Gill Happy Team Opted To Keep Him

Time waited for Kendall Gill, and his star is beginning to sparkle again. And perhaps the biggest surprise is that it is happening on the Seattle SuperSonics, with George Karl the coach.

“Let’s just say we had some nice talks,” Sonics president Wally Walker said.

Nobody would go into detail, but apparently Walker and Sonics owner Barry Ackerley stepped into the situation that was filled with nasty taunting and disagreements, on everything from Gill complaining about playing time to Karl questioning Gill’s work ethic and embarrassing him in game situations.

“I used to think about it a lot and wonder what could I do to make it better,” Gill said. “The situation is a lot better than it was a month ago, when I was going through all the media stuff. Just letting time pass. Just being quiet and letting things blow over, like a storm, helped.”

So as the National Basketball Association trading deadline came and went Thursday night, Gill did not get traded as Karl intended. It didn’t happen over the summer when he tried to get Mitch Richmond, nor did it occur when it was apparent they could trade Gill to the Portland Trail Blazers for Clyde Drexler and Tracy Murray.

It wasn’t just upper management that wanted the 26-year-old Gill to stay with the team. It was his teammates. They didn’t want Drexler. They wanted Gill.

“I’ve been in his corner all along,” guard Gary Payton said. “There’s no reason to trade him. We need him here doing what he can do for us.”

Added Nate McMillan: “We talked about it a long way back. We wanted Kendall here. He and Shawn and Gary are the three young pieces to build the franchise around. Kendall’s handled it very well. He’s had his moments when he couldn’t control his outbursts, but he really has had a professional attitude.

“I just told him to put up with the minutes problem for one year. He’d get his minutes soon enough.”

Read into the latter statement whatever you want. Gill isn’t buying into any of it. After the bloodletting he went through in Charlotte before getting traded to the Sonics with a first-round draft choice for Dana Barros, Eddie Johnson and a firstround draft choice prior to the 1993-94 season, this was a relief.

His teammates backed him up. “Yeah, they did and I’m grateful for that,” Gill said. “They told me to keep my head up, to play hard and they were with me. And that’s all a player needs.

“Don’t get me wrong. There were some great guys on that Charlotte Hornets team. Guys that I’m still friends with and I still talk to today. But the thing there is we were all immature. Had we been more mature, things might have worked out there.”