Alex Kramers

Once perceived as strictly an outside shooter, Sacramento’s No. 9 has thrived as a diverse bucket-getter and underrated playmaker.

Not long ago, when word was he was a threat off the catch but less so off the dribble, Kevin Huerter would surprise a defender who took him too lightly.

Because of his size and shooting range, the Clifton, N.Y. native was often compared – lazily so, he says – to Kyle Korver, a lights-out three-point specialist who primarily sprinted around screens and hoisted long-distance jumpers. And because he flew under the radar nationally during his two seasons at Maryland before an impressive showing at the pre-Draft combine, a long line of NBA counterparts underestimated Huerter and lived with regret.

A behind-his-back dribble, a between-his-legs crossover, an unexpected change of direction, would shake an unsuspecting opponent off balance, leaving the 6-foot-7 wing just enough time to launch a sudden stepback three or the space to put the ball on the floor and flick in a floater.

“I feel like my first couple of years, there weren’t guys who really knew my game,” Huerter said. “They probably saw me as a guy who stands in the corner and shoots.

“Guys like [Korver and JJ Redick] are unbelievable, the way they can spread off screens and make shots. I just think our games are a little bit different. I think I’m a guy who can get into the paint, make plays and obviously distribute and make plays for other guys, too.”

These days, the scouting report on Sacramento’s second-leading scorer is far more robust, accounting for the many ways he affects each play. He’s a shooter, of course, an elite marksman at that. His three-point percentage of .507 ranks ninth in the league among qualified players, and no one with at least 50 attempts from deep has been more accurate.

But Huerter is certainly more than just a standstill shooter, more than just a weak-side floor spacer.

He’s taking 65 percent of his field goals from behind the arc and has been assisted on 86 percent of his makes, yet rather than only spotting up, he’s nailing shots on the move, running the wing in transition, getting free off pindown and stagger screens and snagging dribble hand-offs. Huerter has converted on 14 of 24 pull-up triples (58.3 percent), far and away the highest rate of any player with as many attempts.

When defenders have closed out on him to dissuade his lethal three-pointer, the Maryland product has operated effectively from the middle of the floor, handling comfortably in traffic and letting it fly from mid-range before they can recover.&nbsp; Last year, Huerter drilled 46.6 percent from that area of floor, a tick behind Chicago’s DeMar DeRozan (47 percent).

An instinctive cutter to the basket, Huerter, who spent the summer building strength and flexibility,&nbsp;

has converted on 9 of 13 shots in the restricted area so far this season. Time and again, he’s used his sharpshooting reputation to free himself near the rim when reading that his opponent is overplaying the probability that No. 9 will pop out to the perimeter.

“He’s amazing,” said Domantas Sabonis, a slick-passing center who’s already started improvising with Huerter. “He opens the court for everybody. Defenses want to not help off him, he attracts a lot of attention. My job is to get him open, get him easy looks to get going.”

With Huerter on the floor, the Kings have been 18.5 points better per 100 possessions compared to when he’s sat on the bench, per Cleaning the Glass. It’s a small sample size, but to put that differential in context, the Kings have played at the level of a 50-win team when he’s been in the game, a staggering 39 wins better than how they’ve fared without him.

Huerter's smooth stroke, quick but unhurried, is the main, though not the only, reason Sacramento ranks fifth in three-point makes per game (14.1) after finishing 25th last season (11.4), and why its offensive rating (111.8) is up nearly three points per 100 possessions.

The unselfishness of the team’s primary ball-handers, plus the rhythm and flow of an offense that’s tailor-made for his talents, are reasons why there may not be a less stressed shooter in the sport than the 24-year-old wing.

“Obviously, I think the way [De’Aaron] Fox can get downhill and make space for guys [helps me],” Huerter said. “A lot of times, I’m playing off Domas and what he’s able to do, getting guys open, setting really good screens for me. I think it’s a little bit of everything, but obviously I’m shooting well.

“I don’t feel like I have to force anything and I feel like I’m getting opportunities steadily throughout the game, so it’s not something I feel I have to put pressure on [during] any stint that I’m going in. My shots are coming throughout the game, I’m able to make plays and able to get off the ball, like everybody else, and trust it’s coming back.”

Along with a career-high 16.6 points per game, Huerter also ranks in the 64th percentile at his position in assist rate (14.3), creating opportunities for teammates with well-timed passes to cutters in side pick-and-rolls or crosscourt swings to open shooters.

It’s that part of his repertoire, which has helped him evolve into a much more versatile player, that caught the eye of Kings head coach Mike Brown when he was studying film of Huerter’s time in Atlanta.

“I remember when we were talking about trading for him, I was watching film and he always blistered us from the three-point line when I was with the Warriors and we played [the Hawks],” Brown said. “But I’ll tell you what, the thing that’s underrated is his passing and his playmaking ability. He was coming off backside pick-and-rolls, and just throwing a laser – pew – right to [John] Collins in the weak-side corner, on-time, on-target, just giving him the ability to rise up and shoot.

“He can do a lot of things. Obviously, his dad is a coach. It sounds like everybody in his family, including his dad, played Division I basketball, with his younger sister going to Rutgers right now. He’s just a phenomenal basketball player who doesn’t get enough credit.”

For Huerter, that well-rounded approach developed in learning from his father, Tom Huerter, a 6-foot-6 guard who played four seasons at Siena College from 1987 to 1991.&nbsp;

As a youth, Kevin joined his older brother, Thomas Jr., as a ball boy at Siena, where their father was a longtime TV and radio analyst. As his sons grew older, Tom coached their basketball and baseball teams, and then in AAU tournaments across the country.

In 2015, the two brothers led Shenendehowa High to its first state championship, and a year later, Kevin was named Mr. New York Basketball.

