Payton’s Place : He’s Under Control, Running SuperSonics

Seattle Coach George Karl and point guard Gary Payton are communicating.

Says Karl: Pass the . . . ball!

Replies Payton: Sit your . . . butt down!

Both of them feel better.

No SuperSonic’s development has been more important than Payton’s. Shawn Kemp is vastly improved, but that could have been predicted when he arrived hungry to learn.

Payton, second overall pick in the 1990 draft, arrived cocky and defiant, without judgment or a jump shot. No one bothered to guard him. His first coach, K.C. Jones, used veteran Nate McMillan in pressure situations.

Karl, arriving midway through Payton’s second season, set about reclaiming him, noisily.

“It was a battle every day,” Karl says. “He never was totally disrespectful, but it was just pulling teeth, handling his street stuff.

“I don’t know if he wanted to be coached every day, but it was important for me for him to be coached every day because I knew he was the guy. If it was going to work, he had to be the guy.”

Payton responded. Now he plays under control, makes jump shots--although he and running mate Kendall Gill will be challenged to make more in the playoffs--and harries opposing point guards as the point man in Karl’s pressure defense.

A nonstop talker on the floor, Payton also is one of the team’s spokesmen off it.

“He was cocky then, but he couldn’t play,” Magic Johnson says, remembering the young Payton. “He’s cocky now, but he can play.”