"I watched Shawn go to Cleveland and he got big, and I felt that was my fault" - Gary Payton says he feels responsible for the sad end to Kemp's career

Yahoo23-05-2025

For most of the 1990s, the Seattle SuperSonics were an electrifying storm, and at the center of that thunder was a fast-talking point guard and a high-flying power forward who seemed made for each other.
Gary Payton and Shawn Kemp.
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Together, they formed one of the most dynamic duos of their era, elevating the Sonics into a title-contending force. Their chemistry was raw and instinctive. But it didn't last as long as they would have wanted.
Payton's regret
At just 27 years old, Kemp was traded to the Cleveland Cavaliers in a three-team deal that stunned Seattle fans and left Payton with a bitter taste that hasn't quite gone away.
Decades later, the iconic point guard still sees the fallout as more than just bad management. He sees it as something personal, something he could've changed.
"I watched Shawn go to Cleveland and he got big," "The Glove" said. "And I felt that was my fault, because I didn't step up in the way I should have stepped up with the ownership and let them do the right thing. It was a problem for me to see him there."
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Between 1992 and 1998, Seattle never won fewer than 55 games in a full season. The 1995–96 squad went 64–18, made it to the NBA Finals and pushed the Michael Jordan-led Chicago Bulls to six games. Yet, for all their power and promise, there would be no ring, and by 1997, the engine began to fall apart.
In truth, the bouncy forward's exit from Seattle was tangled in contract frustrations and front office decisions that left him undervalued. He had just helped take the Sonics to the Finals, yet found himself making significantly less than newcomer Jim McIlvaine, whose contract set off a firestorm in the locker room.
"The Reignman," who had been a member of the All-NBA Second Team in 1996 and averaged 18.7 points and 10.0 rebounds per game that season, felt disrespected. And GP, who was close enough to know exactly how deep that sting went, now wonders if he could have done more to mend it.
What followed was a trade that sent Kemp to the Cavs, a team that lacked Seattle's defensive identity and discipline. It also sent him far from the culture and routine that had kept him grounded.
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Kemp's lost path
Initially, all seemed well. In Cleveland, Shawn posted career-high averages — 20.5 points and 9.2 rebounds in the 1997–98 season — but something had already shifted.
His weight ballooned, his explosiveness began to fade and his struggles with substance use slowly took hold. Payton doesn't sugarcoat Kemp's Cleveland chapter. He respects the numbers, but sees the pain behind them.
"But as I look at it, that was the best year Shawn ever had," Payton said. "In Cleveland, being a big … he admitted to me that was the best season he ever had. But he got lost after that."
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It wasn't just about basketball anymore. Kemp's personal life grew heavier.
By the early 2000s, he had been suspended multiple times for violating the league's substance abuse policy. His weight issues plagued the final years of his career and while he made brief stops in the Portland Trailblazers and Orlando Magic, the burst that once defined him had vanished.
For a player who made six All-Star teams before turning 30, the iconic forward's decline was steep and unsettling. And for Gary, who continued his career into the mid-2000s — winning a title with the Miami Heat in 2006 — the contrast stung. Both came into the league young, wild and relentless.
But one soared longer. And that, to "The Glove," is something he still feels partially responsible for.
Related: Shaq threatened Gary Payton's agent to join the Purple and Gold in 2003: "He told me he'd break my neck if I don't get Gary to the Lakers"