Thursday, July 24, 2008 | 9:54 p.m.
No. 42 for the Worldwide Renegades of Atlanta dragged that big old burden into the Silverado High auxiliary gym Thursday night at the Reebok Summer Championships.
Then he spent as much time on the bench as he did in the game.
Shawn Kemp Jr. noticed that his team pulled even with its opponent, then pulled away to win in the final minutes, with him in foul trouble on the sideline.
“That’s all right,” he said.
With a name like that, Junior might be carrying more weight on his shoulders than any other player in any of the three summer tournaments being staged in Las Vegas.
A top-100 national prospect by one recruiting service, the 6-foot-9 forward from Canton (Geo.) Cherokee High has come to terms with his name after four years in organized basketball.
“It’s a burden,” he said. “People expect me to be like him. I try to be my own person. I’m not my dad. I do what I do.”
Thursday, that meant spending a lot of time in a plastic chair in a tiny gym that was filled with collegiate coaches, parents and fans.
His father, the five-time NBA All-Star who reportedly made $64 million during his career, was not in the building.
Junior is the eldest son of Shawn Kemp, who has fathered at least eight kids with six different women.
“Out of the Reign Man’s scattered DNA,” wrote Sports Illustrated, “has grown another power forward who has played his way onto the national recruiting radar.”
Shawn Kemp Jr., the 17-year-old budding star with the size-19 feet – he’s expected to sprout to 7 feet by age 21 – has had a sporadic relationship with his biological father.
They’ve never lived under the same roof. They’ve never shot hoops together. In 2000, after an NBA game in Atlanta, Junior spoke with pop in person for the first time in four years. A half-brother and half-sister have contacted Junior via the Internet.
Senior rang two years ago, wanting to work on a relationship. Junior might work out with the old man, who’s 38, at his home in Houston when the summer circuit dies down.
He doesn’t play like his dad, Junior has heard from fans. He’s not good.
“Then I started getting better,” said Shawn Kemp Jr. “Yeah, I’ve had a lot to prove, to coaches, just everybody. But I’ve overcome it. I’ll handle it.”
Shawn Kemp Sr. was kicked out of Kentucky before he played a game for the Wildcats. A year later, he made himself available for the NBA draft.
He met Genay Doyal in 1989, in Seattle, soon after the Sonics picked him in the first round. Junior was born in 1991. Senior and Doyal never married, and Doyal moved to Atlanta with Junior when he was 5.
“He tells me to go to college,” Junior says. “He says I need to go to college and get an education, and try to go to the NBA.”
The tattoo on his right shoulder has SK and the No. 40 -- his father's number with the Sonics -- inside a basketball.
Alabama, Georgia, Cincinnati and Mississippi supposedly have offered him scholarships, and Washington and Indiana might be somewhere in the mix.
He said he only knows of offers from Alabama and Auburn.
Kemp showed some smarts Thursday. He failed to bite on one foe’s drive to the hoop, instead staying low to block out his man. The driver missed. Kemp snagged the rebound.
On a pick-and-roll, he didn’t look too graceful trying to snatch the pass for an easy shot on the left side. But, to be fair, it was a lazy, low pass, and it landed out of bounds.
He played very good denial defense but his fade-away 12-foot jumper was way off. He spent the final seven minutes on the bench, cheering his teammates to victory.
“Play hard and work hard,” Kemp Jr. said he has learned from Senior, “and always do your best.”
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