While Thomas Jr. followed in his dad’s footsteps to Sienna, Kevin chose the Terrapins over scholarship offers from over a dozen other top programs, including Villanova, Virginia and Notre Dame.

Huerter didn’t expect he’d make it to the NBA at that time, much less so be a two-and-done player. But by the start of his sophomore year, his head coach, Mark Tuergeon, recognized similarities to Bucks All-Star Khris Middleton and the locker room began buzzing about Huerter’s undeniable pro potential.

“I had a lot of teammates joking that I wasn’t going to be there all four years,” Huerter said. “That was the first time I started thinking about [the NBA], that it could be a possibility.”

With that possibility in mind, Huerter shined at the NBA combine, wowing scouts in shooting drills and scrimmages to elevate his Draft stock into the first round.

Atlanta, in the midst of rebuilding and cultivating its young talent, selected the promising swingman with the No. 19 pick and offered him immediate playing time that would help speed up his development. In addition to Middleton, Huerter studied film of and emulated more complete all-around players — among them, Klay Thompson, Bradley Beal and Gordon Hayward — after seeing them up close in on-court matchups.&nbsp;

In his third year, after the team brought in several veterans who meshed with the young core, the Hawks made an improbable run to the Eastern Conference Finals.

Nicknamed “Red Mamba” at Maryland and “Red Velvet” early during his Atlanta tenure, Huerter became known as “K’Von” by his Hawks teammates during a playoff run in which he scored 27 points in Game 7 of the second round.

“In a lot of ways, I saw the full spectrum of what the NBA can offer,” Huerter said. “That front office, they were patient with us and really gave us two years to lose. I learned what a lot of losing feels like … That third year, I learned what winning and playing at a really high level feels like; not being able to make the Finals but coming really close, seeing what it takes to get there. Obviously I’m trying to bring that experience here.”

His old Hawks and new Kings teams, Huerter says, share plenty of unmistakable similarities.

“[Sacramento is] a place that’s looking to win, that hasn’t won in a little while, and I’m kind of coming at the same point [as in Atlanta],” he said. “We have a lot of guys who are super young, who haven’t been to the playoffs yet, mixed with guys who have.

“Obviously we’re trying to figure out ways to win. We’re going really hard at each other in practice, having long film sessions. It’s still a learning experience. I think with any group, you have to learn how to win together. Winning in this league is really tough to do. You can have a lot of talent, you can love the way you’re playing, but at the end of the day, you’ve got to figure out how to win games.”

A spike in three-point shooting and an uptick in tempo have infused the Kings with energy and excitement, culminating in wins in three of their last five contests.&nbsp;

Huerter — now known as “K-9” in the locker room, “Headband Huerter” by the fanbase, and a bucket-getter by opponents who’ve learned to respect his game — has scored at least 20 points in four of his first nine games with his new team.

He’s been encouraged by and recognizes the importance of a positive stretch highlighted by multiple comebacks from double-digits deficits.&nbsp;

“For teams like us that are trying to flip that page and turn the corner,” Huerter said, “those are the types of wins you need over the course of a long season.

“I want to make the playoffs here, figure out how to change the culture in Sacramento. Just from being there, the city and the people really want to win. I know they’re behind us. Any way we can figure out how to get over .500 and continue to win, that’s what I’m trying to do.”

kevin-huerter-is-doing-it-all

Kevin Huerter Is Doing It All in Sacramento

Once known as “the skinny kid with the funky shot,” Martin emerged into one of the league’s most prolific scorers and has surpassed every expectation, including his own, throughout his ongoing basketball journey.

Behind the closed doors of Sacramento’s practice facility, away from the crowds and out of range of TV cameras, Kevin Martin was putting in his typical night’s work, hoisting shot after shot as the late Pete Carril watched intently. Martin was 21 at the time, a lanky, fresh-faced rookie in the midst of a season he’d finish with only 2.9 points scored in 10.1 minutes per game, mired in a far lesser role on a title-contending Kings team than he’d have as an explosive, 20-plus-point scorer at his later peak.

In the mornings, his first stop was at Raley’s, a grocery store a mile north of ARCO Arena, to grab a box of donuts for the team’s veterans before practice began. On game nights, he predominantly watched from his seat at the end of the bench, learning the ropes first from Doug Christie and Bobby Jackson, then Cuttino Mobley, and later Bonzi Wells.

But it was during those post-practice sessions, day in and day out, and then several more weeks in the offseason under the tutelage of Carril, the storied innovator of the Princeton offense and then-Sacramento assistant coach, that the Zanesville, Ohio native learned his most important lessons and made his biggest strides.

“I wouldn’t have gotten off that bench if it weren’t for the time that [Carril] put in with me after every practice,” Martin said. “I wasn’t playing many minutes, if any minutes, so he just made sure that I stayed mentally involved and worked on my craft after every practice that first year. He also stayed in the summer with me in Sac; him, Elson Turner and Bubba [Burrage]. I definitely owe a lot to him … He definitely helped with [my mechanics] and he made sure I put in a lot of reps.”

Martin’s shooting motion, a herky-jerky flick winding from his right hip, had always been far from textbook perfect, but it proved effective from the start. When he was around nine years old, he was too small to attack the paint against older kids on the playgrounds at Putnam Hill Park, so heaving perimeter jumpers, with as much oomph as he could muster, was his only scoring option.

“I was always the skinniest and shortest kid playing with all of my friends,” Martin said. “With that kind of frame, I was just doing everything just to throw it up to the hoop at that young age. And then throughout high school, that funkiness just stayed there.”

As years passed, Martin stuck with what worked and his coaches stopped trying to fix what wasn’t broken.

