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| Bo Kimble Knicks Basketball Card / Hoops |
The toughest sight in sports is when a player doesn’t live up to his potential. Derrick Rose and Andrew Wiggins may come to mind, but one that perhaps doesn’t is Bo Kimble.
Kimble’s journey from college star to NBA bust is one of the most remarkable in basketball history, and the Loyola Marymount grad’s career could go down in history as the greatest that never was.
The 54-year-old had a compelling, illustrious college career. After leaving the University of Southern California due to a falling out with new head coach George Raveling, he and his longtime friend and teammate Hank Gathers both transferred to Loyola Marymount.
Teaming up with Gathers and NBA Champion coach Paul Westhead, Kimble led Loyola Marymount to be arguably the most exciting team in college basketball history. Westhead installed a very fast-paced, run-and-gun style of play, featuring a constant full-court press on defense. His college run’s pinnacle was during his senior year, where he led the entire nation in scoring and was named a second team All-American.
However, when it all seemed to be going well, tragedy struck. Gathers collapsed on the court during the semifinals of the West Coast Conference Basketball Tournament, and he devastatingly passed away.
The tournament was canceled, and Loyola was awarded a spot in the NCAA Division I Tournament due to their first place spot in the regular-season standings. Kimble, along with having to cope with the death of his close friend, now had to lead his team in the toughest college basketball competition in the country.
Pushing through the adversity, Kimble and his team made one of the most memorable, touching runs in college history, losing only in the Elite Eight to the eventual champions University of Nevada. Along the way, Kimble bested eventual 7-time NBA Champion Robert “Big-Shot Bob” Horry, as well as the defending NCAA champions in the University of Michigan.
Perhaps the most memorable moment of all was Kimble’s lefty free-throws, which he took in honor of his fallen teammate. Gathers was actually right-handed, but he was so bad at free throws that he decided to switch to shooting left-handed, and he ultimately ended up with a better free-throw percentage. For every game, Kimble took his first free throw left-handed, converting every single one he attempted.
After the tournament, the Los Angeles Clippers selected Kimble as the eighth pick in the 1990 NBA Draft. Despite a promising start, his time became limited as the months passed, and he spent most of his two years in Los Angeles on the bench for a Clippers team that was considered one of the worst of all time for many years now.
He was traded to the New York Knicks along with Doc Rivers and Charles Smith before the 1992-1993 season. Kimble rarely saw the court, playing only nine games the entire season. He was stuck in a crowded Knicks backcourt that included Doc Rivers and John Starks.
The only game in which he was given significant game time was against the Phoenix Suns, where a massive brawl caused the ejection of four Knicks players. Kimble played 21 minutes and scored 11 points, in what would be his most notable game with the Knicks.
After the season ended, where Jordan and the Bulls bested the Knicks yet again in the Conference Finals, Kimble was cut from the team. In a move that many viewed as inevitable, the Knicks felt that it was the best decision for all parties:
“It was in the best interest of Bo and the Knicks to allow him to seek other opportunities to play at this time,” Knicks General Manager Ernie Grunfeld said.
Just three years ago, he had led America in college scoring, but he now found himself without a team in the NBA. Kimble decided to go overseas to play for CRO Lyon in France’s top division, the Jeep Elite.
The shooting guard averaged about 20 points and five rebounds per game, good for the top ten in scoring. However, Kimble was cut yet again, ending his career in Europe and forcing him to move back to America. At that point, he still felt he was good enough to make it back to the NBA.
“The players know I belong out there,” Kimble told the Los Angeles Times. “The people who watch the game, they don’t understand. All they see is Bo Kimble, great shooter, great scorer, not playing. I’m not going to give up. For a long time.”
Kimble kept trying, but he never did get back into the NBA. He played several years for the Continental Basketball Association, but he was moved around constantly.
His most notable moment was during a game with his first team, the Rapid City Thrillers. After a poor performance, GM/head coach and future NBA coach Eric Musselman asked Kimble and another two former NBA players on the team to name one other team in their CBA division. None of the players could, and they were all scrapped the next day.
“I liked Bo and Rumeal [Robinson, Kimble’s teammate], they were nice guys, but I’ve never traded two guys who were less valuable,” Musselman told Sports Illustrated.
Kimble’s attitude towards the CBA never allowed him to be successful there because he knew he was too good for it, and he acted like it. Looking back on his career, Kimble blames the Clippers organization for stunting his progress and setting him on a path to failure.
“I’m used to unity, and there was no unity on the Clippers. I’m used to playing as a team and being together. But NBA basketball is quite different than anything I’ve experienced,” Kimble said. “I didn’t have the support of the coach [Mike Schuler]. If you’re drafted to be the scorer and the shooter, and your coach is telling you, ‘You’re not at Loyola. Don’t shoot this shot, don’t shoot this shot.’ Well, then you start to wonder. I kind of lost my identity of who I really was. If I can’t shoot and score, do what I do best, well, then what do you want me to do?”
Kimble had always been associated with the unconventional system he thrived under at Loyola, and therefore most scouts believed he couldn’t make it in the NBA. But Kimble always had the talent to succeed, he just became a victim of unfortunate circumstances.
“It becomes easy to track,” his college coach Westhead told the Los Angeles Times. “Once your minutes go down, if you’re a shooter you start playing tight. If you’re not making shots, your minutes keep going down, and unfortunately what happens to a player is he begins to second-guess his shot and he goes spinning downward.”
Kimble’s impact during his only season in New York, and his career as a whole, was not what he expected. He very likely had more to offer than he was given credit for, especially considering everything he did to get to the NBA. He was dealt an awful hand and overcame it to will his team through with a natural-born leadership reminiscent of Michael Jordan.
Kimble’s determination, mentality, and sheer will to win made him one of the most talented players to fall through the cracks in the NBA.
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