Sonics talking trade

Published 9:00 pm Wednesday, February 18, 2004

SEATTLE – If the Seattle SuperSonics fail to make a deal before today’s noon NBA trading deadline, it will not be for lack of trying.

The Sonics, according to a league source, have been aggressive in recent weeks in their conversations with several teams around the NBA. Unlike last season, when the Milwaukee Bucks initiated talks with Seattle in an effort to acquire guard Gary Payton, the Sonics this season “are the ones who are doing the pursuing, not just waiting to be pursued,” said the source.

Those talks apparently had Seattle on the brink of a deal with the Toronto Raptors on Wednesday afternoon, though by Wednesday night the transaction had stalled and may in fact be dead.

The trade would have had the Sonics sending guard Brent Barry and forward Vlade Radmanovic to Toronto for forward Donyell Marshall and guard/forward Morris Peterson. Seattle was evidently ready to complete the swap, but the Raptors balked – it may have had something to do with Marshall snagging 24 rebounds to go with 10 points and four blocked shots in Tuesday’s game against Chicago.

The 30-year-old Marshall, a onetime teammate of Sonics guard Ray Allen at the University of Connecticut, was the key to the deal for Seattle. A rugged 6-foot-9 player in his 10th NBA season, he was acquired from Chicago as part of a six-player trade on Dec. 1, 2003. In 36 games with the Raptors, he is the team’s second-leading scorer (to Vince Carter) at 17.5 points a game, and is averaging a team-best 11.0 rebounds and 2.08 blocks a game.

The 25-year-old Peterson is averaging 7.9 points, 3.0 rebounds and 1.4 assists per game.

Barry and Radmanovic, meanwhile, are two players the Sonics are evidently willing to move, though for different reasons. Barry, a steady and knowledgeable guard who turned 32 last New Year’s Eve, is in the last year of his contract and has been seeking an extension the Sonics seem unwilling to offer. He wants a four-year deal at approximately the NBA’s mid-level exception, which would be a starting salary of around $4.5 million, while Seattle is believed to favor a two-year contract, or perhaps three years.

If Barry is not traded by the deadline, he could either re-sign with the Sonics in the coming months or opt for a free-agent offer from another team. Under the latter scenario, Seattle would receive nothing in return.

Radmanovic, a native Serbian, is a 23-year-old forward and a former first-round draft pick in his third NBA season. He has made modest progress each year, but has yet to take hold of a starting position with the Sonics. Though Radmanovic started the first 38 games of the season, he has played the last 14 games from the bench.

In addition, Radmanovic is very much like Seattle’s other young forward, Rashard Lewis. Both prefer playing on the perimeter rather than around the basket, leaving the Sonics with little in the way of a consistent low-post presence. Which is why Marshall, a solid interior player, was attractive to Seattle.

Though the deal with Toronto could be revived today, it seems doubtful. Still, the Sonics are known to be working other proposals as well, and one could emerge by the noon deadline.

Seattle general manager Rick Sund has declined to talk about the team’s trade ambitions, other than to say the Sonics “do not want to make a trade just to make a trade. But if the right deal comes along that can make us better, then we’ll look at it.”

Though Sund would not confirm, the Sonics are known to have called most if not all NBA rivals in recent weeks, putting out feelers on particular players with an emphasis on good big men. One was Atlanta’s Shareef Abdur-Rahim, another 6-9 forward in his eighth NBA season and a teammate of Allen’s on the 2000 U.S. Olympic team. The Sonics were aggressively going after Abdur-Rahim, but the Hawks ended up packaging him with center/forward Theo Ratliff and guard Dan Dickau in a Feb. 9 trade with Portland for forward Rasheed Wallace and guard/forward Wesley Person.