Visit Brings Back Fond Memories for Guy

By Jeff White (jwhite@virginia.edu)
VirginiaSports.com

CHARLOTTESVILLE – The NBA’s Miami Heat played in Washington, D.C., on Monday night, at the same time the Virginia Cavaliers were playing in Durham, N.C.

Miami guard Kyle Guy’s cheering section at Capital One Arena included an aunt and uncle who live in Northern Virginia, as well as his close friend Joe Reed, a former UVA football standout. The Heat defeated the Washington Wizards 121-100 that night, and Guy played the final seven minutes and scored four points. His guests, however, were otherwise occupied for part of that game.

“I talked to them after the game,” Guy recalled with a laugh Tuesday, “and they said, ‘We’re not going to lie. We were watching the UVA game on our phones.’ ”

Guy was a starter on the Virginia team that defeated Duke at Cameron Indoor Stadium on Jan. 27, 2018. That was the program’s first victory at Cameron in 23 years. The Wahoos won there again Monday night, this time prevailing 69-68 on a last-second 3-pointer by guard Reece Beekman.

“I checked the score at halftime [of the Heat-Wizards game],” Guy said, “and then I saw the highlights. It was a fantastic win.”

Alas for Guy, none of his Heat teammates played at Duke.

“There’s an unwritten rule in the NBA that it’s an automatic $100 bet whenever your [college] team plays a teammate’s team,” Guy said. “I was really looking forward to collecting my money.”

He learned more Tuesday about the Hoos’ heart-stopping win in Durham. Guy drove to Charlottesville, got reacquainted with John Paul Jones Arena, and spent most of the day with the UVA men’s basketball staff, including head coach Tony Bennett. It was his first visit to Charlottesville since September 2019, when members of the Cavaliers’ 2018-19 team received their NCAA championship rings.

“I can’t believe it’s been two-and-a-half years since I’d been on Grounds,” Guy said. “Obviously, no one saw COVID coming, so I didn’t get to come back [in the summer of 2020]. And then last summer, the Kings’ training camp was held in L.A. I had a strength guy there, and I was going to have a kid any day in the late summer, so I didn’t get to come again.”

Guy originally planned to return to UVA during the NBA’s All-Star Game break later this month. But once he joined the Heat and saw the team would have a couple of days off after playing in Washington, he decided not to wait.

“I got to come down early and hang out with them for the day,” Guy said. “It was great seeing everybody.”

These are happy times for the 24-year-old Guy, an Indianapolis native who scored 1,323 points in his three seasons at Virginia. He’s a member of one of the NBA’s most successful franchises, and he and his wife, Alexa Jenkins, have a four-month-old son, Chance Anthony Guy. (His parents chose his middle name in honor of Bennett, who’s in his 13^thseason as Virginia’s head coach.)

Moreover, Guy’s favorite NFL team is about to play in the Super Bowl. He’s a long-suffering fan of the Cincinnati Bengals, who meet the Los Angeles Rams on Sunday night at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, Calif.

Guy has two tickets to the game, “for me and my dad,” he said, “but I don’t know if I’m going to be able to go. It’s still in the works.”

His father, Joe Guy, was born and raised in Cincinnati and was on the track & field and football teams at the University of Cincinnati.

“When I was born, there was no choice,” Kyle said. “My dad said, ‘Until you’re 18, you’re a Bengals fan. If you don’t want to be a Bengals fan after that, you don’t have to.’ Somehow, some way, after all this misery, I stuck it out.”

Guy and his wife bought a house in Indiana last summer, and she lives there with Chance and their two dogs.

“They’ve been staying there while I chase my dream, basically,” Guy said, “and now that I’ve stuck somewhere they’re going to come down to Miami shortly.”

In the spring of 2019, after helping the Hoos capture the program’s first NCAA title, Guy gave up his final season of college eligibility and declared for the NBA draft. The New York Knicks selected him 55^th overall and then traded his right to the Sacramento Kings, who signed him as a two-way player.

Guy, who holds UVA’s record for career 3-point percentage (42.5), appeared in three games for the Kings in 2019-20 and 31 in 2020-21. Sacramento did not renew his contract last summer, and he played in 11 for games for the Cleveland Charge in the G League early this season before signing a 10-day contract with Miami in late December.

In his Heat debut, Guy totaled 17 points, four rebounds, four assists and three steals in a New Year’s Eve victory over Houston. He signed a second 10-day contract on Jan. 10. The Heat signed him to a two-way deal a week later, and he has yet to play for its G League affiliate, the Sioux Falls Skyforce.

In 14 appearances for Miami, Guy has averaged 5.2 points and shot 40 percent from 3-point range. He knows how fortunate he is to have moved from Sacramento, a perennially dysfunctional organization, to Miami, the Eastern Conference’s first-place team.

“It’s been great,” Guy said. “It’s a big difference in just the way the day-to-day stuff is approached and the mentality from top to bottom in Miami. You walk in and you immediately get what that culture is about, especially with players like Udonis Haslem and Kyle Lowry, and obviously Erik Spoelstra is one of the better coaches ever. So it’s hard not to win when you surrounded by all that.”

When the Kings released the 6-foot-1 Guy, there was no guarantee he would catch on with another NBA team. That didn’t deter him. He didn’t seriously consider leaving the United States to play pro ball.

“You know me,” Guy said. “I’m very much a big believer in myself, and when I write a goal down or make up my mind, I’m pretty stubborn when it comes to making it happen, and I’ve been successful with that.

“Overseas was absolutely an option I looked into it and heard about. I’m never going to say no without hearing what they have to say. I just felt like I was so close. I played in [nearly] 40 NBA games and one full season in the G League essentially., and I had lot of college experience. I just felt like I was so close to the NBA, I didn’t want to run away from it. Not that if you go overseas you can’t come back, but it’s a different path, and it’s sometimes more challenging.  I just bet on myself, as the kids say these days, and just really believed that it would come to fruition, and it did.”

He follows the Cavaliers from afar, and he’s aware that incoming recruit Isaac McKneely, a sharp-shooting guard from West Virginia, has been compared to him.

“We talked about him a lot at lunch [in Charlottesville],” Guy said, “and TB mentioned the same thing. He’s got a little bit of my swagger and game. I’ve seen a lot of him on Twitter. Obviously, Twitter makes everyone look good, but I’m excited to see him this summer hopefully when he gets to school.

“He looks the part, man. He’s athletic, with great elevation, good-looking shot. He definitely has my ability when it comes to torquing in the air and being able to shoot with different balances, which I think is important. He definitely has a bright future, and I really hope he’s as good as, if not better than, me.”

Another former UVA standout, Anthony Gill, plays for the Wizards, and Guy talked to him before and after the game Monday night. With so many Hoos in the NBA––the list also includes Ty Jerome, Mamadi Diakite, Joe Harris, Malcolm Brogdon, De’Andre Hunter, Trey Murphy III and Sam Hauser–such encounters occur regularly.

“That’s been super awesome,” Guy said. “It’s cool because I saw them, or at least most of them, when nobody believed in them or the odds were stacked against them, and it’s awesome to see how hard everybody worked to get to this point. That’s all Tony’s goal was for us, and for him to help us make that come to fruition, it’s really neat. It definitely brings back memories, and I’m a nostalgic person to begin with.”

Guy, who majored in American studies at UVA, plans to complete his bachelor’s degree, and said he hopes to “to come to Charlottesville for an extended period of time this summer.” His visit Tuesday reminded him how he misses being around his college program.

“I was just with Isaiah Wilkins all day,” Guy said, “having the time of our lives, just laughing and talking about memories. That’s what it’s all about.”

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