SEATTLE — In the National Basketball Association, head coaches are hired and fired every season. General managers, they come and go. And owners, from time to time, sell their ballclubs.
Usually, though, these things occur over time. Rarely does an NBA team — any pro sports franchise, for that matter — experience the kind of complete and abrupt overhaul the Seattle SuperSonics did three years ago.
From the late fall of 2000 to the early spring of 2001, not only did the Sonics hire a new coach in Nate McMillan and a new general manager in Rick Sund, but the organization also came under the overall guidance of new owner Howard Schultz, the Starbucks coffee baron.
In the space of just over six months, the team’s top hierarchy had three new faces and, equally significant, a new direction.
In short, Seattle’s new brain trust opted to scrap the team’s status quo. Within two years, the ballclub’s most visible and highest-paid players, guard Gary Payton and underachieving forward Vin Baker, would be gone. Sent away, too, were players deemed to be malcontents, miscreants and even lawbreakers — Ruben Patterson, Shammond Williams, Joe Forte and Art Long, to name a few. Also out were a few fellows not suited to play an up-tempo style of play.
In what amounts to an exodus of sorts, 21 different players have moved on in the three years and one month since McMillan took over. Just two — forward Rashard Lewis and guard Brent Barry — remain from McMillan’s original roster.
Those in Seattle today are noticeably younger and, in many cases, more athletic than before. As a group, they are also better citizens and role models than their predecessors. Taken together, these traits embody the kinds of players Schultz, Sund and McMillan want for a new era of Sonics basketball.
Though Seattle is still essentially a .500 team, just as it was three years ago, "I know we’re on the right track," Schultz said. "I think there’s a new renewed buzz in the community and a positiveness about the team. And the faces of the team are people I want to put out there."
It is, he went on, "a new culture and a new set of values in the organization. We believe there is a linkage to the character and the integrity of the players we want to be here for the long term and the won-lost record we’ll end up with in the future."
Of course, while the sporting public applauds a team of good guys, it does not necessarily translate into big ticket sales. Schultz knows this ("You can’t have character without talent," he admits), which is why the decisions being made by the basketball staff, directed by Sund, are so vital. And to evaluate all recent moves in their proper context, it is necessary to revisit the heyday years of the mid-1990s. Then, the Sonics were one of the NBA’s best teams, winning more than 60 games three times and 55 or more three other times in a six-season span.
It was a wonderful stretch, but in time the bloom faded, as it always does. Rather than retool with youth, though, the organization tried to prolong its run of prominence with a series of poorly-conceived acquisitions. Seattle gave up two first-round draft picks for the short-term services of aging NBA veterans Horace Grant and Patrick Ewing. Free agents like Billy Owens and Olden Polynice donned Sonics uniforms with woeful results.
By the time Schultz, Sund and McMillan arrived, Seattle was trying to stay afloat with Payton and a hodge-podge supporting cast.
Sund, to his credit, knew the team needed a new philosophy. The team had to get younger, he decreed, and those youngsters had to get minutes. And if it meant trading the venerable Payton, a Sonics icon, so be it.
"Three years ago, we had some huge challenges," Sund recalled. "We had a lot of knowns and those knowns weren’t good enough."
Which is why the Feb. 20, 2003, swap with Milwaukee — Seattle gave up Payton and Desmond Mason for Ray Allen, Kevin Ollie, Flip Murray and a draft pick used to select Luke Ridnour — is such a watershed moment in franchise history. The Sonics could have kept Payton and endured additional seasons of mediocrity, but instead opted for the promise of a better future by pursuing players with, in NBA parlance, big upsides.
"When the decision was made to move Gary, from then on (the emphasis) has been to develop from within," McMillan said. "To give our young guys an opportunity to develop and grow so that in a couple of years you’re competing (for a championship)."
The problem with potential, though, is just that. It is potential. Young players sometimes get a lot better, sometimes they get a little better, and sometimes they don’t get much better at all. Who knows where, say, Vlade Radmanovic will be in five years. Or Rashard Lewis. Or Reggie Evans. Or Murray. Or Nick Collison (a rookie who has yet to play after season-ending shoulder surgery). Or Ridnour. All are 24 and younger, and if two or three blossom into All-Stars in the next five years Seattle’s future could be bright indeed.
On the other hand, if they all stay just good players — and the NBA is chock-full of good players — then the Sonics may be no further ahead than they are today.
"There are," Sund said, "more unknowns with the Sonics this year than in the last five or six years. So what we have to do now is follow these changes and see what pieces work and which pieces don’t."
Sund’s formula for building a title contender, absent a dominant center ("It would be a lot easier for us if we had a Tim Duncan or a Shaquille O’Neal or a Yao Ming, make no mistake about it," he said ruefully), is to aim for three athletes who are in the top 10 at their positions among NBA players — think of Dallas with Dirk Nowitzki, Steve Nash and Michael Finley; or Sacramento with Chris Webber, Peja Stojakovic and Mike Bibby. Or, perhaps, two players in the top five at their positions — Chicago, for example, in the 1990s with Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen, or Utah of the same era with John Stockton and Karl Malone.
"If you have that," Sund said, "then you have a chance to become elite and compete in the playoffs. And if you do that and if you can get hot at the right time, then you have a chance to compete in the Finals."
Where does that leave Seattle? Well, Allen is among the league’s top five shooting guards (unfortunately, he has been sidelined by injury this season, but should return soon), while Lewis is one of the top 10 small forwards. Beyond that, though, the Sonics have no standouts at their respective positions, and frankly no one else is really all that close.
Which means Seattle needs to do all the things that make NBA franchises succeed. That is, draft wisely, trade well and make sensible free-agent decisions (no more players like Calvin Booth signed to six-year deals). Then, once the players are here, see they get good coaching.
Among the young Sonics, Radmanovic may be the best example of how the team’s future hangs in the balance. A 6-foot-10 forward, he just turned 23. Also on the plus side, he is a superb perimeter shooter and he runs the floor as well as any NBA player his size. At the same time, he has yet to develop a low-post game, he is prone to poor decisions and mental lapses, and he is an inconsistent rebounder. Still, his flaws are correctable and if it happens he could evolve into an All-Star, which would give Seattle an outstanding forward tandem and a good chance at league prominence.
If Radmanovic becomes that kind of player, and if the Sonics become that kind of team, "then there’s going to be some pretty exciting basketball here in Seattle the next two or three years," Sund said.
To hear Schulz tell it, all of this is part of a five-year plan, though he admits that may be a rosy expectation since the clock started in the 2000-01 season. Five would be a minimum and it may take as many as 10, he said, "to restore this team to the glory days."
Though he admits to being "impatient" at times, not only for the team to improve but for KeyArena to be packed to capacity for Sonics games, Schultz says the franchise is following the correct path.
"I think it’s important to understand that we are not taking a short-term route," he said. "We are taking a long-term view to build the right kind of foundation for the future so we can recruit free agents who will know this is a great place to be."
Come and gone
Olden Polynice 1999 Free agent to Utah
Billy Owens 1999 Traded to Orlando
Horace Grant 2000 Traded to LA Lakers
Patrick Ewing 2001 Free agent to Orlando
Ruben Patterson 2001 Free agent to Portland
Vin Baker 2002 Traded to Boston
Shammond Williams 2002 Traded to Boston
Gary Payton 2003 Traded to Milwaukee
Desmond Mason 2003 Traded to Milwaukee
Joe Forte 2003 Released
Peja Drobnjak 2003 Traded to LA Clippers
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