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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Facing The Sonics’ Past Johnson, Perkins Praise ‘93 Team And Sound Off About Its Dismantling

Glenn Nelson Seattle Times

“I think we would’ve won two titles if they’d kept us together. We talk about it all the time. You don’t get that close too often. It was frustrating because it was a very talented team. We were volatile, but once the ball went up, we all did everything we could to win games.”

- Eddie Johnson, on the Sonic team that went to the 1993 Western Conference finals.

Eddie Johnson isn’t alone.

In fact, Sam Perkins, one of the leftovers from a Seattle SuperSonic team that seemed on track to win an NBA title, is adamant about it.

“If we had that same team, we would’ve jelled,” said Perkins, who joined that team just before the NBA trade deadline in 1993. “There’s no telling how many championships we could have won.”

Half of the key figures on that team - Johnson, Derrick McKey and Ricky Pierce - returned to Seattle Tuesday in a game the Sonics lost 102-101.

Their influence on their former team lingers.

“Those three guys were a big part of what we’ve built here,” Sonic coach George Karl said. “In a lot of ways, you wish they were still here with you. But you’re always trying to retool the team to keep it young and keep it going forward.”

Johnson, McKey and Dana Barros were traded off the Western Conference finalist the following off-season. Pierce went the following summer. After a couple of other deals, the Sonics have ended up with Frank Brickowski and Hersey Hawkins for Johnson, McKey, Barros, Pierce, plus Carlos Rogers and three second-round picks.

Barros went on to become an All-Star point guard with Philadelphia and signed a big free-agent deal with Boston. Johnson and Pierce, both 36, are still plugging along, providing a combined 25.8 points a game for the Pacers.

And McKey? After helping the Sonics to the seventh game of the Western Conference finals in 1993, he has done the same for the Pacers in 1994 and ‘95.

The Sonics have not come close to fulfilling the potential of 1993.

“I don’t care about Ricky’s and Eddie’s age,” Perkins said. “I would have kept that team together, taken my chances. Sure, eventually you’d have to start over and bring in younger players.

“Look at what Portland did. They kept those guys together and they went to the Finals (in 1990 and 1992). They didn’t win it, but they got to knock on the door.”

Arguably, Perkins was the only acquisition that the Sonics should have made. He brought a needed inside complement to Shawn Kemp and bolstered Seattle’s perimeter game. That team started 40-17 and finished 55-27, tied for the NBA’s third-best mark. The Sonics went the limit and beat Utah in the first round, then went the limit and beat Houston in the second round. The Sonics’ run ended in Phoenix.

“We were perfect at every position - defensively and offensively,” Perkins said. “We had everything you needed, except a (dominant) center. But we overcame that with the shooters we had.”

Nate McMillan, then and now a co-captain, said, “That team had everything at every position. Basically, the system we have now was built around that team.”

A potent blend of talents on the court, the 1992-93 team also had great chemistry off of it. McKey was a selfless cog amid all the talent and, personality-wise, was the team’s glue. His trade to Indiana, for Detlef Schrempf, was greeted that day by his Sonic teammates with emotions bordering on despair. Johnson and Pierce, cold-blooded with the jumper in the clutch, were wise, old hands who weren’t shy about exerting leadership.

The breakup of that 1992-93 also represented the breakup of several memorable friendships - McKey and just about everybody, particularly McMillan; Pierce and Vincent Askew; Barros and Kemp, and the oddest of the couplings, Johnson and Steve Scheffler.

“There were definitely more friendships and relationships on that team,” Karl said. “That team probably had more vocal opinion on it…. We probably worked more as a family than we have the past couple of years.”

That 1992-93 team didn’t develop its chemistry the conventional way. The Sonics hadn’t kept a group of players together for several years. Over the past decade Seattle probably has been the NBA’s most fluid franchise.

The tradition of transition began with “Trader” Bob Whitsitt and continued with his successor at Sonic president, Wally Walker. From afar, at Dallas and with the Lakers, it was a trend that even Perkins noticed.

“They changed all the time,” he said of the Sonics. “I guess they always felt they had to keep up with the Joneses, whoever the Joneses were at the time. When I got here, I agreed that this was another good team.”