Now that he has truly decided to retire, on his own terms, after 11 national titles over the last 13 seasons (not counting the unfinished 2019/20 COVID-impacted season), three in a row at Olimpia Milan, the time has come to pay homage to one of the greatest American players who have ever come to Europe and the most successful of them all. Kyle Hines was an “old school” player in terms of spirit and mentality and “new school” in terms of his way of playing the game. A center who brought the ball up, an additional point guard, or a point-center as now the job is called. A center who could switch and defend against penetrations and isolation plays performed by smaller, faster guards. He was a player considered out of place because too small and who has always defeated the laws of physical size and the number one rule of basketball: you cannot teach height so taller players will always have the edge against smaller ones. Not against Kyle Hines, not if you have to go around him only to find him, so fast, where you wanted to get to, first. And yet, the size of the player is not comparable to the size of the human being. A leader, an educated person, a man very protective of his origins, attached to his family, to his principles. An honest and loyal fighter, with himself, with his teammates, with his opponents. Hines was the player who, if he complains, must be right, because he never complains if he is wrong. He was the player who has always been lauded by his opponents and the other teams’ fans, because you cannot have nothing against someone who fights with this kind of respect, with that style.
(An earlier version of this story was publiched when Kyle Hines set the record for most games played in the EuroLeague)
Sicklerville, New Jersey, is a small town, home to 50,000 people along the American East Coast, crossed by the Atlantic City Expressway which in 40 minutes takes you straight to the ocean, to one of the gambling capitals of the country. But the inhabitants of the town founded in 1851 by John Sickler, hence the name, prefer to gravitate towards the Delaware River and the city of Philadelphia. In easy traffic conditions, you can reach the heart of the City of Brotherly Love in 25 minutes. Kyle Hines is from Sickerville and is a Philadelphia sports fanatic, like his younger brother Tyler, like their father. They say that his grandfather placed the basketball in his cradle, but he also tried athletics, karate and football. But when it came time to go to high school and had to travel 20 miles every morning to get to Camden, basketball became his only passion. Fortunately, Timber Creek High School opened in 2001, much closer and more accessible from Sicklerville. “I am proud to have been part of a completely new school. Mine was one of the first classes to graduate. Every summer when I come home, I like to see how the school has evolved and developed. I’m happy to help,” he says.
The basketball team’s coach was Gary Saunders, brother of Leon Saunders who had been Julius Erving’ teammate at Roosevelt High School on Long Island (it is in the New York area but not far from South Jersey where Kyle comes from) in the 1960s. Erving, the legendary Doctor J: at that time, he wore number 42. Saunders decided that Hines had a similar personality and wanted him to wear the 42. “For me the motivation is an honor, Doctor J was a legendary player, but also a great person,” Kyle says.
Kyle Hines was an excellent player at Timber Creek, but when you are confined to a small town in southern New Jersey, far from the eyes of the big colleges, it is not easy to catch their gaze, the so-called “Exposure”. Hines was then built like a linebacker, but his game at the time was more suited for a 6-foot-10 guy (in reality it wasn’t exactly like that: many have always missed Hines’ incredible ball-handling). Mitch Buonaguro, an assistant coach at UNC-Greensboro, was the first to notice it and reported it to his head coach, Fran McCaffery who is from Philadelphia. So, Kyle was recruited.
His Spartans immediately became a powerhouse in the Southern Conference. The point guard was Ricky Hickman, Kyle Hines was the center. Five European championships on a starting five. At UNC-Greensboro, Hines set all kinds of school records, on top of being conference player of the year as a junior and finishing second to Steph Curry – who played at Davidson – as a senior. His college career was of the highest level: he was one of only six players in history to have accumulated at least 2,000 points, 1,000 rebounds and 300 blocks in his career. The other five? Four No. 1s pick (Pervis Ellison, David Robinson, Tim Duncan and Derrick Coleman) and one No. 2 (Alonzo Mourning).
And, still, problems had to be overcome. After two years, Coach McCaffery left UNC-Greensboro to move up the ranks, to Siena College, and now leads an important college like Iowa. In short, he has come a long way. Mitch Buonaguro followed him. In college basketball at that time, changing schools was allowed without taking the customary one-year out, only in exceptional cases, such as when a coach leaves one job for another. Hines could have taken advantage of it, gone to a school that could give him more exposure, but he felt comfortable at UNCG and decided to stay with the new coach, Mike Dement. Changing often is not for him. “It wasn’t easy because Coach McCaffery was one of the main reasons for my choice,” he says.
His draft should have been the one of 2008. He had played for a small school, in a conference considered weak, but he had great numbers during a stint dominated by Steph Curry’s Davidson. Hines showed up in Portsmouth, at the pre-draft camp, showing his energy and amazing athletic skills. When they measured him, he reported an unusual 3.8 percent body fat. But his height was immediately a problem. Wearing shoes, he was six feet, five inches and 25. Hines was labeled a small forward/power forward on the NBA’s official website. Nobody had the courage to identify a 6-foot-5 player as a center. Yet, in Portsmouth, Hines was devastating. In three days of games, he shot 22-for-28 from the field, a 78,6 percent shooting that is an all-time tournament record. He averaged 17.3 points per game, fourth overall. He made 10 blocks, grabbed 7.3 rebounds per game and made 2.3 steals per game. But he wasn’t selected.
