Kiki Vandeweghe

Ernest Maurice "Kiki" Vandeweghe III (born August 1, 1958) is a basketball executive, currently the vice-president of basketball operations of the National Basketball Association. Vandeweghe is a retired American professional basketball player and was formerly general manager of the Denver Nuggets and the New Jersey Nets, and a head coach of the Nets.

Vandeweghe was born in Wiesbaden, West Germany, the son of former NBA player Ernie Vandeweghe and Colleen Kay Hutchins, the winner of the 1952 Miss America pageant. He is also the nephew of another NBA player, four-time All-Star Mel Hutchins. He has a niece, Coco Vandeweghe, who is a professional tennis player. Vandeweghe and his wife Peggy have one son, Ernest Maurice Vandeweghe IV, born in 2002.

As a player, Vandeweghe was regarded as an excellent scorer and outside shooter, averaging 20 points for seven consecutive seasons. His offensive repertoire was essentially limited to a single move, the stepback, but he was so proficient at this lone move that it was often referred to as the "Kiki Move" toward the end of his career.^[1] Vandeweghe's teams qualified for the NBA playoffs in 12 of his 13 seasons in the league, although none of his teams ever won the NBA championship.

Collegiate basketball career

Vandeweghe was a collegiate star at UCLA, where he (along with head coach Larry Brown) led the Bruins to the 1980 NCAA championship game, which they lost to Louisville.

NBA career (as player)

Vandeweghe was drafted 11th overall in the 1980 NBA Draft by the Dallas Mavericks, but refused to play for Dallas and demanded a trade (for virtually the remainder of his career, he was subjected to boos whenever he played in Dallas). He got his wish, and was traded to the Nuggets on December 3 of that same year. As a member of the Nuggets, Vandeweghe was twice selected to the NBA Western Conference All-Star team, in 1983 and 1984. He was second in scoring in 1983, averaging 26.7 points, and 3rd in 1984 with a career-high 29.4 points.

During the 1983-84 Nuggets season, Vandeweghe scored 50 or more points in two NBA record-setting games. The former game, on December 13, 1983, in which he had a career-high 51 points, is also the highest combined scoring game in NBA history, a 186-184 triple-overtime loss to the Detroit Pistons.^[2] Vandeweghe subsequently had 50 points in another high-scoring game, this one a 163-155 win over the San Antonio Spurs on January 11, 1984 (at the time, the highest combined scoring NBA regulation game of all time).^[3]

In the summer of 1984, Vandeweghe was traded to the Portland Trail Blazers in exchange for Calvin Natt, Wayne Cooper, Fat Lever, and two draft picks. Vandeweghe had several productive seasons in Portland, where he averaged nearly 25 points a game. He paired with Clyde Drexler to form a dynamic scoring duo. However, during the 1987–88 season, Vandeweghe suffered a back injury and lost his starting job to Jerome Kersey. He was traded the next year to the New York Knicks (where his father played his entire career), with whom he played for several years apart from half a season with the Los Angeles Clippers before retiring from the league after the 1992–93 season.

NBA front office management career

Vandeweghe initially had a front-office role with the Dallas Mavericks, where he was instrumental in the development of Dirk Nowitzki. During his time in Dallas, Vandeweghe also briefly served as an assistant head coach. On August 9, 2001, Vandeweghe was named to the Nuggets' general manager position and oversaw a return by the Nuggets to the NBA playoffs. Major moves by Vandeweghe included the drafting of Carmelo Anthony in 2003, the trade for Marcus Camby in 2002 and the hiring of George Karl as head coach in 2005. However, some other moves by Vandeweghe backfired outright or failed to produce the desired returns, such as the drafting of draft bust Nikoloz Tskitishvili in 2002 and the sign-and-trade deal with the New Jersey Nets to acquire Kenyon Martin at the end of the 2003–04 season. Shortly following a first-round playoff elimination at the hands of the Clippers in the 2006 playoffs, the Nuggets announced that Vandeweghe's contract would not be renewed.

He spent 2006–07 as an NBA analyst for ESPN, appearing on the channel's SportsCenter and NBA Shootaround programs, among others. However, on December 31, 2007, the Nets announced that Vandeweghe would join the team as a special assistant to team president and general manager Rod Thorn. Vandeweghe replaced Ed Stefanski, who left the Nets to join the Philadelphia 76ers earlier in the month. Stefanski replaced Billy King as the 76ers' general manager.

On December 1, 2009, Vandeweghe agreed to assume duties as interim head coach of the Nets while continuing to be general manager of the team (although assistant coach Tom Barrise served as head coach for their December 2 game). Vandeweghe replaced Lawrence Frank as head coach after the Nets started the 2009–10 season with 16 consecutive losses. Vandeweghe hired Del Harris as an assistant, who was to be his "virtual co-coach",^[4] though he resigned midway through the season on February 2, 2010.^[5] Harris resigned after he learned that a possible side deal that he had made with Vandeweghe to become head coach had failed.^[6]

After Nets ownership changed hands, Mikhail Prokhorov announced that Vandeweghe would not return the following season.

References

External links

• Denver Nuggets profile
• Basketball Reference page on Kiki Vandweghe