Kemp Says Ciao

As you no doubt have read by now, Shawn Kemp's return to professional basketball ended before it began, as the Sonic legend was waived by Premiata Montegranaro this weekend.

Kemp's letter to the club is on the team's website, but it's not too illuminating as to what caused the breakup. His written reason is "personal problems" back home in Houston, but the smart money is more on the physical conditioning of the Reignman more than anything else.

But if you think about it, in a year where the Sonics were ripped from this city with the delicacy of a frontal lobotomy, is it any surprise that one of our heroes falls short as well? What's next, a story revealing that Jack Sikma curled his hair in the lockerroom before games? That Slick Watts was never really "slick" at all? That Gus Williams was not really a wizard, but merely a sorceror's apprentice?