HOTTEST SEAT IN THE HOUSE

Coach, The News Tribune in Tacoma, citing sources close to you, says you want $5 million a year and will test the market, whether the SuperSonics make you an offer or not.

Coach: Mffltpffttpp!

What was that, Coach? Who stuffed that sock in your mouth? Oh, Gary Payton? What, he doesn’t want you going on and on about your impending free agency during his playoffs?

Coach: Arghhfflyppt!

Yes, we can hear you. Then there’s that Seattle Post-Intelligencer report, citing a source close to General Manager Wally Walker as saying they’re not paying you any $5 million unless you win a title.

Coach: Throgitmftslpkrt!

And The Seattle Times almost put out a special section on your contract status, with one columnist saying the team has to keep you to prove it’s serious and that front-page story in which owner Barry Ackerley pined for a title--or reminded everyone you haven’t won him any.

“The Boston Celtics, the Los Angeles Lakers and the SuperSonics are the only three teams in the NBA that have won 55 or more games for six consecutive years,” he said. “Where are my rings? Boston’s got rings. L.A. has got rings. Where are my rings?”

OK, where are his rings?

Coach: !@&%$#@$%&!!

If it’s spring, everyone here must be going bonkers and so it is again, when six seasons of glorious, heady, best-of-times, worst-of-times sturm und drang--a German phrase for the SuperSonics in the playoffs--under Coach George Karl is coming to a head.

Karl’s contract is running out. This is impossible to miss, if you can turn on a TV or read at a third-grade level.

He may not stay. You don’t have to take any source’s word for it, he’ll tell you.

He’s upset about it. This is obvious, if you have the sensitivity of a sea turtle.

He’s not even bothering to declare the usual postseason moratorium on negotiating through the newspaper. It’s like the Nick Van Exel-Del Harris tug of war. Because of the people involved, it’s one of those Issues That Won’t Go Away.

“I made a decision, basically, to be a part of the commentary because I think that’s my right,” Karl said early in what turned out to be their memorable series against the Minnesota Timberwolves.

“I could have said, ‘I’m not going to talk about it.’ I told my team not to talk about it. I told all my players to stay away from it . . .

“I think it’s now gotten to the point where players can laugh with me about it. They come in and they say, ‘Shut the . . . up, coach.’ ”

Not likely, guys.

Since Karl is demonstrably the architect of everything they’ve achieved in the ‘90s--they went 102-102 before him, have averaged 59.5 victories with him--since he loves his players and they even like him a lot, since they’re an unorthodox crew, small at some positions like center, big at others, versatile at all, assembled to play his peculiar scheme, which most successors couldn’t coach, one would think cooler heads would prevail to bring the two sides together, even at current prices and this late date.

This, of course, assumes they can find any cool heads, or one.

Ackerley has given Karl no assurances, public or private. Owner and coach aren’t close. Karl, emotional, outgoing and earthy, has little in common with Ackerley, the buttoned-down billboard magnate, or his preppy, stock broker-turned-GM, Walker.

Karl has no sponsor upstairs. He was hired by former general manager Bob Whitsitt. Ackerley fired Whitsitt and had the telephone and fax removed from his office so he couldn’t put out a statement about it.

In the way of talented coaches these days, Karl is less like a management figure, more like a star player. He has an agent. He looks around. Ackerley must love that.

Of course, every time the SuperSonics get in trouble now--like last week--everyone starts thinking, is this Karl’s last night on the job?

Starting, of course, with Karl.

“I’m not going to lie to you, it’s probably crossed my mind,” he said before Game 4 of the last series, with his team down, 2-1, and staring into the abyss.

This was Karl-speak for: I’ve barely been able to think of anything else and I just spent the last 48 hours experiencing every emotion in the human spectrum and then some.

The SuperSonics then hauled themselves out of another hole and here they are, ready to play the Lakers. Since they’re old foes, with great respect and loathing for each other, both teams should be able to keep their minds on business, shouldn’t they? Well, one of them will, right?

Oh, forget it.

Sweepless in Seattle

“I can’t see how you can say it’s been a distraction. Because if you say it’s a distraction, you’re saying this basketball team can play better than we’re playing or could have had a better season. And I’m having trouble with that, to be honest with you. I’m amazed at what this team has done and I’m proud to be part of a hell of a year.”

--Karl, on news reports about his situation.

Of course, he said this after Game 1, which the SuperSonics won by 25, but before Game 2 when the Timberwolves gave them the surprise of their lives and Game 3 when Minnesota socked it to the SuperSonics again.

No one can know if the SuperSonics were distracted. There are other suspects like cockiness (see also: Payton, point guard and team leader) or inexperience (see also: Vin Baker, leading scorer, regular season).

After the Shawn Kemp years, this is a distraction-hardened team, capable of going to Game 7 of the Western Conference semifinals with Houston last spring despite a blizzard of distractions like late arrivals, failures to arrive at all, accusations and even a deposition signed by all the players, defending Kemp. Can one little coach, dreaming about his free agency, bother these guys, most of whom have been or will be free agents and will act similarly?

