Latrell Sprewell Biography
American former professional basketball player Latrell Fontaine Sprewell (born September 8, 1970) played for the Golden State Warriors, the New York Knicks, and the Minnesota Timberwolves in the National Basketball Association (NBA). Sprewell was chosen for four NBA All-Star games and the All-NBA First Team throughout his career. He also assisted the Knicks in their run to the 1999 NBA Finals and the Timberwolves in their run to the 2004 Western Conference Finals. Despite Sprewell’s successes, a 1997 incident in which he choked and attacked then-Warriors coach P. J. Carlesimo during a practice left a lasting impression and led to a 68-game suspension clouded his career.
Latrell Sprewell Early life
In Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Sprewell attended Washington High School.
Latrell Sprewell Background
Former NBA standout Latrell Fontaine Sprewell played for the Minnesota Timberwolves, the New York Knicks, and the Golden State Warriors. On September 8, 1970, he was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He played basketball when a student at Milwaukee’s Washington High School. He played basketball for the Missouri-based Three Rivers Community College Raiders basketball team from 1988 to 1990, and from 1990 to 1992 he was a member of the University of Alabama team alongside future NBA stars James Robinson, Jason Caffey, and Robert Horry.
He was taken 24th overall by the Golden State Warriors in the 1992 NBA Draft. He started 69 out of 77 games for the Warriors during his rookie season, scoring 15.4 points on average. Over the following few years, he continually worked to raise his performance, and from 1994 to 1997, he was the Western Conference All-Star team’s top scorer.
Despite being well-liked by his teammates, his lack of self-control made his comrades dislike him. He got into a fight with his teammate Jerome Kersey during a practice game in 1995, threatening to bring a gun and threatening to attack him with a big block of wood. He fought with another teammate, Bryon Houston, earlier in 1993. His attack on his coach P. J. Carlesimo in December 1997 for shouting at him during practice was a significant episode. Before his colleagues stepped in, Sprewell grabbed Carlesimo by the throat and dragged him for ten seconds. Later, he struck Carlesimo once more, this time striking him hard in the cheek.
Latrell Sprewell was given a ten-game suspension without pay, but the public was outraged and wanted harsher punishment. His remaining contract, which was worth $23.7 million over three years, was invalidated by the Warriors as a result, and the NBA punished him for a full year. A suspension for the remaining 68 games of the season was imposed on Sprewell after he appealed the verdict before the arbitration committee. In addition, he received a three-month house detention sentence after being accused of careless driving in a collision that resulted in the injuries of two individuals.
Sprewell did not return to the court until the 1999 NBA season, which was a lockout and did not start until February. He then played 37 games that season with the New York Knicks after being dealt to them. After beating the Miami Heat, Atlanta Hawks, and Indiana Pacers to reach the NBA championship game that year, the Knicks came up short and fell to the San Antonio Spurs. Sprewell, though, had a successful season and appeared on the cover of SLAM magazine. His five-year, $62 million contract with the Knicks was extended.
In 2001, he was chosen for the All-Star team. He was fined $250,000 for failing to notify the club management about the event in 2002 when he returned at the start of the season with a broken hand. The Minnesota Timberwolves made him a three-year, $21 million contract in 2004. He rejected the offer, saying it was too low, and finished the season with the Knicks. The Dallas Mavericks and San Antonio Spurs both extended contract offers to him, but he turned them down and opted to remain a free agency.
Latrell Sprewell has experienced a number of legal and money issues. Although the incident was never verified, a lady alleged that Sprewell tried to strangle her while they were together on his yacht in 2006. In 2007, his girlfriend sued him for breaking their relationship agreement on the grounds that he had promised to support her and their four children. After falling behind on his mortgage payments and having one of his homes foreclosed, he ran into financial difficulties and was forced to auction off his yacht for $856,000.
Latrell Sprewell College career
In Poplar Bluff, Missouri, Sprewell participated in competitive basketball games from 1988 to 1990 with the Three Rivers Community College Raiders Basketball Team. From 1990 to 1992, he played for the University of Alabama, where he played alongside future NBA players Robert Horry, Jason Caffey, James Robinson, and Marcus Webb.