He earned Mr. Ohio honors at Zanesville High and averaged over 22 points per game as a freshman at Western Carolina, but it wasn’t until he began working with David Thorpe, Executive Director of The Pro Training Center in Clearwater, Fla., that the largely unknown guard in the Southern Conference emerged into an NBA prospect.

“I was talking to Steve Shurina, who was Kevin’s college coach, in the spring of 2002, and he said, ‘We have a player who’s about 6-foot-7, really shoots it well, but can’t do anything else,’” Thorpe recalled. “As the season went on, teams started realizing all he can do is shoot, they guarded him pretty effectively and he struggled.

“Kevin drove in from Ohio that summer and drove to the gym every day […] Every day, I expected Kevin would never come back because I was so tough on him. We really focused on his handle; that’s all we did. I didn’t want to mess with his shot [because] he shot it well as a freshman.”

Despite torching Coastal Carolina for 46 points on opening night of his sophomore campaign and developing a well-rounded inside-outside game, the No. 10 scorer in the country was still flying miles under the NBA radar.

The following summer, Thorpe pushed Martin further out of his comfort zone by pitting him against physical big men, including Udonis Haslem and Josh Powell, in scrimmages, and the guard rose to the challenge.“I told Kevin, ‘You’re going to lead the country in scoring and you’re going to be a first-round pick,’” Thorpe said. “Of course, it seems crazy in retrospect. No one heard of Kevin Martin.”

Most, including Jason Levien, Martin’s future agent and NBA executive, weren’t convinced, but scouts began taking notice once the Catamounts guard dropped 44 points vs. Georgia and then 33, including a game-winning three in overtime, at Arkansas. Martin, once panned as “the skinny kid with the funky shot,” finished his junior year as the second-leading scorer in the nation with 24.9 points per game and worked out for 14 NBA teams leading up to the Draft.

In his first audition with the Kings, Martin scored on 14 of 15 possessions in a one-on-one bout against one of the top defenders in his class, and when he was invited for a second go-around, he went toe-to-toe with Beno Udrih, already an established pro overseas. Once Sacramento selected him with the 26th pick, he seemed poised to become the natural successor to the then-34-year-old Christie.

But when Martin was uncharacteristically misfiring early in his first season, connecting on only 38.5 percent from the field and missing 20 of his 25 three-point tries, Carril identified the flaw in that unorthodox shooting form. Martin's arm swung across his face on the release, shielding his field of vision, so the longtime coach instructed him to move the ball slightly to his right when he squared his body to shoot.

Later that summer, Sacramento’s No. 23 continued to build on Carril’s tweaks with Thorpe, incorporating more shot fakes and jab steps to his advantage, working on finishing with his left hand and emphasizing conditioning by simulating game speeds during workouts.

“Because it was a slower release, it gave more time for defenders to close out on him,” Thorpe said. “But Kevin, to this day, may be the quickest 6-foot-7 guy I’ve ever seen, so he put [defenders] in jeopardy all the time. When they would bite on his shot fakes, he’d blow by them.”

With Mobley departing in free agency and Wells in and out of the lineup next season, Martin, armed with renewed confidence and a bevy of offensive moves, more than doubled his scoring output (10.8 points per game) with the fourth-highest true-shooting percentage (60.4) in the league.

Agile and sharp in his instincts, he became one of the best at moving without the ball, a main component of head coach Rick Adelman’s offense. Martin studied how Peja Stojakovic and Reggie Miller curled off screens for catch-and-shoot threes, and the way Richard Hamilton changed directions and operated in the mid-range. He recognized which angles would help him get to the rim and which allowed him to get his shot up quicker from long distance.

The arrival of Ron Artest midseason helped Martin, a candidate for the NBA’s Most Improved Player, take his game to another level. In Martin, Artest saw similarities to Miller, his former teammate with the Pacers, and emboldened the young guard to take the reins offensively.

That attack-first mindset was put to the test in Sacramento’s first-round playoff series against the defending-champion Spurs. In the dwindling seconds of Game 3, with the Kings trailing by a point, the second-year guard caught a pass from Bibby on a fastbreak, and lofted a twisting, off-balance lay-up that sailed over Tim Duncan’s outstretched arm, bounced three times on the rim and dropped through the net as the horn sounded.

Although they’d practiced the two-on-one drill regularly, Martin wasn’t expecting Bibby to pass the ball with the game on the line, he says, and what made his game-winner even more remarkable is that, with a generational defender impeding his path, he couldn’t see the basket.

“I don’t know if I’ve ever admitted this, but I think I actually might’ve just closed my eyes and thrown the ball up,” he said with a chuckle. “I knew where the backboard was, but when I saw Tim’s long arms come across mine, I think I just threw it up. I will admit it was more luck than skill, but it was a moment that elevated my name a little bit. It was one of those surreal moments that I think I didn’t really understand the magnitude of … It never gets old seeing coach Adelman have the reaction he did, because he doesn’t have reactions like that, and how crazy ARCO went.”

It wouldn't be the last time that Martin, a shooting guard who could score at will and carry his team when the ball was in his hands, would be the hero in a purple-and-black uniform. In early November the following season, he splashed the go-ahead bucket, an 18-footer from the right baseline, in the final seconds to push the Kings past the Bulls in Chicago.

He scored his team’s final five points in Seattle in March 2008, including a leaning, 20-foot jumper from the right corner, with two Sonics defenders draped all over him, that swished at the final buzzer.

Although his career night came in an overtime loss to the Warriors on April 1, 2009, Martin scored 50 points, becoming the first Kings player to do so since Webber in 2001, on 11-of-22 from the field, 5-of-11 from behind the three-point arc and a staggering 23-of-26 from the foul line.