He didn’t take it well, honestly. He didn’t imagine what would happen shortly, otherwise he would have come to terms with it. He tried out for Oklahoma City, for Charlotte, near the college he had attended for four years, a career that included a retired jersey. Then he was invited to Cleveland. His chances didn’t look good, even though he was invited to two summer leagues. First in Orlando and then in Las Vegas. “In Orlando – says Antonello Riva, then general manager of Veroli, a former Olimpia Milan legend who was there to scout him – they made him play as a small forward. It was a disaster. I turned to my coach in Veroli, Andrea Trinchieri, and asked him what he thought of doing with that player. But after a few days we went to see him in Las Vegas, he was playing with Charlotte. His team was losing. Then he came in and changed everything. He played at his position and made blocks, dunks, scored on a break. I thought we had to sign him before someone else did. In the two years he was in Veroli he was always the first to come to practice and the last to leave the gym. His career is a tribute to his character, because he has always had seriousness, concentration and stubbornness.”
Veroli signed him and he stayed for two years. Two seasons spent in the second division in Italy. “I was in a small city, really small, but I wouldn’t have become who I am without Veroli. I met important people, like Jerome Allen on the court, Trinchieri and Massimo Cancellieri as coaches, Antonello Riva as general manager. I was a kid who had never traveled. The city was small, but it kind of adopted me, they did everything to allow me to feel protected,” he says. It is easy to say now that everything began in Veroli and everything was immediately clear. It wasn’t at all. In Veroli, Hines remained for two years. An undersize center didn’t convince anyone back then. It didn’t’ matter if they won the Italian Cup of the second division twice. “Before going to college, I had never left South Jersey and Philadelphia, before Veroli I had never been anywhere in the world. It opened my mind. I had to force myself to speak Italian. But in thirty minutes I could pass by the Colosseum. There are people saving money their whole lives to be able to see the Colosseum one day. I could see it any random Tuesday morning I wanted to see it. I’ve never forgotten how lucky I was.”
The scout from Bamberg was a guy named Brandon Rooney. He suggested Hines to the team’s general manager, Wolfgang Heyder. “They had won the German title and decided to focus on a guy who came from the Italian second division. No one else would have done it,” he recalls gratefully. The coach was the Canadian Chris Fleming, who is now an assistant coach in Chicago in the NBA, who built the team around him. He stayed in Germany for a year, won the German title as MVP and got to know the EuroLeague. He scored 20 points on his debut in Rome, right where he had daydreamed of playing at that level one day. “I watched one game in Rome when I was in Veroli and tweeted live about it. It looked very far from Veroli,” he said. The second game was a resounding home win against Olympiacos. Maybe that’s when they decided to sign him eventually. The Greeks were fighting to win the title, the coach was the great Dusan Ivkovic and the general manager Christos Stavropoulos, who would then sign him a second time, for Olimpia.
Kyle Hines won the EuroLeague twice more in Moscow, in 2016 and again in 2019 when he played alongside Sergio Rodriguez. At CSKA, where he was coached by Ettore Messina for one season, he twice became EuroLeague defensive player of the year and was finally included in the All-decade EuroLeague team. “When I started playing in the EuroLeague, in Bamberg, I would never have imagined anything like this, such a long career, all the wins and all the Final Fours,” he confessed. In Milan, he then won the defender of the year award for the third time. They might have to rename the trophy after him.
“In my career I have been lucky: I played near Rome and saw the Colosseum, I was in Athens and walked on the track of the first modern Olympics, living a few meters from the sea, I was in Moscow regularly passing through Red Square. And basketball has taken me to places that I would have never seen otherwise”, he confessed in the United States where in the summer he is active with camps and activities for kids, with his brother Tyler and his wife Gianna, a former player inducted to Adelphi University’s Hall of FAme with whom he has three beautiful children. “When I was a kid, there were no camps and opportunities in our area, we had to go outside or to the Philadelphia area, so we thought we would help those in our position,” he explained.
Hines came to Milan in the summer of 2020 and in Milan he extended furthermore his streak of participation in the Final Four. No American players has taken part in as many Final Fours or won as many titles as he has. He always did it with class, style, education, appreciation for what he found in Europe. The American players, not just his teammates, look at him like they look at a legend.
The Americans arrive late in the EuroLeague and finish playing before the Europeans, for obvious reasons. This is why Hines’ numbers are so amazing. Being the prototypical team player, however, the statistic that means the most is that of championships and games won. “If I look back – he concludes – I have no regrets, I got to know Europe, I played in the EuroLeague, I had many life experiences, I won a lot, I played with great players and for great coaches, for some of the clubs with the most history in the world. I always had the dream of playing in the NBA, but today I’m happy that it didn’t come true. I understood at a certain point that my real dream was another, and it was here in Europe. During my first four years in Europe, I thought it was a path and that I would end up playing there. But after four seasons, I was in Athens, I stopped thinking about it,” he says.
A clip with its spectacular actions can be achieved through a miraculous, unexpected block, generated not so much by his leaping ability, but by strength, timing and jumping speed. Or it can involve him leading a fastbreak only to dish an assist at the end. Offensive rebounds are his signature trait. But his secret is in the seriousness with which he prepared, his application, his intelligence. And then all this became charisma. Kyle Hines is to modern-day basketball what Dino Meneghin was to 1980s basketball. It is never a matter of personal statistics; their enormity only serves to generate the only thing that really matters to him. WIN.
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