Sikma Has 1.5 Million Reasons to Be Pleased

Approaching his 30th birthday and ninth National Basketball Association season, Jack Sikma is starting a five-year contract extension that will pay him $1.5 million this season.

He’s not sure if he will be here for the entire life of the contract extension, though.

“Getting traded is just part of the business,” the Seattle Supersonics’ 6-11 center said with a shrug.

The seven-time All-Star performer has heard his name mentioned more than once in trade speculation the past two years. He is the lone survivor of the Sonics’ 1979 NBA championship club.

Sikma knows he has a huge salary, even by NBA standards, and he’s getting older.

“I don’t know if I’ll be here by the end of the season or if I’ll be here by the end of my contract because you just can’t know those kinds of things,” he said. “But I’ll tell you what, wherever I am, I’ll be working my tail off to help and I’ll be helping somebody win ball games.

“But right now, being traded is the last thing on my mind. I have no reason to think about that.”

When Sikma signed his new contract before the 1984-85 season, he said he was given assurances that the Sonics would make all the right moves to become a contender.

Instead, the Sonics traded away popular point guard Gus Williams to the Washington Bullets and plummeted to a 31-51 record last season. Seattle had a 2-12 mark at the end of the season when Sikma missed the last 14 games with a finger injury.

“It wasn’t a fun year,” he said. “We didn’t make the playoffs and that’s happened only one other time since I’ve been in the league.

“Hopefully, it won’t happen again. I think we had the talent last year. We were much better than a 31-51 team. I think we should improve our record by quite a few games this year.”

Sikma insists he wants to end his NBA career where he started it--in Seattle, which made him the eighth overall selection in the 1977 NBA draft.

“I would love to stay here,” he said. “I love Seattle. I’ve put some roots down here.”

Since winning the 19-year-old franchise’s only NBA championship seven seasons ago, virtually nothing has gone right for the Sonics.

They traded Dennis Johnson, Lonnie Shelton and Williams, other starters on their championship club, with terrible results. They forced John Johnson, the fifth starter, into a bitter retirement.

Because of those trades, it probably is unlikely that the Sonics will trade Sikma in the near future--even if they have another year like the one they had last season.

That might be a public relations disaster to match the one when they swapped Williams in June of 1984.

“I don’t have any control of that,” Sikma said. “Basically, I think you’d get a better answer out of management. Maybe Mr. Ackerley (Sonics’ owner Barry Ackerley) would have some opinions on that.”

The Sonics have a new coach this season. Bernie Bickerstaff, a 12-year Washington assistant, has finally gotten his first NBA head coaching chance at 41. He is enthusiastic and optimistic.

The old coach, Lenny Wilkens, was fired and kicked upstairs to the general manager’s job after last season’s disastrous results.

The Sonics have added a key player; forward Xavier McDaniel, their first-round draft pick in June. McDaniel, a 6-8 forward from Wichita State, led the nation in scoring and rebounding as a college senior.