Supersonics’ Big Checks Go Bounce

Providing the basketball planets are properly realigned this evening, it’s safe to say that Hale-Bopp will reappear before Rex Chapman ever gets back in his twilight zone.

Four thousand years between 42-point outbursts seems about right.

So this isn’t about Rex, exactly.

This is about the Seattle SuperSonics and how they went out and spent $147 million last summer - and not only didn’t improve themselves a lick, but possibly did themselves some harm.

In this exercise, Rex Chapman is just a convenient economic indicator because he plays - and plays cheaply - for the upstart Phoenix Suns, who now have the Sonics down 1-0 in one of those best-of-five NBA playoff series that can be decided by a single freakish accident.

Rex Chapman scoring 42 points qualifies.

The Suns signed the 29-year-old guard as a free agent during training camp for the NBA minimum salary of $247,500 - or roughly what a sports writer’s 401K will be worth if he lets it ride until Hale-Bopp redux.

At the other end of the scale, we have the Sonics’ Jim McIlvaine, who went 0-for-$33.6 million in Game 1 Friday night.

The zero is for beads of sweat. McIlvaine didn’t work up any, because Sonics coach George Karl kept him tethered to the bench all night.

“It has nothing to do with Mac,” Karl said. “It has to do with the personality of the game.”

Great. For 33 mil, you’d figure they’d at least get a blind date with a good personality.

We should be used to this by now. Two years ago, in the wake of the Denver debacle, the Sonics went out and got Sarunas Marciulionis and Bill Cartwright for the veteran playoff savvy the club supposedly lacked. But both wandered into Karl’s doghouse and were confined to quarters through the four-game collapse against the Lakers.

And, of course, there’s no forgetting all the quality time Ervin Johnson spent on the floor in last year’s playoffs.

As it happens, Karl is right - the Phoenix matchup does not suit a 7-foot clunk like Jim McIlvaine.

Alas, the Sonics haven’t encountered a matchup all season that does.

They insist, instead, that McIlvaine is an investment for the future, and that it’s unfair to divide his stats into his salary to figure his worth.

“What we’ve asked him to do, he’s tried to do,” said Karl. “He’s probably a little better than we thought he would be. And no one wants to believe that.”

And why not? Because to believe it is to accept that NBA economics are even more insane - and Seattle’s front-office judgment even more suspect - than we could have imagined.

If he lasts 10 years - and another round of expansion could do it - McIlvaine may evolve into a decent player. The Sonics don’t have 10 years. Their window of opportunity, as Karl himself has pointed out, is limited - possibly terminal, if Shawn Kemp is indeed as disenchanted with his station as his play and his sentiments indicate. And, of course, one of the reasons Shawn is disenchanted is the big pile of money the Sonics threw at one Jim McIlvaine.

Besides, no matter what the coach says, the big clunk didn’t get better as the season went on. He got worse, burdened by limited mobility and skills and the unlimited expectation and pressure of an outsized contract.

So he sits. At least he’s in uniform. Craig Ehlo, Seattle’s other off-season acquisition, isn’t even on the playoff roster - having played just 63 minutes the last month of the season. His son did play Little Squatch in a timeout skit, but that and moral support will be the extent of the family’s playoff contribution.

So, the Sonics spent $33.6 million on McIlvaine, $87.5 million to wrap up Gary Payton and a total of $25.9 on Ehlo and extensions for Hersey Hawkins, Sam Perkins and - don’t ask - Steve Scheffler.

And for their investment, they have one hacked-off superstar and a bench rotation which on Friday consisted of Perkins, Nate McMillan and David Wingate - himself a forgotten pine brother of a year ago.

Doesn’t sound like an improvement, does it?

They do have Terry Cummings, a welcome stopgap for those of us still having nightmares about Frank Brickowski, the Human Flagrant Foul. Karl’s inspiration to start Cummings at least keeps McIlvaine from being a scapegoat, though he remains a very visible symptom.

In the meantime, the Suns have minimum-wage Rex and a slew of flea-market finds giving the Sonics deja vu spasms - not that Seattle should have pursued any of them. But the Sonics are pursuing them now. And if you don’t think the Suns can win three straight from Seattle, be advised that they already have - the last two regular-season games in March and the playoff opener.

“It seems like every year we have to get in this place,” Karl said. “But we’ve fought out of the corner before, and I think we’re going to fight out of it again this time.”

Seeing as how they failed to buy themselves out of it.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = John Blanchette The Spokesman-Review