ilgauskas gone and decided he needed the extra weight to bang with the Alonzo Mournings and Patrick Ewings.

Having rationalized his new girth, he swelled up to what looked like well over the 300 mark. Neither the new Cavalier coach, Randy Wittman, nor the general manager, Paxson, made it an issue but Gund’s declaration made it plain: the Cavaliers would trade Kemp, asking only that they got out from under his contract.

Kemp says it was even surprising to him that they found a taker, when the Trail Blazers, faced with the loss of free agent Brian Grant, worked out a three-way deal with the Cavaliers and Heat and acquired Kemp.

The Heat got Grant. The Cavaliers got reserves Chris Gatling and Clarence Weatherspoon, plus Gary Grant, who was quickly waived, and a No. 1 pick. But they aren’t complaining.

Back Home Again More or Less . . .

“People look at Shawn and think he’s still the guy that can fly, run and jump and do the things that he did eight years ago, but he’s definitely a totally different player now. We’ve all seen him evolve and he’s still one of the top forwards in the game.”

--Pippen

The question is whether Kemp is still one of the top 10, as he once was, or if it’s more like the top 20.

It’s not an easy time for Kemp, who finds himself back in the spotlight with all this embarrassing bulk that he didn’t have the last time he faced such national-media expectations.

He’s a big story, not that he wants to be. As the Trail Blazers prepared for their exhibition season, the public relations department told newspaper reporters that no one-on-one interviews were possible, since there were so many people who wanted to talk to Kemp. ESPN got the same treatment; it had a crew in town for two days, and got nothing.

The night before the exhibitions start, the Blazers hold an open scrimmage at the Rose Garden. Kemp wears a T-shirt under his jersey (OK in college but against NBA rules) and is warmly greeted by a crowd comprised mostly of kids.

The next night, he gets 17 points, five rebounds and five fouls in 23 minutes against the Clippers. It’s not the way it was, he concedes, but he’s back, sort of.

“I was hungry back then [in Seattle] and I think you’ll see the same hunger this year,” he says. “ . . . That’s one of the reasons I wanted to put myself in a better situation because I know that people respect you if you do well and you have a good season. Because if you don’t have a good season and you do have the salary, you know you’re going to get the criticism for it and I accept that. I’ve accepted it for the last couple years. It’s just time to turn it around. . . .

“I heard people [criticize] Michael Jordan. I’m not a fool, people are always going to say you’re not this or you’re not that. I remember hearing people say, ‘Oh, Michael Jordan, he’s getting older, da, da.’ He still kept winning.

“I remember when I was a rookie, there was an article in USA Today that said, ‘Larry Bird, he’s lost a step.’ That night I went out to guard him, he scored, like, 47 on me. [Laughing] Like, I wanted to kill USA Today.’

“Trust me, the game has become a lot easier to me and I understand the game a lot more now than what I did when I was younger. When I was younger, I was a guy who always wanted to get to the rim and attack the rim and just dunk the basketball. If I would have had the patience that I have now as a player three-four-five years ago, it would have been a lot different.”

Of course, if he had that greyhound body back, everyone might be in trouble, or if he even had a reasonable 260-pound facsimile.

Stick around. It’s late, but it may not be too late.