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Kevin Johnson (basketball player)

American basketball player and politician (born 1966)

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 24, 2026
Entity authorityQ203286 ↗
Source-derived summary

Kevin Maurice Johnson (born March 4, 1966), also known by his initials KJ, is an American former professional basketball player and politician who served as the 55th mayor of Sacramento, California, from 2008 to 2016. Before entering politics, he played 12 seasons in the National Basketball Association (NBA), primarily with the Phoenix Suns.

Johnson played college basketball at the University of California, Berkeley, where he was named a two-time All-Pac-10 Conference player and an honorable-mention All-American by the Associated Press. A point guard, he was selected by the Cleveland Cavaliers in the first round of the 1987 NBA draft as the seventh overall pick. Before the end of his first season, Johnson was traded to Phoenix, where he spent the remainder of his NBA career. Among other accolades, Johnson was a three-time NBA All-Star and a four-time second team All-NBA selection along with holding numerous records for the Phoenix Suns organization. Johnson initially retired from the NBA following the 1997–98 season, but returned in 2000 to play several games for the Suns during their playoff run before retiring again. The Suns retired his number 7 on March 7, 2001.

Following his initial retirement, Johnson earned a B.A. in political science from U.C. Berkeley. A member of the Democratic Party, he founded St.

Editorial summary

“Kevin Johnson (basketball player)” enters the record as american basketball player and politician (born 1966). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Kevin, Johnson and basketball can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA useful biographical orientation record, particularly for establishing names, roles and a first chronology. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1966, 2008, 2016, 1987—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1966-03-04. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Kevin, Johnson and basketball.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Kevin Johnson (basketball player)” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Kevin, Johnson and basketball provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q203286. VIAF identifies the subject as 28794088. The Library of Congress control number is n96044988. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1966, 2008, 2016 and 1987.

Critical limits

Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Kevin Johnson (basketball player)”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Kevin Johnson (basketball player) primary sources, Kevin Johnson (basketball player) archive and Kevin research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Kevin Johnson (basketball player)”?
  2. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
  3. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Kevin Johnson (basketball player)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.