By then, Martin was annually perched among the league-leaders in both scoring and foul-drawing, averaging just shy of 25 points per game in his fourth season and earning nightly double-digit trips to the charity stripe. In both 2007-08 and 2008-09, he attempted at least nine free throws per outing and shot over 40 percent from three on the season, a then-unprecedented mark that has since been matched by only Kevin Durant.

After Adelman, Carril and Turner laid the groundwork for Martin’s uber-efficient scoring, Eric Musselman, Sacramento’s head coach during the 2006-07 campaign, encouraged Martin to study tape of a superstar whose game prioritized slashing to the rim, juking defenders and cashing in free throws.

“Eric Mussleman, he actually made me watch a lot of [Dwyane] Wade going into my third year,” Martin said. “Once he was the coach, he put the ball in my hands and I did watch a lot of D-Wade at that time; just how he drew contact, got people in the air and the angles that he used getting to the basket.”

Martin became so adept at drawing referees’ whistles, that he scored 20 points with only a single made field goal and 17 free throws on March 17, 2007, a feat that has only been accomplished by Hall-of-Famer Tiny Archibald throughout NBA history.

After five-plus seasons with the Kings, Martin recognized the franchise was moving in a different direction, as he and the ball-dominant Tyreke Evans were an incongruous fit in the backcourt. Reunited with Adelman in Houston midway through the 2009-10 season, Martin did what he was best known for when he was on the court for Rockets: put the ball in the hoop with high efficiency.

In his first game in Sacramento as a visitor, Martin, overcome with emotion, put on a vintage performance: 39 points on 11-of-20 from the field and 16-of-16 at the foul line. That scoring outburst, Martin says, was partially fueled by anger from an unexpected, unflattering headline in local papers.

Shortly before he was traded, Martin’s 5,000-square-foot estate in Rockland, Calif. diminished in value due to the 2008 housing-market crash, and within seven months, he lost the property to foreclosure. Although no media reports leaked at the time, on the morning of his return to Northern California, the story became front-page news.

“I was pissed, and I took it out [on the Kings] that night,” Martin said. “I was playing like I was 21 years old, dunking and everything.”

He didn’t know it at the time, but the disappointing experience in the housing sector would turn out to be a blessing in disguise. Martin soon developed a passion for real estate, and once he retired from basketball after 12 seasons, at age 32, he became active in buying and selling properties across the Florida coast.

“I started off in Florida with a $275,000 house and then it just escalated up into where I am today,” said Martin, who estimates he’s invested and developed over $100 million in projects to date. “It’s just about evolving, just like basketball; three points to, I think my career high per year was 24.9 a game. Real estate, I started with an embarrassing foreclosure, and now I’m about to do a $7 million residential project. [...] How I approached the basketball game, I’m translating that into the real estate game.”

Despite leaving basketball behind at a young age, Martin, now 39, has no regrets about his decision to walk away from the sport. One of the league’s most productive scorers for over a decade, he quietly finished his career as a reserve on the Spurs, the same franchise he once stunned with his incredible game-winner, watching a star-studded team from the bench as his career came full circle.

“My wife, she got pregnant in November of my last year,” he said. “I knew our journey to have a kid, so I knew that was going to be my last year. […] I never wanted to be a parent who was on the road for 220 days out of the year. That was just never a vision for me.

In a full-page retirement announcement in his hometown newspaper, he thanked his family and childhood friends for their support, reminisced on his fondest moments, and made a $100,000 donation from the Kevin Martin Youth Foundation to “enhance the talents of our young children, on and off the sporting field.”

Through the nonprofit organization that bears his name, Martin has provided a positive impact on children’s lives, promoted family unity and encouraged academic achievement. At his annual summer camp, which he ran from 2009 through 2021, the NBA veteran imparted some of the lessons he learned from players who showed him the ropes early in his Kings career to a new generation.

“I always tell people, it’s never about making baskets; it’s always about the journey,” Martin said. “It's never about being on top by yourself without having people up there with you. [It’s about] you doing something bigger than yourselves once you get on top of that mountain.”’

Martin’s business ambitions and competitive fire most recently took him overseas. In 2019, he and Levien headed a group that purchased a majority ownership stake of the Brisbane Bullets, a professional team in the National Basketball League in Australia. Coaching never suited his personality, Martin says, but co-owning a team has kept him connected to the game.

“The opportunity came, and I just said, ‘Heck with it, let’s see where it takes us,’” Martin said. “I’ve learned that ownership is actually a lot different than being a player. You have to wear two different hats. As much as you want the best talent on the court, you also have investors you have to check in to. When people say [basketball is] a business, it’s definitely a business.”

Through basketball, Martin, who’s also served as an international ambassador for the NBA, has traveled to countries he never thought he’d go to, learned from some of the best at the craft and exceeded what he imagined was possible. He’s found success in every city he’s called home, but he reserves a special place in his heart for Sacramento, where his former Kings coaches, teammates and fans made the first stop in his professional journey his most meaningful.

“Outside of being in Zanesville, Ohio, I’ve never been to a place [where I] felt so loved and so appreciated, especially in the game of basketball,” Martin said. “So I think for me, that was just a special place that will always hold special moments and [I have] a lot of love for everybody who was a part of my journey. At the end of the day, I’m just a small kid from a town of 20,000 people who never thought that I would even dream of 17,000 fans cheering for me, embracing me and showing me how to go from being just a kid to a man. [There’s an] appreciation that I’ll always have for them and the players who I played with.”

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Big Dreams Became Reality for Kevin Martin in Sacramento

It didn’t take long for the two freshmen with different dreams, in the days they shot hoops in the gym and nights they shot the breeze in their dorm rooms, to become inseparable friends.

Doug Christie arrived at Pepperdine University, a small private school tucked away in the Santa Monica Mountain foothills, on a basketball scholarship, and parlayed his three seasons as the team’s leading scorer and nation’s top defender into a 15-season NBA career.

