pleaded guilty<\/a> to an assault charge in May as part of a plea agreement.<\/p>\nNo one was hurt in the March 2023 shooting.<\/p>\n
Kemp said he acted in self-defense and returned fire after one of the men shot at him from inside their Toyota 4Runner vehicle.<\/p>\n
The defense also claimed that the two men Kemp shot at provoked the shooting by stealing Kemp’s truck, his cellphone and memorabilia in Seattle. The judge agreed.<\/p>\n
Using a phone-tracking app, Kemp located and briefly tried to talk to the driver of the 4Runner that was circling a casino parking lot, according to the trial brief. The men in the vehicle afterward dumped some of Kemp’s belongings but kept the phone, the brief says.<\/p>\n
Kemp later saw his phone was near the Tacoma Mall. He drove there, spotted the same 4Runner and “expressed his understandable frustration” with the driver, according to the brief. The man in the back seat “fired off a round from a handgun at Mr. Kemp. Mr. Kemp returned fire and attempted to disable the Toyota. It did not work,” the document said.<\/p>\n
The 4Runner fled, and when the vehicle was found abandoned days later, an empty holster was found inside, but there was no gun, according to court documents.<\/p>\n
After the hearing, Kemp said in an interview that “the last three years have been tough.” He said he plans to be an advocate against gun violence, especially among youth.<\/p>\n
“Think twice,” he said. “Think twice when you get mad. Think twice when you get a little upset.”<\/p>\n
Several people sent letters of support to the court on Kemp’s behalf. About 30 people attended the hearing, including his pastor and former NFL star Marshawn Lynch.<\/p>\n
Kemp debuted in the NBA during the 1989-90 season as a 20-year-old who never played college basketball. He also played for the Cleveland Cavaliers, Portland Trail Blazers and Orlando Magic and was known for his high-flying dunks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Aug 22, 2025, 09:02 PM ET TACOMA, Wash. — Former NBA star Shawn Kemp was sentenced Friday to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":90116,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,459,82],"class_list":["post-90115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90115"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90115\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}