Latrell Sprewell Professional career
Golden State Warriors (1992–1998)
Golden State Warriors selected Sprewell with the 24th overall pick in the 1992 NBA Draft. “Spree” Sprewell, who started 69 of the 77 games he participated in as a rookie and averaged 15.4 points per game, had an immediate effect. Over the following several years, his play improved; he was the team’s leading scorer, made the Western Conference All-Star team in 1994, 1995, and 1997, and scored 24.2 ppg in 1996–97, seventh in the league. He set league records for both games played and minutes played in 1993–1994 as the Warriors, under the leadership of Sprewell and power forward Chris Webber, NBA Rookie of the Year, returned to the playoffs. In three games, they were defeated by the Phoenix Suns in the opening round.
1997 choking incident
On December 1, 1997, while the Warriors were in Oakland for practice, Sprewell attacked head coach P. J. Carlesimo, leaving a lasting stain on his career. Sprewell answered that he was not in the mood for criticism and advised the coach to keep his distance after Carlesimo yelled at him to make sharper passes, specifically urging him to “put a little mustard” on a pass. Sprewell yanked Carlesimo backward by the throat as he walked up to him, choking him for seven to ten seconds until his teammates and assistant coaches freed him.
After taking a shower and changing, Sprewell came back a little while later and confronted Carlesimo once more. Before being hauled away by the assistant coaches once more, he delivered a passing punch to Carlesimo’s right cheek. Sprewell had previously been involved in a fight with teammate Jerome Kersey in 1995, returned to practice with a two-by-four, and allegedly threatened to return with a pistol. In a 1993 session, Sprewell squared off against Byron Houston, who was 50 pounds larger than Sprewell and possessed a physique and temperament that many of his colleagues compared to Mike Tyson’s.
Sprewell received a ten-game, no-pay suspension. The Warriors cancelled the remaining portion of his contract, which totaled $23.7 million over three years, the following day in response to a public outcry, and the NBA suspended him for a year. When Sprewell took the matter to arbitration, the decision to nullify the contract was reversed; however, the league nonetheless punished Sprewell for the remaining 68 games of the season without pay. In accordance with the provisions of the collective bargaining agreement, he sought to terminate the arbitration agreement.
His case was remanded after going through all appeals. Sprewell was accused of dangerous driving for his part in a 90 mph crash that wounded two persons while he was serving his suspension. As part of a no-contest plea, he was placed under house arrest for three months.
Before Ron Artest was suspended for the duration of the 2004–05 season (including the playoffs), totaling 86 games, as a result of his involvement in a brawl in Detroit, Sprewell’s 68-game suspension was the NBA’s longest ever.
New York Knicks (1999–2003)
After the Warriors transferred Sprewell to the New York Knicks for John Starks, Chris Mills, and Terry Cummings during the NBA lockout in February 1999, Sprewell was able to resume playing. In all but four of his 37 games for the Knicks that season, Sprewell came off the bench.
Many experts believed that the Knicks were taking too much of a risk by trading for the rumored to be temperamental Sprewell, but Sprewell insisted he had changed.
The Knicks, who at the time were still led by seasoned All-Star center Patrick Ewing, just barely made it into the 1999 postseason field as the eighth seed in the Eastern Conference. As the first eighth seed in NBA history, they beat the Miami Heat, Atlanta Hawks, and Indiana Pacers on their way to the NBA Finals, where they faced the San Antonio Spurs, who defeated them in five games. Overall, Sprewell had a successful series, averaging 26.0 points each game. In the 78-77 Game 5 loss for the Knicks, he scored 35 points and pulled down 10 rebounds. He was also the cover star of the September 1999 issue of SLAM Magazine.
With the help of Sprewell, Ewing, and shooting guard Allan Houston, the Knicks finished the 1999–2000 season with a record of 50–32, good enough for the third seed in the Eastern Conference. Sprewell also moved into the starting lineup for the Knicks at small forward, averaging 18.6 points per game. In the first two rounds of the playoffs, the Knicks defeated the Toronto Raptors in three intense games and the Miami Heat in seven even more intense games to advance to the Eastern Conference Finals against the Indiana Pacers.
But when they were defeated by the Pacers in the Eastern Conference Finals, they were unable to make back-to-back appearances in the NBA Finals. After the series, Sprewell averaged 19.7 points per game, and the Knicks extended his contract by five years and $62 million.