Montell Jordan, nearly a decade before releasing his first chart-topping single, “This Is How We Do It,” matriculated at Pepperdine to challenge himself academically and experience diversity. But despite standing 6-foot-8 — two inches taller than Christie — and sharing a surname with the NBA’s G.O.A.T., the Grammy-nominated musician had no disillusions about his own basketball future.

“I can’t really play basketball at all,” Jordan said with a chuckle. “I was athletic, but I was athletic too late in my life. By the time I got to Pepperdine and wanted to try and play sports, you had guys like Doug and some other players who were just so phenomenal at it, that the closest I could get to [being on the team] was by being a basketball manager.”

“He’s a big fella,” Christie quipped, “but he’s not as smooth on the basketball court as he is with the microphone though.”

So Jordan played intramural hoops and in between classes, worked at The Cage, a fitness facility housing free weights and strength training equipment at Pepperdine. When the basketball team practiced, he retrieved rebounds and wiped sweat off the floors, and after games, he was in charge of collecting scattered uniforms, dirty towels and water bottles.

That set the stage for an uncomfortable introduction for the soon-to-be best friends.

“That’s how me and Doug met,” Jordan said. “I washed Doug Christie’s drawers and jockstraps for the Pepperdine Waves.”

That awkward encounter aside, the pair soon bonded over meals in the cafeteria and De La Soul tracks booming through the speakers in their dorm rooms. Before many games, they’d share laughs while Jordan cut Christie’s hair in an impromptu barber chair set up in the locker room, using a women’s razor to achieve a perfect fade.

They grew even closer on weekend road trips with their basketball teammates, traveling to neighboring campuses in Southern California — and occasionally jettisoning as far north as Christie’s hometown Seattle — for fraternity parties.

“We had some really, really great times together as students and as friends,” Jordan said. “We would pile up in the car and roll out to USC or up to Cal Berkeley, just to go to different cities to party or to be able to experience what else was out there outside of Pepperdine.”

By their junior year, Christie and Jordan moved into an on-campus, two-bedroom apartment, furnished with little glitz or glamour besides sporadic Michael Jordan posters hanging on the walls.

Whenever they were together, the parties were just as memorable, but as their respective passions and careers began to take off, the roommates found themselves moving in different spheres.

Christie’s life revolved around the basketball schedule and its training demands, so if he wasn’t lifting weights or running drills in the gym, he was likely outside of the Malibu zip code for road games.

Around the same time, Jordan, no longer assisting the basketball team, was discovering himself as an artist. Inside his bedroom, he jotted down song ideas and invited friends to craft beats on a keyboard, his sights on breaking through in the music industry with a part-rap, part-R&amp;B demo tape.

“We didn’t have any money, so Montell would hang sheets all over the place to drown out the noise,” Christie said. “He’d be in there singing and crooning constantly. There were so many days and nights where I’d come home and he would be in there doing his thing. You never know where it’s going to lead you, but with his gospel background, he was always going to be singing something. The fact that he made one of the greatest smashes of all time is just next level.”

Soon after graduation, Christie entered the NBA as a first-round draft pick, and during his Lakers tenure, invited Jordan to attend games at the Great Western Forum. Whenever their paths would cross in other cities, Jordan knew there would be tickets waiting for him at will call.

Once Jordan soared to the top of Billboard charts with his bouncy first single, he repaid the favor by providing front-row concert tickets and backstage passes for his longtime pal.

“When I first got into the league, he [performed] at Lollapalooza and I went,” Christie said. “My daughter was just born. I had some money in my pocket, so I [asked Montell], ‘Can you sign this $100 bill for me?’ He signed it and made it out to Chantel. I still have it; my wife has it some place at the house. We need to frame it.”

Over the following two decades — as Christie progressed from basketball player to broadcaster to coach, and Jordan followed the success of “This Is How We Do It” with multiple gold-certified albums and tours across the globe — they cheered for and delighted in each other’s accomplishments from afar.

“The beautiful part of it is that even after the NBA contracts and [record label] agreements, we were able to maintain our friendship,” Jordan said. “It’s a friendship that went beyond college life and it went on to be something that even now, 20 years afterward, we’re still connected.”

Their day-to-day communication hasn’t been as routine as it once was, but they’ve never been more than a phone call or text message apart, reaching out to one another to offer constant support or a shoulder to cry on when it's needed most.

“When my mom passed away, one of the people who actually texted me and contacted me was Montell,” Christie said. “I always appreciated that.”

Whenever they reunite and reminisce in person — as they did at the Kings home-opener, where Jordan performed the national anthem and sang his greatest hits at halftime — they’re momentarily transported back to the late-1980s, Christie says, to when they first met as teenagers at Pepperdine.

“[Our relationship] is not something where we’re going to be talking all the time, but I know that’s my partner,” Christie said. “I appreciate him and he knows that I’m always here for him.”

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This Is How They Do It: Ex-Roommates Doug Christie, Montell Jordan Remain Lifelong Friends

Amid the awards and honorary doctorates on the walls of his man cave, a neatly-furnished room as modest and understated as the man himself, hang keepsakes and framed photographs of some of Jerry Reynolds’ favorite moments from his 35 years in Sacramento.

Ask about any one of the mementos, and Reynolds will joyfully launch into a vintage anecdote, as only he can: in his Indiana drawl, with his trademark wit, folksy charm and most of all, humor — often at this own expense.

Two basketballs in acrylic cases, one from his first coaching victory and another signed by the gold-medal 2004 U.S. Women’s Olympics Team, a thank-you for his tenure on the selection committee, are mounted in one corner. “My goal wasn’t to get into coaching or the NBA,” he says. “I just didn’t want to stay in French Lick and work for a living.”

