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Sonics & Storm Legends Tour Kemp Gallery The Manchild Who Became The Man Sonics History Page

It's true. During the early 1990s, Reebok sponsored a promotion with the Sonics that selected a kid for each home game to be the Shawn Kemp Kid. One magical night - March 16, 1993, a 98-85 Sonics win over the Miami Heat at the old Coliseum, Basketball-Reference.com informs me - that Shawn Kemp Kid was me.

I won a Reebok bag that I used for about a decade and a pair of tickets to sit closer than I ever had before at a Sonics game, but that paled in comparison to the most important part of the prize: a chance to go on the Coliseum floor just before tip-off and get my picture taken with Kemp. A couple of weeks later, we got the Polaroid, signed by Kemp, in the mail. You can see it below. Ordinarily, I'd be embarrassed by my mop haircut and the glasses I've long since ditched, but this remains the coolest photo of me in existence:

The Reignman's bandwagon filled up quickly, but I think I was one of the first on because he was a rookie the first season I cared about the Sonics. It was hard not to fall in love with Kemp's prodigious play above the rim. More than a decade later, I can still quickly recall some of my favorite Kemp plays of all time, including a Gary Payton alley-oop against Phoenix where he got higher above the rim than anyone I'd ever seen, a dunk in Washington when the Sonics were wearing throwback jerseys that I'm pretty sure was the first time Kevin Calabro ever thought to describe anyone as getting on their magic carpet and a play against the Clippers where he had to have four or five offensive rebounds in a row before finally scoring. (Which is not to mention the dunk over Alton Lister in the 1992 Playoffs widely considered one of the best in NBA history.)

Those dunks recalled, I think a true Kemp fan remembers his beloved baseline spin move as much as his ability to attack the rim. One of the highlights of my meager athletic career was pulling that move off in gym class in seventh grade.

Of course, baseline spin moves don't translate nearly as well to highlight tapes. Kemp's dunks? Those still hold up. When we celebrated Kevin Calabro's 1,500th career game behind the mic for the Sonics last April, the highlight packages of Calabro's best calls ended up showcasing Kemp almost as much as Calabro. (The two proved over the years to be a perfect marriage of broadcaster and player.)

When he asked for and received a trade, landing in Cleveland, the city of Seattle never really got to say goodbye to Kemp. Oh, he progressively got more and more cheers in his trips back to KeyArena as a visitor, but only now - nine years after Kemp last wore the Green and Gold - are we really far enough away from Kemp's Sonics career to really remember and understand what he meant to this city during his prime.

This was a star so popular in Seattle that when rumors surfaced that the Sonics were close to trading him to Chicago on the day of the 1994 Draft - for All-Star Scottie Pippen - fans flooded the KJR phone lines with calls disparaging the deal, potentially playing a role in keeping it from happening.

Saturday, when the Sonics & Storm Legends Tour honors Kemp at the NeighborHoops court at Colman Park, is a chance to remember all of the great memories of one of the premier players in Sonics history. For now, though, it's your turn to share what you remember of Kemp. Send your favorite memories to sonicsconnection@sonics-storm.com and we'll post selected responses on this page.