After Ewing was traded to the Seattle SuperSonics for that season, Sprewell assumed leadership of the Knicks, scoring 17.7 points in his lone All-Star appearance for the team that year. Sprewell had another strong season, but the Knicks were defeated by the Toronto Raptors in the opening round of the playoffs in a five-game series. Sprewell averaged 19.4 points per game in 2001–02, scoring 49 points against the Boston Celtics, one of three games in which he did so, although the Knicks missed the playoffs for the first time in 15 years.
Sprewell claimed that he injured his hand while slipping on his boat before to the 2002–03 season when he came to training camp; the Knicks fined him a record $250,000 for neglecting to report the event. After the New York Post reported that he had fractured his hand in a fight, he filed a lawsuit against them. Sprewell lost the court battle.
During that season, Sprewell created NBA history by making the most three-pointers without a single miss and scoring a season-high 38 points against the Los Angeles Clippers by making 9 of 9 three-point attempts in a single game. Ben Gordon, a guard for the Chicago Bulls at the time, has since tied the record twice. After that campaign, in which the Knicks missed the playoffs for a second consecutive year, Sprewell was dealt to the Minnesota Timberwolves as part of a four-team deal involving Terrell Brandon, Keith Van Horn, and Glenn Robinson.
Minnesota Timberwolves (2003–2005)
Along with star power forward Kevin Garnett and point guard Sam Cassell, Sprewell joined the league’s top-scoring trio in the 2003–04 season. With a 58-24 record, the Timberwolves earned the top seed in the Western Conference and a spot in the 2004 playoffs. In the first two rounds of the playoffs, they defeated the Denver Nuggets in five games and the Sacramento Kings in seven. They faced the Los Angeles Lakers in the Western Conference Finals, where they were beaten in six games. This was the Timberwolves’ lone appearance in the conference finals. In terms of team scoring, Sprewell came in third with 16.8 ppg, trailing only Garnett (24.2) and Cassell (19.8).
Sprewell received a three-year, $21 million contract extension from the Minnesota Timberwolves on October 31, 2004, which represented a significant pay decrease. He openly reacted displeasure, claiming to be offended by the offer and said, “I have a family to feed.” The Timberwolves did not make any further offers after he turned down the extension. Sprewell’s worst season of his career occurred in the last year of his contract, after once more earning the wrath of the public and the sports media. The Houston Rockets, Cleveland Cavaliers, and Denver Nuggets all expressed interest in signing Sprewell in the summer of 2005, but none of them actually did. On April 20, 2005, he faced the eventual champion San Antonio Spurs in his final NBA contest.
Without a contract and one month into the 2005–06 season, Sprewell’s agent, Bob Gist, told Sports Illustrated that his client would prefer to retire than play for the NBA’s minimum wage because “Latrell doesn’t need the money that badly.” It would be a slap in the face to accept $1 million after being offered $7 million. A few days later, Gist said that Sprewell intended to hold off on signing with a contending team until “teams get desperate” around the trade deadline in February. However, this scenario never occurred. Gist stated that $5 million was “a level beneath which Sprewell would not stoop or kneel” and that Sprewell would not be interested in signing for any team’s mid-level exception.
The Dallas Mavericks and San Antonio Spurs, who were both seen as heavy favorites to win the NBA Championship at the time, offered Sprewell contracts in March 2006, but he chose not to accept and remained a free agent as the season came to an end. At the beginning of that season, the Los Angeles Lakers also expressed some interest in him, but nothing came of it.
With an overall career average of 18.8 ppg, 4.2 apg, and 4.1 rpg and postseason career averages of 19.7 ppg, 3.4 apg, and 4.3 rpg, Sprewell started 868 of the 913 games he participated in. At the conclusion of his second season, he was chosen for the All-NBA First Team and the All-NBA Defensive Second Team.
Latrell Sprewell Personal life
One of the two pet pit bulls mauled Sprewell’s four-year-old daughter in the family’s backyard in October 1994, biting her in the face and ripping off her ear.
Latrell Sprewell Legal issues
Milwaukee police looked into a 21-year-old woman’s claim that Sprewell started strangling her while they were having consensual sex on his yacht on August 30, 2006. According to reports, the police saw red markings on her neck. Police looking into the claim checked Sprewell’s yacht for relevant information. Police decided not to file charges on September 6. Then Sprewell sought “civil remedies” against the accuser, including a restraining order.
On January 31, 2007, Sprewell’s longtime partner filed a $200 million lawsuit against him for breaking their relationship contract. According to her, Sprewell committed to pay for the college educations of their four children and her.