Adorning the back walls are several plaques with press clippings, among them a ‘Best of Sacramento’ accolade honoring his easy-going personality. “That’s back when I had a personality,” Reynolds quips. 

On a shelf inside an oak cabinet sit several wood-framed prints, including one of Larry Bird next to Reynolds, “the second-most famous person from French Lick,” on the set of his short-lived television program. “That famous show, I think, lasted one year,” he says. “I think we had probably 25 viewers, but I enjoyed it anyway.”

Over the years, Jerry, who’s lived in the same Roseville, Calif. house that he and his wife, Dodie, purchased in 1990, has accumulated enough Kings-themed trinkets to fill all four bedrooms. Some, including pictures of Reynolds with legends who’ve passed through Sacramento, such as Bill Russell and Willis Reed, once decorated the hallways, but most, including his two broadcasting Emmys, are packed in storage boxes.

“I’m not really a big picture, autograph, memorabilia type of guy,” Reynolds says. “We decided, ‘Let’s put them away, and someday, when we want to reminisce, we can.’ What’s more important are all the great memories.”

During his three and a half decades with the franchise, no one was more malleable or irreplaceable than Reynolds. Between 1985 and 1996, he saw and did it all in basketball operations, rising from second assistant coach to interim head coach to full-time head coach to director of player personnel to general manager.

Along the way, he saw the team’s original owner, Gregg Lukenbill, climb onto the catwalk to plug a leak in the roof of ARCO Arena in the fourth quarter of a game in 1989.

He experienced ARCO vibrating at its loudest in the spring of 1996, when the Kings hosted a postseason game for the first time since the team’s inaugural season in Sacramento.

Reynolds was on board the team’s commercial flight which, he swears, came within a few hundred feet of crashing into the Potomac River during a thunderstorm.

And there was an even more frightening incident that made national headlines, when Reynolds collapsed on the sideline and lay unconscious on the floor for several minutes. Fortunately, doctors ruled out serious ailments and deemed the fall was likely caused by a combination of a poor diet and poorer sleeping habits.

“I remember getting dizzy, trying to get to my seat, and the next thing I know, I’m looking up at the trainer who’s getting ready to give me mouth-to-mouth resuscitation,” Reynolds recalls. “I remember telling him, ‘Don’t you put those lips on me!’”

The players he coached admire Reynolds’ genuine talent for building close relationships that transcend the confines of the whiteboard. He coated his wisdom with a layer of whimsy, but his sarcasm and cynicism never drowned out his sincerity and compassion.

For Reggie Theus, a two-time All-Star who played for Reynolds from 1985 through 1988, his former coach’s best quality is his ability to communicate, connect and inspire different people in different ways.

“I learned that everything is not on the pad with X’s and O’s,” Theus says. “I remember reading […] that a coach’s job is to create an atmosphere so players can play their best basketball, and that comes to mind when I think about Jerry. He’s somebody who can deal with adversity and speak the truth, but not hammer you over the head with it.

“When Jerry walks in a room, after a few minutes, everybody starts to gravitate toward him because they probably missed a few one-liners,” Theus adds. “The effect that he’s had on my life, personally, what he means to me as a person, as a coach, as a Sacramento Kings figure, I’m just genuinely happy for him. There are not a lot of guys you cheer for, but you cheer for Jerry.”

A younger generation of fans may not remember Reynolds as the exuberant coach or shrewd executive who executed one of the biggest trades in Kings history and built the core of the WNBA-champion Sacramento Monarchs.

To them, he’s far more recognizable as the wisecracking, inimitable color commentator on game broadcasts for over 20 years.

His collection of colorful expressions and signature catchphrases, better known as “Jerry-isms,” made the Indiana native an original in a sports TV landscape overstocked with carbon copies. Each time he’d drop a “hippity-hop to the barbershop” after a slick drive to the basket, or declare he had a case of “Peja Vu” when Stojakovic would knock down consecutive shots, the telecast, no matter the score or circumstance, became more enjoyable.

At times, his stockpile of stories kept viewers engaged even during the dragging fourth quarters of blowouts.

“When he became the TV guy, that fit him so perfectly because he was such an easy conversationalist,” says former Kings forward LaSalle Thompson, who spent four of his 15 NBA seasons playing for Reynolds. “He would get on TV and be himself. That guy you saw on TV was the same guy you would get in person. You don’t get that a lot.”

As seriously as he took his job, Reynolds, by his own admission, never took himself too seriously. 

“I always thought, ‘Have a little fun with it. It is a game and it’s supposed to be entertainment,” he says. “With some of those teams, it was hard to find entertainment, so you had to do what you could to entertain the fans who were still watching.”

Reynolds, one of the most popular figures in Sacramento, stepped down from his full-time position as color analyst after the 2017-18 season, but appeared on pre- and post-game shows and resumed his familiar broadcasting duties on several homestands.

Last month, the 76-year-old announced his official retirement, making the final stop on a circuitous route that kept him onboard through four ownership groups, five general managers and 17 head coaches.

“(Being a) part-time employee with the Kings the last two years, that really helped me prepare myself for retirement,” he says. “Doing nothing for six months helps prepare you for doing nothing for 12 months.”

On Dec. 26, the night of the 2020-21 home opener at Golden 1 Center, Reynolds’ indelible contributions to the franchise will be commemorated in a unique way. The arena’s media entrance will be named in his honor as a tribute to the man who was a fixture with the organization, in one capacity or another, for its entire existence in California’s capital city.

Reynolds is rarely speechless, but admits he was caught off guard when Kings President of Business Operations John Rinehart called to share the team’s plan to celebrate his achievements. As the Indiana native so often does, he swiftly deflected the praise.