Besides, they had never swept a first-round opponent before. Why start now? Sweeping isn’t the SuperSonic way.

This is a new team which plugged Baker in Kemp’s spot, refurbished its bench with ex-Laker Jerome Kersey and ex-everything Dale Ellis and surprised everyone, coming back stronger, happier and more unified than it had been since making the ’96 finals, posting its third 60-win season in the last five, a pace second only to the Chicago Bulls.

Of course, the playoffs are different and Baker, sentenced to Milwaukee for his first four seasons, had never been in them.

He faded late in the season. By Game 1 of the Minnesota series, he had been asked about it so often, it seemed to him as if they thought he was going to live on some other planet.

He had 19 points by halftime, 25 altogether and made 11 of 19 shots.

“The second part of the season, you know, I missed that,” said Payton afterward, “ ‘cause I think he got fatigued, he got a lot of confidence taken away from him. He started thinking about the game more than he started playing the game.

“He’s back to old Vin, what you’ve seen in the beginning of the year. If he stays this way, just what we’re gonna do, we’re gonna win basketball games, easily and comfortably.”

After that, however, the Timberwolves double-teamed Baker, who took only 38 shots in the last four games and scored only 49 more points.

So much for ease and comfort.

“I had butterflies a lot,” Baker said after Sunday’s Game 5 victory. “My first playoff game, I think it was kind of fool’s gold because they made adjustments and things didn’t go the way I wanted them to go . . . This was a learning experience for me. I’m blessed the learning experience came at the expense of their team and not our team.”

It’s harder to find a nicer player than Baker, who was a three-time all-star playing in out-of-the-way Milwaukee for the woeful Bucks and spent his first season in Seattle, tossing in one clutch shot after another.

Of course, without playoff credentials, that and $2.10 will get you a caffe latte at Starbucks.

“It’s the story so . . . ,” Baker said after Game 1, cheerfully. “Hopefully in the series, I can put it behind me.

“After having put one game behind me, it’s still going to be the story because I haven’t played. It’s my first series, it’s gonna be my first second round if we make it that far. It’s gonna be my first everything. So it’s the story and I’ll go with it.”

Or go under. This being the playoffs, there had to be a goat and he was receiving more nominations with every bad review. There had to be a problem and he was “soft.”

In truth, at 6-11, 230, he is not one of the league’s intimidators. Before Game 4’s Last Stand in Minneapolis, Baker, girding for contact, if not war, put his W.W.J.D. (What Would Jesus Do?) bracelet aside.

He even annnounced some Timberwolves might have to be put on their rear ends, adding with a smile, in an allusion to the Kevin Garnett-Stephon Marbury commercial, “but tastefully done.”

Of course, the Lakers are a lot bigger so if Baker and the SuperSonics are going to park them on their rears, they’ll have to do it any way they can.

Down, Fido

The day before Game 5, Karl said he was “an angry pup” right now.

In a new policy, he declined to say what it was this time. Insiders think it was coming home, reading the papers and finding the local press had been zinging him for substitutions.

Unfortunately or ironically, Karl has never won a title in the NBA, CBA or Europe. Not that he’s the thickest-skinned of mentors, anyway, but he’s particularly sensitive about it. Critiqued in the postseason, he’ll ask plaintively what his years of excellence are worth.

Barring success in the postseason? That and $1.70 will get you an espresso at Starbucks. Ask Baker.

Nevertheless, Seattle isn’t one of those towns like New York or Los Angeles, where the standard is a title or else. What’s the problem up here if they merely have an elite team? What, they can’t handle a little disappointment every once in a while? OK, every spring?

Middlemen are trying to put Karl and Ackerley together, primarily Payton’s agent, Aaron Goodwin, since Payton has grown fond of his coach over the years.

Of course, everything depends on the next 10 days.

If something good happens, anything is possible. If not, all the SuperSonics’ agents and all the SuperSonics’ men won’t be able to put the SuperSonics back together again.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Where George Karl Stands

Best winning percentage in the ‘90s among active coaches (at least two seasons):

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No. Coach W-L Pct. 1. Phil Jackson 490-166 .747 2. George Karl 384-150 .712 3. Jerry Sloan 450-206 .686 4. Pat Riley 381-193 .664 5. Del Harris 274-153 .642 6. Dave Cowens 105-59 .640 7. Rudy Tomjanovich 322-200 .617 8. Danny Ainge 96-60 .615 9. Lenny Wilkens 395-261 .602 10. Larry Brown 361-286 .558

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Top active coaches in playoff winning percentage in the ‘90s:

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No. Coach W-L Pct. 1. Phil Jackson 90-29 .756 2. Rudy Tomjanovich 50-36 .581 3. Jeff Van Gundy 13-10 .565 4. Jerry Sloan 51-43 .543 5. Larry Brown 27-25 .519 6. Pat Riley 45-43 .511 7. Brian Hill 18-18 .500 8. Chris Ford 13-16 .448 9. George Karl 29-36 .446 10. Del Harris 13-17 .433

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