By: HISTORY.com Editors

1997

NBA suspends Latrell Sprewell for attacking coach

Published: November 16, 2009Last Updated: May 27, 2025

On December 4, 1997, the National Basketball Association (NBA) suspends Latrell Sprewell, three-time All Star point guard for the Golden State Warriors, for one year after he attacked Warriors’ coach P.J. Carlesimo. During practice on December 1, Sprewell had a verbal confrontation with Carlesimo when the coach told him to “put a little mustard” on a pass. When Carlesimo approached him, Sprewell grabbed the coach around the neck and began choking him, until he was pulled away by several other players and team officials. Told to leave practice, Sprewell returned within 20 minutes and threw a punch at Carlesimo before he was again pulled away.

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Carlesimo, who was known for his aggressive and often confrontational coaching style, had a history of problems with Sprewell, having previously benched the guard—his team’s leading scorer—after he was late to practice. The Warriors initially terminated Sprewell’s contract, and his year-long suspension was the longest ever handed out by the NBA. After Sprewell pushed for arbitration, the sentence was later reduced to 68 games, a gap that still cost Sprewell some $6 million in wages. After Sprewell was reinstated, Golden State traded him to the New York Knicks, where he resumed his career in 1999 and was embraced by the fans as a rebellious antihero. Carlesimo was fired by Golden State early in the 1999 season after his team limped to a 6-21 start.

In July 2003, the Knicks traded Sprewell to the Minnesota Timberwolves. During his 13 seasons with the NBA, Sprewell racked up an average of 18.3 points per game, and helped lead the Timberwolves to a berth in the playoffs during the 2004-05 season, When the season ended, however, Sprewell rejected a three-year, $21 million extension offer from the Timberwolves. As of late 2007, he remained a free agent.

Timeline

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1780

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A force of Continental dragoons commanded by Colonel William Washington–General George Washington’s second cousin once removed–corners Loyalist Colonel Rowland Rugeley and his followers in Rugeley’s house and barn near Camden, South Carolina, on December 4, 1780. After nearly a year of brutal backcountry conflict between Washington and the fierce British commander Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton […]

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1783

George Washington bids farewell to his officers

On December 4, 1783, future President George Washington, then commanding general of the Continental Army, summons his military officers to Fraunces Tavern in New York City to inform them that he will be resigning his commission and returning to civilian life. Washington had led the army through six long years of war against the British […]

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1867

Oliver Kelley organizes the Grange

Former Minnesota farmer Oliver Hudson Kelley founds the Grange, which became a powerful political force among western farmers. Though he grew up in Boston, Kelley decided in his early twenties that he wanted to become a farmer. In 1849, he booked passage on a steamboat for St. Paul, Minnesota. Though the Minnesota area was dominated […]

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1917

Psychiatrist reports on the phenomenon of shell shock

Well-known psychiatrist W.H. Rivers presents his report The Repression of War Experience, based on his work at the Craiglockhart War Hospital for Neurasthenic Officers, to the Royal School of Medicine, on this day in 1917. Craiglockhart, near Edinburgh, was one of the most famous hospitals used to treat soldiers who suffered from psychological traumas as […]

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1928

“Irish Godfather” killed by car bomb in St. Paul, Minnesota

“Dapper Dan” Hogan, a St. Paul, Minnesota saloonkeeper and mob boss, is killed on December 4, 1928 when someone plants a car bomb under the floorboards of his new Paige coupe. Doctors worked all day to save him–according to the Morning Tribune, “racketeers, police characters, and business men” queued up at the hospital to donate […]

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1942

Polish Christians come to the aid of Polish Jews

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1969

Police kill two members of the Black Panther Party

Black Panthers Fred Hampton, 21, and Mark Clark, 22, are gunned down by 14 police officers as they lie sleeping in their Chicago, Illinois, apartment. About a hundred bullets had been fired in what police described as a fierce gun battle with members of the Black Panther Party. However, ballistics experts later determined that only […]

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1991

Hostage Terry Anderson freed in Lebanon

Islamic militants in Lebanon release kidnapped American journalist Terry Anderson after 2,454 days in captivity.

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1992

President Bush orders U.S. troops to Somalia

President George H.W. Bush orders 28,000 U.S. troops to Somalia, a war-torn East African nation where rival warlords were preventing the distribution of humanitarian aid to thousands of starving Somalis. In a military mission he described as “God’s work,” Bush said that America must act to save more than a million Somali lives, but reassured […]

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2009

Amanda Knox convicted of murder in Italy

On December 4, 2009, 22-year-old American exchange student Amanda Knox is convicted of murdering her British roommate, Meredith Kercher, in 2007 in Perugia, Italy. Knox received a 26-year prison sentence, while her 25-year-old Italian ex-boyfriend, Raffaelle Sollecito, who also was convicted in the slaying, was sentenced to 25 years behind bars. The sensational, high-profile case […]

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2012

Typhoon “Pablo” kills over 1,000 people in the Philippines

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