Shawn Kemp’s Seattle SuperSonic career was bookended by boos. When the Sonics selected the 6-10 forward with their 17th pick of the 1989 Draft out of Trinity Junior College in Texas, fans at a Sonics draft party held in the Stouffer-Madison Hotel booed then-General Manager Bob Whitsitt’s gamble. Eight years later, Kemp heard the boos again in his first return to Seattle and KeyArena as a member of the Cleveland Cavaliers. In between, however, few Sonics have ever attained the popularity or success that Kemp did in eight seasons in Seattle.

As a skinny teenager who could jump out of the gym playing high school basketball in Indiana, Kemp’s potential was already obvious. Kemp chose the University of Kentucky as his collegiate destination, but would never suit up for the Wildcats. Midway through his first year in Lexington, Kemp transferred to tiny Trinity Valley Junior College in Texas. It was too late for him to play that season, so he had never stepped foot on an NCAA court when he declared for the 1989 Draft. Whitsitt and the Sonics were taking a major risk by selecting a player so young and so inexperienced. Kemp was glad to be getting a chance. “I was excited to be in the NBA,” he recalls. Whitsitt was excited too, saying at the time, “We think that, if (Kemp) went to college, he would have eventually been the number one pick in the entire draft.”

With a veteran frontcourt that included Xavier McDaniel, Michael Cage and Derrick McKey, the Sonics had the luxury of bringing Kemp along slowly. He played less than 15 minutes per game during the 1989-90 season, but flashed his potential. In the limited action, he averaged 6.5 points and 4.3 rebounds. Kemp’s improvement by the following fall was obvious, and the Sonics couldn’t keep him out of the lineup for long. In early December, McDaniel was traded to Phoenix, clearing a spot in the starting five for Kemp. He took full advantage, more than doubling his scoring average to 15.0 points per game in a season that established him as a future star.

A year later, Coach George Karl was added to the mix. Together with Kemp and Gary Payton, Karl completed the trinity that would lead the Sonics to their run of contention during the 1990s. The 1991-92 regular season was actually somewhat disappointing for Kemp. He only slightly improved his production while missing 18 games because of injuries. But then came the playoffs, and nothing for Kemp or the Sonics would ever be the same. In a four-game defeat of the Golden State Warriors, Kemp sparked Seattle with 22 points and 16.3 rebounds. The playoffs were also Kemp’s coming-out party league-wide. His dunk over Golden State center Alton Lister, widely considered the best in his Sonics career, introduced him to a national audience – with a little-known Kevin Calabro providing the soundtrack. It was during the series that Calabro first called Kemp “The Reignman”, a nickname that would stick throughout his Seattle career.

While Kemp’s playoff performance was impressive, he still had yet to demonstrate the ability to lead a team and put up All-Star numbers on a night-to-night basis. He did that during the 1992-93 season, averaging a double-double of 17.8 points and 10.7 rebounds. Kemp made the Western Conference All-Star team as well that season, but the important accomplishment was that the Sonics emerged as a power in the Western Conference, winning 55 games and advancing to the Western Conference Finals. During the series, which the Sonics lost 4-3 to Phoenix, Kemp went toe-to-toe with league MVP Charles Barkley and was not dominated. It was official by that point: Kemp was a star at the tender age of 23.

Kemp was known throughout his Sonics career for his monster dunks.

The development of player and team continued unabated during the 1993-94 season. The Sonics won a team-record 63 games and had the best regular-season record in the NBA. Kemp started the All-Star game, was named second-team All-NBA, and led the Sonics in scoring for the first time in his career. But in the playoffs, everything fell apart. The number one seeded Sonics became the first one seed in league history to lose to an eighth seed when the Denver Nuggets upset them in five games. There was plenty of blame to be handed about, with Kemp receiving much of it for missing two free throws down the stretch that might have put game four – and the Nuggets – away.

The loss to the Nuggets started a difficult year and a half for Kemp. He found himself confronted with a backlash to his rising popularity, with fans and experts questioning the maturity of both Kemp and his partner, Payton. Karl tried to engineer a trade on the night of the 1994 Draft, working a tentative deal that would have sent Kemp to Chicago for Scottie Pippen. Kemp played on Team USA for Dream Team 2’s appearance in the World Basketball Championships, but ended up criticized – as was the team as a whole – for inappropriate celebration. The same questions lingered into the 1994-95 season, when the Sonics were unable to shake the hangover of the Nuggets upset. The Sonics dropped to 57 wins and were the fourth seed in the West. For a second straight season, they were upset, falling 3-1 to the Los Angeles Lakers. The same trinity that had once been praised for saving the Sonics (Payton, Kemp, and Karl) was then largely vilified. Kemp also didn’t help himself during 1994 training camp with a brief holdout.

