Retired NBA veteran Kendall Gill’s name was in the news last week when his old coach, George Karl released his book, Furious George: My Forty Years Surviving NBA Divas, Clueless GMs, and Poor Shot Selection.The book earned that attention because of excerpts detailing his relationship with J.R. Smith, Carmelo Anthony and Kenyon Martin.
Karl also included detailed Gill. According to Karl, he felt that while Gill was ‘a bad teammate,’ while Gill played for him as a member of the Seattle Supersonics from 1993-95. “I was always a good teammate,” Gill told CBS’s Tiki and Tierney.
“Always, always played within my team. As a matter of fact, George Karl himself said I was too unselfish to become a superstar. He told me that. And now, what you’re telling me – that he said I was a bad teammate – I take that personally. You can ask anybody that I’ve ever played with. Was I selfish? I was never any of those things. For him to come out and say that about me is simply wrong.
Gill’s 15-year NBA career produced 13 points, four rebounds and 1.89 steals per game. His best season was in 1999 as a member of the New Jersey Nets. While there, Gill led the league in assists with 2.68 and locked down Vince Carter, Allen Iverson, Kobe Bryant and Grant Hill.
Despite Karl’s claim, he always seemed to get along with teammates like Jayson Williams who once said: “Kendall is a total professional, a hard worker and easy to be around.”
During Gill’s time as a Net, he found time to chat on the Nets Slammin Planet show. He spoke reverently about boxer Muhammad Ali and Walter Payton being his role models. That interview re-surfaced recently and found it’s way in a repackaged format on the Scoop B Radio Podcast. During the interview, Gill told podcast host, Brandon ‘Scoop B’ Robinson that he enjoyed reading Neale Donald Walsch’s Conversations with God book and how much he enjoyed living in Manhattan while commuting to work in the swamp lands of East Rutherford, New Jersey while playing for the Nets. Check out the interview by clicking here.