A federal marshal seized Sprewell’s $1.5 million 70 ft (21 m) yacht on August 22, 2007. He apparently still owing almost $1.3 million for the vessel, which he had neglected to keep paying for and insuring. The yacht was sold at auction for $856,000 in February 2008 after Sprewell missed payments on the mortgage. Three months later, Sprewell’s home in the Milwaukee region entered the foreclosure process. A Westchester County, New York mansion Sprewell owned entered the foreclosure process in July 2009, but that case was rejected on the request of the attorney for another party.
Sprewell owed $3.5 million in back taxes to the state of Wisconsin in 2011. He was detained for disorderly behavior on January 1, 2013, after police received many complaints about loud music.
Who is Latrell Sprewell
He is a Virgo according to the zodiac. Speaking of his schooling, he graduated from Milwaukee, Wisconsin’s Washington High School. Having an American nationality, he is. He therefore practices Christianity.
Latrell Sprewell has a wife. Though the precise date is unknown, he wed Candace Cabbil in 1989. Jarett Sprewell, Tiffany Sprewell, and Tyree Sprewell are the names of the couple’s three children. In the 2003–04 season, along with star power forward Kevin Garnett and point guard Sam Cassell, Sprewell joined the league’s top-scoring trio. On October 31, 2004, the Minnesota Timberwolves made a three-year, $21 million contract extension and salary cut offer to Sprewell. Additionally, Bob Gist, Sprewell’s agent, claimed that his client would prefer to retire than play for the NBA minimum wage one month into the 2005–06 season and without a contract.
What is Latrell Sprewell’s age, height and weight
Latrell, who was born on September 8th, 1970, is currently doing well for himself. He is 52 years old as of September 19, 2023, and he will turn 53 in a little while. His zodiac sign is Virgo, and when it comes to height and weight, he measures 6 feet, 4 inches tall and weighs 86 kg.
What is Latrell Sprewell’s Nationality and Ethnicity?
Latrell was born, grew up, and has lived his entire life in the United States of America. He also has his career and is married there. Sprewell is both an African American and an American by birth.
What is Latrell Sprewell’s profession?
Sprewell participated in competitive basketball in Poplar Bluff with the Three Rivers Community College Raiders Basketball Team from 1988 to 1990 and with the University of Alabama from 1990 to 1992. Later, he played with Jason Caffey, James Robinson, Robert Horry, and Marcus Webb, who would go on to play in the NBA. In the 1992 NBA Draft, Sprewell was chosen by the Golden State Warriors with the 24th overall pick. Additionally, as the Warriors under the leadership of Sprewell and power forward Chris Webber, NBA Rookie of the Year, he topped the league in games played and minutes played per game from 1993 to 1994.
Sprewell’s attack on Warriors head coach P. J. Carlesimo during a practice in Oakland on December 1, 1997, left a lasting stain on his resume. Carlesimo Sprewell threatened to kill him and dragged him backward by his throat until his teammates and assistant coaches pulled him off.
What teams did Latrell Sprewell play for?
Former professional basketball player Latrell Sprewell played for three National Basketball Association (NBA) teams. For the Golden States Warriors from 1992 to 1998, he was a player. Later, he relocated to the New York Knicks, where he played from 1999 till 2003. Later, in 2003, he was moved to the Minnesota Timberwolves, where he remained until his retirement in 2005.
When did Latrell Sprewell retired?
Latrell was selected to the All-NBA First Team during his active years and was a four-time NBA All-Star. He left his job in 2005.
Is Latrell Sprewell a Hall of Famer?
Latrell is not currently a member of the Hall of Fame. But he is still regarded as one of the NBA’s top players.
Who are Latrell Sprewell’s Parent?
Latoska Field and Pamela Sprewell. His parents encouraged him in his work, served as his supporters, and advised him on what to do and when.
Who is Latrell Sprewell married to?  Â
Candace Cabbill is the wife of Latrell. It is known that they have been wed since 1989.
Does Latrell Sprewell have children?
Latrell Sprewell has four great kids, which is a blessing. His children are Tiffany Sprewell, Tyree Sprewell, and Jarett Sprewell.
Does Latrell Sprewell siblings?
Latrell does have siblings, specifically three. He has three siblings: Terran Sprewell, Poinciana Sprewell, and Jarvis McCrary.