After two straight playoff failures, the Sonics – not the least of them Kemp – entered the 1995-96 season with a lot to prove. Kemp improved his scoring and rebounding averages for the seventh straight season to Seattle highs of 19.6 points and 11.4 rebounds per game. The Sonics set a new record for wins, laying claim to the first seed in the West with their 64 victories. Still, Kemp could not win everyone over. In the Sonics final regular-season game, a fight with Denver’s Tom Hammonds resulted in Kemp being suspended for the first game of the Sonics series with Sacramento. After Seattle won that game easily, the Seattle Times suggested in its Sunday sports section that the Sonics might be better off without Kemp. He provided more ammo for criticism when the Sonics lost game two.

By the end of the Sonics playoff run, however, no one would doubt Kemp. The Sonics won two straight in Sacramento to excise their first-round demons and advanced all the way to the NBA Finals. Though the Sonics lost the series to perhaps the greatest team ever assembled, the 72-10 Chicago Bulls, Kemp played like a true superstar. Against the physical defense of Dennis Rodman, Kemp averaged 23.3 points and 10.0 boards. It seemed at the time that at the ripe old age of 26, Kemp had finally put it all together to become one of the NBA’s top five players. “Going to the championship was the best year we had here,” Kemp says, and the same could be said about him as an individual.

After the summer of 1996, however, everything changed for Kemp. Upset with the size of his contract, which paid him below market value after a summer that saw skyrocketing salaries, Kemp held out for the first three weeks of training camp. The holdout didn’t seem to have much effect, as Kemp led the Sonics in scoring the first two games. For the rest of the season, however, he was not the same player. His scoring and rebounding were both down, and his field goal percentage dropped 51 points. Off the court, he was roundly criticized by the local media and forced to defend himself from rampant rumors. The Sonics mirrored Kemp’s struggles, falling to the third seed in the West. During the playoffs, Kemp picked up his play, but the Sonics were eliminated by the Houston Rockets in round two. Kemp had the last shot in game seven, a missed attempt to tie the game with a three. It turned out to be his last shot as a Sonic.

After the season, Kemp announced in an exclusive interview with ESPN that he would not play for the Sonics again, threatening to hold out – this time all season – if he didn’t get a trade. After a summer’s worth of speculation, the move finally came on September 25, with Kemp going to the Cleveland Cavaliers on September 25 in a three-way deal that brought the Sonics forward Vin Baker. “Well, I asked for the trade, so it was pretty good,” Kemp recalls of his mood after the trade. “The organization was always good to me. It was my decision to leave. It wasn’t their decision.”

Kemp has worked hard to recapture his form in Orlando.

In Cleveland, given the chance to shine on his own, Kemp averaged 18.0 points and 9.3 rebounds and led a young Cavaliers team that had four rookies in its rotation to the playoffs. Kemp and the Cavs returned to Seattle for the first time on January 17. The game in and of itself – a hard-fought 99-91 Sonic win with Kemp scoring 17 – was less memorable than the fans’ reaction to Kemp, as the vast majority of the crowd booed him not only when he was introduced as a starter, but also whenever he touched the ball. “They’re able to do what they want to,” Kemp says with little emotion when asked how he felt about the fans booing. “If you want to boo, you boo. You want to cheer, you cheer.” While the Cavaliers improved with Kemp, the Sonics saw little dropoff without him, winning the Pacific Division for the third straight season. Kemp says it wasn’t tough to see the Sonics succeed in his absence, noting that after that first season they have been less successful than they were with him.

Though he was criticized for returning from the league’s lockout overweight, Kemp had the best scoring season of his career, averaging 20.5 points per game. But the Cavaliers could not recapture their initial success, missing the playoffs. A year later, they were even worse, finishing 32-50 and never seriously contending. By the end of that 1999-2000 season, it was clear that a change of scenery was again in order for Kemp, whose marriage with the Cavs had quickly dissolved.

Whitsitt, by then Portland’s General Manager, decided to gamble on him again. The Blazers got Kemp in a three-way deal in the hopes that a return to the Pacific Northwest would rejuvenate his career. Instead, Kemp struggled to find playing time on a deep Portland front line and also had problems off the court. After a second similar year, Kemp and the Blazers agreed this summer to buyout the remaining two years of the mammoth contract extension he had received from Cleveland.

Fans wondered at the time if Kemp was crazy for giving up so much money, but for him the choice was clear. “When you’ve been successful, you don’t always play for the money,” he explains. Five years having proved sufficient time to heal many wounds in Seattle, many Sonics fans hoped for a reunion of Kemp and Payton with Kemp then a free agent. But he says such a move was never a possibility. “I pretty much knew I was going to go to a warm climate,” he says. Kemp found a perfect destination for him, landing with the Orlando Magic. Not only did the Magic provide him great weather, but also a chance to play. He’s taken advantage of that chance, starting 15 of his 23 games so far this season. After starting the season slowly, Kemp has gotten into shape and provides the Magic a solid threat in the middle, averaging 7.8 points and 6.0 rebounds so far this season.

With time comes perspective, and as Kemp’s career begins to wind down it is clear just how important a player he is in Sonic history. He is the franchise’s all-time leader in blocked shots, second in rebounds, fourth in scoring and in the top ten in ten other categories. Along with Payton and Karl, he deserves the majority of the credit for the Sonics run of six straight seasons of 55 wins or more. Kemp came to Seattle a manchild, but left The Man.