Screaming Success : Volatile SuperSonics Now Have Shaq’s Lakers to Worry About, but Their Biggest Concern Remains Themselves

Now to find out who rules the Pacific Division. The Seattle SuperSonics thought they did but couldn’t even raise their Western Conference championship banner before a disturbing cry pierced their celebration:

“Shaq’s in L.A.!”

You can imagine the delight with which fans here greeted the news: Oh, goody, the Lakers just signed Shaquille O’Neal.

SuperSonic fans liked it better between great centers, when the Lakers, who had gone around, were coming around. SuperSonic players preferred being asked about Nick Van Exel and Cedric Ceballos. Before the teams meet tonight for the first time this season, they have already grown tired of being asked about O’Neal.

“Of course you do,” says Hersey Hawkins, grinning. “Just like when I was in Charlotte and he was in Orlando. I got all the questions about him. It hasn’t changed. . . .

“We can’t help but think about them, everybody’s asking us about them.”

And when it’s only the SuperSonics, they ask each other, “What are we going to do, now that Shaq’s in L.A.?”

“We’re saying the same thing--Shaq is in L.A.!” says Nate McMillan, laughing. “We’re saying what the press and everybody else is saying: Shaq is in L.A.!

“It’s not necessarily scary, it’s something you have to be aware of. You definitely have to think about.”

Unable to wish him back to Orlando, they reassure themselves they’re not worried about O’Neal but about themselves: they have to play their game, etc. And it’s true. They’re an elite team now, three games ahead of the Lakers, winners of 11 consecutive games before the Jazz upset them here Sunday.

Playoff misfortunes notwithstanding, the SuperSonics have been an elite team for most of the ‘90s, the winningest team over the last four seasons with 239 victories to the Chicago Bulls’ 231. They finally proved themselves in postseason play, during which Gary Payton became a Dream Teamer and Shawn Kemp should have.

Their experience should reassure Laker fans, who are worrying about their team’s struggles. The SuperSonics have shown that if the talent is there and the dues are paid, maturity can happen.

The bad news is, the SuperSonics’ journey might have finished off weaker men and it continues to this day.

*

I saw a poster the other day: ‘Getting old is mandatory. Growing up is voluntary.’

--Coach George Karl

Now smarter, more poised, harmonious and professional than ever before, they’re still the SuperSonics.

“In Boston, we had a big lead, 17, 18 points,” Karl said. “At half in the locker room, everybody says the right things . . . everybody’s, ‘Yeah, yeah, we can’t kick this lead!’

“We go out and three or four minutes, it’s down to nine. And everybody is, ‘Uh, that was really worth it.’

“And a lot of it was finishing our offensive stuff. Every night is something else. Sometimes it’s not rebounding, sometimes it’s turnovers, sometimes it’s not finishing, sometimes it’s a little selfishness, sometimes you stop playing, sometimes the referees bother you. I mean, there’s a lot of things. . . .

“So I just snapped. I said, ‘Dammit, quit goofing off on your layups, quit finger rolling, make your damn shots!’

“And Gary says, ‘You think it’s so damn easy, why don’t you get your butt out here?’ ”

The SuperSonics’ genius and eccentricity lies in the personalities of Karl, Payton and Kemp: great talents with short fuses. The high-strung musketeers have proceeded from crisis to triumph and back again, with dire predictions and great suffering all along the way (e.g. the near trade of Kemp for Scottie Pippen, which Karl says shook Kemp’s trust in him for months; the coach moaning after the 1994 Denver upset, “I wake up every morning and I ask . . . why?”). There have been newspaper rips galore. Despite their swagger, they are easily hurt and even last season’s success hasn’t smoothed over the frayed relationship with the Seattle press corps.

Despite the slings and arrows, the SuperSonics have never stopped improving, making them even more formidable today.

Payton, at the top of his game, is all but invisible off the floor, ducking out early to avoid interviews. With a new seven-year, $85 million contract, he remains the same motor-mouthed playground warrior from the East Bay, cocky, macho, easy to set off.

Kemp, described by Karl, laughing, as “more quiet in his rebellion,” burns with an unrequited passion for what always seems just out of reach: “respect,” a championship, a real Dream Team berth. He was reportedly set to be named last spring when he missed a team flight and an appointment with a USA Basketball official.

