Latrell Sprewell Choking Incident Often Gave Media Wrong Idea

Zachary Draves | Oct 17, 2024

Feb 4, 2023; New York, New York, USA; Former NBA player Latrell Sprewell at Madison Square Garden. Mandatory Credit: Wendell Cruz-Imagn Images / Wendell Cruz-Imagn Images

The media got it wrong when it came to how it portrayed former NBA player Latrell Sprewell.

In 1997, Sprewell infamously choked his coach P.J. Carlesimo when he was playing for the Golden State Warriors. Sprewell received a 68 game suspension and labeled a pariah.

In January 1999, Sprewell was traded to the New York Knicks in exchanged for Terry Cummings, Chris Mills and the Knicks beloved two guard John Starks.

At the time, Sprewell still had the incident hanging over his head. The media constantly brought it up and were largely adamant about portraying him in a negative light.

One of those media members was former New York Times columnist Mike Wise. He was assigned to write about Sprewell being a massive stain on the game of basketball.

He wrote the piece, but ultimately had an epiphany about Sprewell's game.

"The New York Times Magazine asked me to write a long piece on Sprewell about not why he's a bad person, but why he's bad for a basketball team," he said in an interview with Back In the Day Hoops on SI. "I just carved a hole in the guy's head. But the trouble is by the time it came out they were like streaking and I was just getting killed left and right. At some point I think I wrote a column saying this guy wasn't bad for the Knicks."

Then one day, Wise took a chance and chopped it up with Sprewell.

"During the height of the criticism, I always do this I went up to Sprewell," he said. "I said look I want to know are you OK with it? I'm waiting for him to choke me like Carlesimo and he puts his arm around and he goes "oh Mike manI'm sorry I haven't read it yet". We think some of these players, some of them like their friends tell them exactly what is written and they take whatever they want out of it, but Sprewell didn't care. I could have wrote Sprewell was the godsend to basketball and it would have been the same thing. He was just oblivious too it and I thought "alright OK" now I get Latrell. He's a free radical man and he's on his own."

Sprewell became one of the most popular players on the Knicks. He helped the Knicks get to the 1999 NBA Finals as an eighth seed before losing to the San Antonio Spurs in five games.

Zachary Draves is a contributor to Back In the Day Hoops On SI. He can be reached at zdraves1013@gmail.com and on Instagram @zdraves0633.

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