SEATTLE – A year ago, Seattle SuperSonics forward Rashard Lewis opened the season with games of 25 and 50 points against the Los Angeles Clippers in Japan.
This season, Lewis is just hoping to be on the floor for the team’s first few games.
Lewis, a seventh-year forward and Seattle’s second-leading scorer in 2003-04, is suffering from plantar fasciitis in his left foot. The painful ailment has kept him out of the team’s last five exhibition games, and he is expected to miss the preseason finale when the Sonics take on the Portland Trail Blazers tonight at KeyArena.
Though Lewis is making progress – “I’m a lot better than I was a week ago,” he said Thursday – no one can say if he will be in the lineup for Wednesday’s opener in Los Angeles against the Clippers or if he might need to begin the season on the injured list.
“In my mind, I want to go (on Wednesday),” he said. “It will depend on what (the trainer) and the doctors say, and whether they will allow me to play. But my feeling right now is that I’m going to try to play.”
Lewis has been receiving daily therapy for his injury, and he has also received special padded inserts for his shoes. With the inserts, he said with a grin, “I’ve got so much cushion in my shoes that I’m about an inch taller.”
In the two weeks since his last preseason appearance, Lewis has attended the team’s practices but has done little actual work. On Thursday, though, he began running, which he has done despite some continuing discomfort. There is also pain when he jumps off his left foot, which he does often as a right-handed shooter.
Lewis has been joined on the sidelines through much of the preseason by guards Ray Allen and Flip Murray. Allen has been bothered by back spasms and will probably not play again tonight, but should be ready for Wednesday’s opener. Murray suffered a strained left quadriceps muscle in the first practice of training camp and is questionable to be ready by next week.
“It’s frustrating,” Lewis said, “to watch my team go out there and struggle without (the injured players). That’s not the way we wanted to start the season off.”
Compounding his frustration is the uncertainty of his recovery. Plantar fasciitis can linger for weeks and months, and can even become chronic.
“It could linger,” Lewis said. “Even though there’s just a little soreness now, there’s no telling how long it can go on. It’s just something that I have to take day by day. I would love to play in the opener, but I don’t want to play in that one game and re-injure myself, and then have to sit out for the next 15 games.”
Huff, puff: Addressing his players, Sonics coach Nate McMillan closed Thursday’s practice with the dreaded words, “On the line.”
He was telling his players to take places on the baseline, a command that is a prelude to wind sprints. Sure enough, the team was soon running down and back, down and back.
Wind sprints can be punishment, but this day McMillan had another purpose in mind.
“Our conditioning is not where we need it to be for the opener,” he said, “and I think that’s having an effect on our execution out on the floor. In the next few days we have to get in better shape.”
At Thursday’s workout, the Sonics were guilty of sloppy play, and in particular too many fouls during full-court drills.
“If you’re fatigued, you grab and you hold as opposed to moving your feet and moving your body,” McMillan said. “When you’re in condition, you normally react a little quicker. … With the (lack of) execution and the fouls we’re committing, we’re not in shape.”
Sonics keep Wilkins: The axe fell on Thursday, claiming two victims. It was bad news for guards Mateen Cleaves and Galen Young, who were waived, and terrific news for guard/forward Damien Wilkins, who has likely made the team.
The cuts leave the Sonics with 14 players, which is probably where the number will stand this season. Two players will have to go to the injured list before Wednesday’s season opener, which could be Lewis and Murray if they are not ready, or any other two players, perhaps even Wilkins.
If he sticks, Wilkins will likely receive a non-guaranteed contract for $385,277, which is the minimum for players with no previous NBA experience.
Wilkins, a 24-year-old undrafted free agent, played two seasons at North Carolina State, sat out a transfer season, then played his final two seasons at Georgia, where he averaged 12.6 points, 5.4 rebounds and 2.9 assists as a senior. He is the son of 13-year NBA veteran Gerald Wilkins and the nephew of nine-time All-Star Dominique Wilkins.
Words of wisdom: Because Ray Allen is a team captain, and because Robert Swift is a rookie, a familiar ritual took place on Seattle’s first preseason road trip. As the team checked into its hotel in Anaheim, Calif., Swift was ordered to pick up Allen’s suitcase and carry it to his room.
For many veterans, the good-natured hazing would have been it. But because Allen is a classy guy (so classy, in fact, that he sent roses to each of the Seattle Storm coaches and players after the team’s recent WNBA title) and because he takes his captain’s role seriously, he went a step further. He invited Swift into the room and for several minutes the two men talked.
Recalled Allen, “I told him, ‘If there’s anything you need, if there’s any questions you have, if you need anybody checked out, if there’s anybody coming up to you and bothering you, then you come to me and I’ll make sure you get some type of answer. If you need to know who’s trustworthy, I’ve been around long enough where I know most of the people and I can give you some help.’”
Such advice would be invaluable to any first-year player, but particularly for the 18-year-old Swift, who is just four months removed from his high school graduation.
“That’s my responsibility, to take him under my wing,” Allen said. “He’s my teammate. I need to make sure that I don’t let anything happen to him. He’s my responsibility and the responsibility of the other veterans on the team.”
Still talking: Though no one expects a resolution any time soon, the Sonics are continuing to have contract talks with Lon Babby, Allen’s agent, about a new deal for the four-time All-Star.
Allen is in the last year of a multi-year contract he signed with Milwaukee, his previous team, that will pay him $14.625 million this season. Both the Sonics and Allen/Babby are keeping quiet about the negotiations, which got started last summer and could continue through most if not all of this coming season.
“They’re still discussing,” Allen said Thursday. “Everything’s been good, and that’s all I can say.”
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