“Certainly, I’m very honored, but I don’t think that it was necessary, to be honest,” Reynolds says. “It’s very nice and very considerate. I really appreciate it. The Kings have always treated me better than I deserve, and this is another example.”

Since retiring, Reynolds has enjoyed walks around the neighborhood and free time to spend with his family. He still watches his fair share of sports on TV, but occasionally opts for a ‘Seinfeld’ rerun in lieu of sitting through a second-half blowout.

After working roughly 3,000 games —some good, some bad, some ugly —over the last 35 years, plus taking in countless others while growing up in the Midwest, he deserves the break.

A basketball junkie since the day he attended his first high school contest, inside an overcrowded gym that resembled a scene from “Hoosiers,” Reynolds showed enough promise as a player to earn a scholarship to Vincennes University, a two-year junior college 60 miles outside of his hometown.

Midway through his sophomore season, his playing career was cut short when he injured his back so badly in a car accident that he was hospitalized for months. Several other schools recruited him during his rehab, and Reynolds followed his brother to Oakland City College. He’d never suit up for another game, but in order to keep his scholarship, he served as the freshman basketball coach.

His former coach at Vincennes later hired him as an assistant, where Reynolds, a natural leader and teacher, helped lead the school to the 1970 junior college national championship. As head coach at West Georgia University, he brought home a Division II title in 1974. During that time, he began volunteering with the Atlanta Hawks in the offseason, hoping the extra experience would help him land a Division I gig.

“I knew Cotton Fitzsimmons, the Hawks coach at the time, who said they could use extra people,” Reynolds says. “I went there for veteran camps and summer leagues, but my goal wasn’t to get into the NBA.”

Fitzsimmons recommended Reynolds for the head coaching job at Rockhurst University in Kansas City, which, by luck or coincidence, doubled as the practice site for the Kings in the early 1980s. On top of winning 184 games in eight seasons in the NAIA, Reynolds helped run Kings training camps alongside head coach Phil Johnson.

When the team relocated to Sacramento in 1985, Johnson convinced Reynolds to join his coaching staff as the second assistant.

“Being an assistant coach, I loved that,” Reynolds says. “You get to be the good guy. You really get to develop relationships with the players. The assistant jobs, I really did get a kick out of ... Reggie Theus, Mike Woodson, Larry Drew, Eddie Johnson, LaSalle Thompson — they were good players, but good people, absolute professionals. I think those players helped me grow up in this league. Seeing their professionalism helped me understand what was involved.”

Johnson was dismissed halfway through the 1986-87 season, and Reynolds was appointed interim head coach, his first of two stints in the position. In March of the following year, Reynolds, who’d reverted to assistant under Russell, was once again elevated to head coach, a role he’d hold for parts of the next three seasons.

“I think he was rushed into being a head coach, but he learned at the same time a lot of us were learning,” Thompson said. “He always had a game plan and he was prepared. He was an easy guy to get along with. He wasn’t a tyrant and he wasn’t too hard on people. I don’t know anybody who didn’t like him.”

Theus learned early that his new coach had an unusually direct way of getting his point across.

“I was playing (shooting) guard and they traded Larry Drew, so we were without a point guard,” he says with a chuckle. “Jerry became the coach and he says, ‘All right, Reggie, listen. I’m going to put the ball in your hands. Don’t [screw] it up.’ He said that in a joking way, but it was a great ice breaker to have a real conversation. Then he started to expound on what he was talking about; how I could be a better player, what I needed to do and where he thought I could improve.

“I’ll also never forget the time he told me, ‘Reggie, why do you always drive to the basket? You’re taking an awful beating when you get to the rim. When you shoot 85 percent from the free throw line, how come you don’t pull up and shoot your jumpshot right there?’ The light goes off in my head. That makes a lot of sense. That, in itself, gave me another element to my game — the pull-up jumper on the break.”

His coaching record stands at a modest 56-114, but his biggest victory came in 1991, when Reynolds, in his third of five seasons as general manager, traded the Draft rights to Billy Owens to the Warriors in exchange for future Hall of Famer Mitch Richmond.

In seven seasons with the Kings, Richmond was named to six All-Star teams, scored more points than any player in the Sacramento era and carried his eighth-seeded squad to a near-upset against Seattle in the 1996 Playoffs.

As the years went along, other franchises tried to entice Reynolds with lucrative contracts and upper-management roles, but, as tempting as some offers sounded, he never seriously considered departing The River City.

“I remember one job in particular, where I’d have to go back to the Midwest,” he says. “My wife asked, ‘Do you want to go?’ I said, ‘No, I really don’t!’ She made a great point. ‘So we make more money or we get a bigger house, but what does that amount to?’ I agreed. We like it here and we’re not moving.”

When Reynolds resigned as Kings general manager in 1993, he stayed on as director of basketball operations, a role he’d hold through 2013, to help ensure the club would hire the right person as his successor. 

“I had a relationship with Geoff Petrie, and I knew he was running his course in Portland,” Reynolds says. “I remember telling (Kings owner) Jim (Thomas), ‘Make sure you interview this guy. This will be your guy.’”

By the time Petrie traded Richmond to the Wizards in exchange for Chris Webber in 1998, the first of several pivotal transactions that reshaped the Kings into a perennial title contender, Reynolds was well-established as the consummate Kings TV commentator.

With less stress and more sleep, Reynolds says, he enjoyed the on-air gig more than any other he’s held throughout his illustrious career.

“You could really pull for the team, but you’re not responsible,” he says. “I might get upset when the team would lose, but by the time I drove home, I’d be over it. (In my other jobs), if things were going badly, I might not be as delightful as I should be with Mrs. Reynolds. Not that I’m that delightful anyway.” 

