Education
Kleine, a seven-foot center, graduated from Slater High School in Slater, Missouri and originally enrolled to play basketball at the University of Notre Dame.
basketball coach basketball player
Kleine, a seven-foot center, graduated from Slater High School in Slater, Missouri and originally enrolled to play basketball at the University of Notre Dame.
After his freshman season, Kleine transferred to the University of Arkansas where he played alongside Alvin Robertson, who like Kleine would go on to a productive professional career. Kleine was selected by the Sacramento Kings with the sixth pick in the 1985 National Basketball Association Draft. Kleine went on to have a fifteen-year National Basketball Association career, playing with the Kings as well as the Boston Celtics, Phoenix Suns, Los Angeles Lakers, New Jersey Nets, Chicago Bulls, and Portland Trail Blazers.
Kleine played on teams with legendary National Basketball Association players Michael Jordan, Charles Barkley, Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, Scottie Pippen, and Dennis Rodman.
His best season was with the Kings in 1985, when he averaged 9.8 Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company. At the time of his retirement from the National Basketball Association, he"d scored 4,666 points, had 3,991 total rebounds, and had scored 849 free throws out of 1,069 attempts. Kleine played for the United States national team in the 1982 International Basketball Federation World Championship, winning the silver medal.
Sportswriter Jon Goode would later write in part that "Joe Kleine was never a star, but what made Kleine great was that he accepted his role and was ready to play every night."
After coaching Amateur Athletic Union and high school basketball in Little Rock and serving as an analyst for Arkansas basketball games, he was hired as an assistant coach at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock in 2007.