Sonics, Trail Blazers Visit Spokane Kemp Gives Seattle A New Look Inside

Shawn Kemp made his point.

In the mixed-up megabucks economics of the National Basketball Association, he’s a 26-year-old multi-millionaire who’s grossly underpaid.

That established, his three-week holdout over, Kemp makes his preseason debut with the Seattle Sonics here tonight.

Tipoff time for the Sonics-Portland exhibition at the Arena is 7:30.

With the regular-season opener a week and a half away, Sonics coach George Karl gets his initial look under fire at his retooled inside game. The addition of 7-foot-1, shot-blocking center Jim McIlvaine should take some defensive pressure off Kemp, Sonics assistant Terry Stotts said Wednesday.

McIlvaine - 10th in the league in blocked shots a year ago while coming off the bench for the Washington Bullets - had two rejections in 20 minutes Sunday in Seattle’s 82-72 win over Indiana in Spain.

“We don’t think we’re the same team (that won the Western Conference championship before being blown out by the Bulls in the NBA finals),” said Stotts, in his fifth year with the Sonics, fourth as an assistant. “The addition of McIlvaine and Craig Ehlo give us qualities that we think make us a better team.”

Gone are guard Vincent Askew and center Ervin Johnson, both of whom wound up last season in coach George Karl’s doghouse.

The Sonics went 3-2 in preseason games without Kemp.

“I think it’s clear we’re a championship team with Shawn and we’re just a very good basketball team without him,” said Karl, one of 35 coaches to win more than 300 NBA games.

This is where the Sonics hope to turn it up a notch, a week and a half away from their regular-season opener.

“It helps having Shawn back, getting him in the flow of what we want to do,” Stotts said. “Coach (Karl) will probably want to play more of his main guys (tonight). You spend the first half of the preseason looking more at young guys and the free agents who might have a chance. Now you get a little more serious.”

The Sonics list Gary Payton, Nate McMillan, Detlef Schrempf, Sam Perkins and McIlvaine as probable starters, with Kemp expected to see up to 25 minutes.

The Sonics face the Los Angeles Lakers in Boise on Friday night and wind up the preseason with Portland in Corvallis on Sunday night.

The Blazers, also 3-2, have played tough defense of late, holding Washington to 62 points Monday night in an 87-62 win. They limited Golden State to 66 points the week before. Isiah Rider, winner of the slam-dunk competition at the ‘94 NBA All-Star Weekend, led the Blazers with 16 points in Monday night’s win.

That has been obscured by Kemp’s financial situation.

After making $4.8 million last season, including a $2.1 million signing bonus, he’s scheduled to make $3 million in the second year of a seven-year extension he signed in 1993. That makes him the sixth-highest paid Sonic or the third, depending on the source.

Kemp signed a seven-year, $25.4 million contract extension in 1993, but after a three-day holdout in ‘94 it was altered to add a $14.6 million balloon payment due by the 2002-03 season, according to a story in the Seattle P-I. His salary is considered among the Sonics’ top three, the P-I story said.

When Kemp’s agent, Tony Dutt, struck those deals with the Sonics, the NBA’s per-team salary cap hovered at $15 million. The cap is now about $24.3 million after a collective bargaining agreement was ratified in the summer of 1995. Under the CBA between the NBA and its players, a player cannot ask to alter contract terms until three years after signing the latest extension.

Kemp can renegotiate next October.

The league, he said, should find some way to reward players who are producing.

“I think the NBA has made some major decisions in putting the money back into the veteran players,” Kemp said in an Associated Press report. “But if they’re going to do that then they should put the money where it’s deserved.

“The thing I didn’t want to do was to come back here with a grudge on my shoulders, to have a bad attitude, to have the fellas think there was something wrong with me and then brush it off on them.”

, DataTimes