When Reynolds transitioned into television, he never imagined he’d occupy his courtside seat for as long as he did, or that 20 years later, he’d be one of the game’s longest-tenured broadcasters.

To become entrenched so deeply in Kings lore, considering how many bumps threatened to disrupt his wild ride, for Reynolds is a dream come true.

“I never anticipated being in the position I’m in and I don’t take that for granted,” he says. “I’ve tried to be cognizant of that. It’s one of those things, as you get older, means even more.”

Above all of his accolades and accomplishments, what matters to him most are the fans who made him feel welcome from his first day in Northern California; those who’ve stopped him outside the arena to take selfies or in a grocery store to converse at length about life and basketball.

“Even though I worked for four different ownership groups and a lot of different presidents, I’ve always felt that I worked for the fans,” Reynolds says. “It’s really been a neat experience and I’m so thankful for all of the opportunities I’ve had.”

His retirement leaves an irreplaceable void, but Reynolds’ legacy will forever live on in Sacramento.

jerry-reynolds-leaves-lasting-legacy-in-sacramento

Jerry Reynolds Leaves Lasting Legacy in Sacramento

On a warm autumn night, 10 miles outside the white sand-covered shores of South Beach, Nemanja Bjelica is freezing cold.

Shifting his 6-foot-10 frame inside a narrow, tightly-packed visitor’s locker at American Airlines Arena, he extends his legs and submerges his feet inside two plastic tubs filled with ice water up to the ankles. While his nearby teammates bite into chicken sandwiches and review film on iPads, Bjelica draws solace from his own pregame routine, the sloshing water nearly spilling over the brim each time he repositions his body.

The Kings forward – soft-spoken and stubbornly deflective of any individual praise – quietly chuckles at the notion that he might actually have ice water coursing through his veins.

The former EuroLeague MVP is used to leaving his opponents shivering – after all, he earned nickname “Professor Big Shots” overseas for his late-game heroics – but he has a better explanation for why he’s been an instant difference-maker in his short time with the Kings.

“Before, it was kind of hard to find myself on the court,” he said. “I had a lot of (overseas) experience, but when you come to the League, you need to adjust. It’s totally different basketball, and the way the NBA is going, it’s not like in Europe. Now, I have a better opportunity here to show that I belong to this league. It’s my fourth year, and everything is easier.”

His growing self-confidence and comfort level with his new teammates are evident by nearly any metric.

Through 10 games in Sacramento, No. 88 ranks among the team leaders in most major categories, drilling 56.1 percent from the field and 53.8 percent from deep on nearly four attempts per game. He’s not just averaging career-highs across the board, but nearly doubling his previous bests in points (14.4), rebounds (5.8) and assists (2.8).

The big man ranks third on the team in offensive net rating among rotation players (plus-12.1) and fifth in defensive net rating (-10.4); add up the numbers, and with Bjelica on the court, the Kings have been 22.5 points better per 100 possessions, according to NBA.com.

Among all five-man units in the League that have played at least 50 minutes, Sacramento’s two most frequently-used lineups, both featuring the floor-spacing forward, rank as the sixth and 10th most productive in net rating (19.7 and 8.1, respectively).

“He brings a different dimension to this team that we were missing last year,” said guard Buddy Hield. “He’s another playmaker, a guy who can put the ball on the floor and a guy to shoot the ball extremely well. He’s a guy who can stretch (the floor), (which) helps (De’Aaron) Fox create and get to the foul line.”

Bjelica credits Fox for pushing the tempo and kicking the ball out to get him open looks from deep, both in transition and half-court sets. The Serbia native has knocked down at least three triples in four of the last five contests, during which Sacramento has outscored opponents by 28 points in his 144 minutes on the floor.

It’s no wonder why Kings Head Coach Dave Joerger has encouraged his starting forward to keep firing from long range, especially considering few players at Bjelica’s size are able to connect from deep as accurately.

“I need him to shoot the ball over the top of the defense to give us more space, which is a big priority for us, with trying to give De’Aaron Fox as much space as possible,” Joerger said.

“I used to always laugh at Mike Miller, who’s a good friend of mine. I’d rebound and throw it out to him, and pretend I was going to contest his shot. He used to always laugh. ‘What are you going to do, Joegs? Grow?’ When you have that size, you can get the ball up and you’re just looking over the top of people, it makes the game a lot easier for everybody.”

What makes Bjelica even more versatile, and far from a strict three-point specialist, is his ability to facilitate the offense with the basketball IQ and passing acumen of a point guard.

“I like making my teammates better,” he said. “Now, I’m like kind of a stretch-four here in the NBA, (but) I like to play with the ball and put the ball on the floor.”

Early in his career, the future All-EuroLeague selection was tasked with running the team as the primary ball-handler for Red Star in Belgrade, under the tutelage of renowned coach Svetislav Pesic. The multifaceted big man proved ready for the challenge, and after averaging 18.9 points and 3.3 assists per game in 2009-10, first caught the attention of NBA scouts.

Despite being drafted 35th overall by the Wizards in 2010, and subsequently traded to Minnesota, Bjelica decided to stay overseas to further develop his game, first spending three years in Spain with Saski Baskonia, and then tacking on another pair of seasons in Turkey with Fenerbahce Ulker.

“I wanted to play in EuroLeague with (Zeljko) Obradovic – he’s (known as) the best coach in Europe,” he said. “With him, I became a better person and a much better player. I learned so many good things from him, on and off the court.”

In 2014-15, his final season abroad, Bjelica earned EuroLeague MVP honors after averaging 12.6 points on 50 percent shooting, 8.5 rebounds and 1.2 steals per game.

Although his extensive overseas experience aided him in transitioning to the NBA the following year, the adjustment proved to be more difficult than then-27-year-old imagined.

Alex Kramers

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