Kemp may flail pointlessly but always returns to business. This fall, he “held out,” although cap rules barred the SuperSonics from adding a penny to his $3-million salary, then tried to cover his tracks, announcing he was pursuing “renewal.” When the laughing stopped, he rejoined the team and went back to becoming a superstar.

Karl, 45, is still figuring out how grown up he wants to be. Like Kemp, he prowls restlessly for that elusive Next Thing. He would die to succeed his mentor, Dean Smith, but seems unconventional for the buttoned-down Tar Heels.

Karl, a former point guard, is not merely like Payton. If Payton had been from western Pennsylvania, less talented and had gone to North Carolina, he might have been Karl.

“I know people in my past have compared me to Gary,” Karl says. “I was very much a hot dog, cocky player, proud player, flaunting player.

“I had the long hair. My hair was always flying. . . . [Smith] had the basic rule. Not in the eyes. If you’re going in for a layup and you rub your eye afterward because it slapped your eye, he didn’t like that. He was good. It was the ‘70s.”

Karl, now balding, pauses.

“To run that way,” he sighs, “one more time. . . .

“I don’t think Gary or I can afford to lose our passion for the game of basketball and be successful. And some of that is the emotional side of our personalities. I think we’ve controlled it. I think there’s a vast improvement.

“Gary’s very opinionated. He’s intelligent. He’s stubborn. He has a lot of my personality. He believes he knows the game. He’s confident. I have no problem with what Gary says to me, the interactions that we have. Very few times I have ever had a problem with what he has said. How he has said it and where he has said it. . . .

“It’s kinda like, everybody asks, ‘Well, would you tear Joe Barry Carroll’s locker up [as Karl did in a memorable tantrum while coaching the Golden State Warriors]?

“I said, ‘Yeah, I’ve changed. I’d do it when no one would see me.’ ”

That’s definitely progress.

*

Divisions are small and rivalries are forever.

In the late ‘70s, the SuperSonics of Lenny Wilkens, Dennis Johnson and Gus Williams reigned in the Pacific. The ‘80s belonged to the Lakers, the ‘90s so far to the SuperSonics, interrupted by a Laker upset in the 1995 first round.

“It was always playoff intensity,” says McMillan, the last remaining SuperSonic from the ‘80s battles. “They were always the team to beat.

“It’s just like Chicago now. Whenever a team that good would come into a place, each player at each position was a superstar so each guy individually got themselves up for the guy they were going against--me with Magic [Johnson], Xavier [McDaniel] with [James] Worthy, [Tom] Chambers with Kareem. . . .

“I always looked forward to playing against the Lakers. Always. I had fun playing against Magic. Magic was an idol of mine. You look forward to those type games because you have to come with your best. If you don’t, you get embarrassed.

“Detroit was a team back then you would dislike because of the physical play, the dirty play. The Lakers weren’t like that.”

Tonight, the rivalry begins a new phase. The Lakers have O’Neal. The SuperSonics have a new 7-footer, Jim McIlvaine, who’s playing less than 20 minutes a game but may come in handy. (Karl, whose game is more trapping and rotating than pushing opponents toward a shot-blocker, says his $35-million center is “interesting,” suggesting he hasn’t quite worked this problem out.)

McIlvaine is an even worse free throw shooter, at 24%, than O’Neal, meaning the SuperSonics can’t go to him in the fourth quarter. Unlike O’Neal, they won’t go to him in the first, second or third, either, but don’t worry about them, they have enough players.

The Lakers will have to bring their best too, in tonight’s game and all the rematches. This thing could last into the next century, and it’s only beginning.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Sonic Boom

The winningest teams in the NBA over the last four seasons:

*--*

Team W-L Pct Seattle 239-89 .729 Chicago 231-97 .704 San Antonio 225-103 .686 New York 219-109 .668 Phoenix 218-110 .664 Utah 215-113 .655 Houston 208-120 .634 Orlando 208-120 .634 Indiana 192-136 .585 Cleveland 191-137 .582

*--*

* Seattle has had 27 consecutive winning months.

* Seattle has not lost more than two consecutive regular-season games since Nov. 21, 1995, a span of 88 games.