Scott Fowler: Alonzo Mourning trade changed Hornets. He would've stayed for 'a lot less money.'

MIAMI — Alonzo Mourning would have become the greatest player in Charlotte Hornets history — if he had only stuck around.

Mourning played his first three NBA seasons with Charlotte after the Hornets drafted him No. 2 overall in 1992. He quickly turned into an intimidating, 6-foot-10 star for a Charlotte team on the rise. His scowl could scare you. His dunks could dent the hardwood. But a salary dispute led to the Hornets trading Mourning in November 1995 to Miami, where he became an even bigger star, won an NBA title in 2006 and eventually made the Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility in 2014.

For his “Sports Legends of the Carolinas” interview with The Charlotte Observer, we met Mourning in Miami, where he still lives and works for the Miami Heat, now as the team’s vice president of player programs.

Mourning, 54, discussed his years in Charlotte in detail and said he wanted to stay in Charlotte badly enough that he would have given the Hornets a substantial financial discount if they would have valued him correctly and kept him.

“I’m going to be extremely transparent to everybody out there,” Mourning said at one point in the interview. “Listen, I was willing to take a lot less money than I received in Miami.”

Mourning also discussed his life-threatening kidney disease and subsequent transplant in 2003, as well as his memory of making the greatest shot in Charlotte Hornets history in 1993. This interview is edited for clarity and brevity. A fuller version is available on the “Sports Legends of the Carolinas” podcast.

— Scott Fowler: Tell me about growing up in Virginia.

— Alonzo Mourning: I was born in Norfolk. My mom had five sisters and five brothers. And my dad had two sisters. So we had a pretty big family. At 12 years old, I moved to Chesapeake, Va. My mom and dad ended up getting a divorce and they went their separate ways.

They had some serious issues at that time. So I had to make some decisions for myself. I fell into the foster care system and got picked up by a woman by the name of Fannie Threet. Very angelic woman. Fostered 49 kids in her lifetime. ... Ms. Threet took me in. ... I went to Indian River High School and ended up becoming the No. 1 high school player in the country.

And a lot of that was due to Fannie’s tutelage, helping me understand the responsibilities of being a man. She’s a very faith-based woman. She instilled that in me, as well as understanding the importance of the blessings that God has given us on a regular basis, and appreciating that, and doing something with your blessings by blessing others. And she was a retired schoolteacher. So education was a priority.

...continued

swipe to next page