Sonics Cram For Another Chemistry Test Seattle Hoping Off-Season Moves Change Fortunes Come Playoff Time

Hakeem Olajuwon of the incumbent champion Houston Rockets couldn’t resist verbally zapping the Seattle SuperSonics this week.

After Houston lost to Seattle for the second time in four nights, Olajuwon delivered the sharpest of needles. He said the Rockets kept looking forward to playing Seattle in the playoffs, but the Sonics hadn’t made it past the first round the past two seasons.

Ouch! It hurts the Sonics to be reminded.

“I think everybody understands that when playoff time comes, there’s going to be a lot of pressure on everybody to go out there and win,” guard Hersey Hawkins said.

“Regardless of how we do during the regular season, people are going to wait and see what happens to this team in the playoffs,” Nate McMillan added.

It’s a different Sonics team this season. The Sonics are still big regular-season winners, but there’s a new chemistry.

With the additions of Frank Brickowski, David Wingate and Hawkins and the subtractions of Kendall Gill and Sarunas Marciulionis, Team Turmoil has become Club Harmony.

All-Stars Gary Payton and Shawn Kemp have finally matured emotionally and nobody is griping at coach George Karl about playing time.

The result: The team that some thought was on the verge of imploding this season entered the All-Star break with the NBA’s best Western Conference record at 34-12.

“We don’t have as many individual egos in the lockerroom as we had last year,” Karl said. “Everybody has been more professional and more responsible.”

After the Sonics exited the playoffs in the first round for the second straight season, it was widely speculated Karl would be fired. But he was allowed to return. Instead, Gill and Marciulionis, players who battled Karl for playing time, were traded.

McMillan wanted to set the record straight.

“The press said we didn’t get along, but we’ve always gotten along,” he explained. “It was mostly a problem of minutes and that was between the players and the coach.”

Karl sat in his office at the KeyArena and slowly exhaled, the look of a coach under pressure.

He was fired at Cleveland and Golden State in the 1980s. He knows it’s possible he could lose his job in Seattle in the 1990s despite his glossy 236-98 regular-season record with the Sonics, the best winning percentage of any coach in the team’s 29-year history.

In Seattle, Karl has proved to be one of the league’s top coaches. But do the Sonics have to win the league championship or reach the NBA Finals for him to keep his job?

There is a sense of urgency here, Karl said.

“I think we’re going to be ready for the playoffs,” he said. “I think the team very much understands that to erase the past couple of seasons that we have to at least win the first round.”

Karl will coach the West against the East in today’s All-Star game in San Antonio because the Sonics had a better first-half record than San Antonio, Utah and Houston - despite the loss of Detlef Schrempf for 19 games with a broken bone in his left leg.

Kemp is having his best season, averaging 21 points and 12.3 rebounds, both career highs, and Payton is second on the Sonics in scoring with 19.1 points. Kemp, the dunkmaster, was third in the league in rebounding and tied for third with a .564 field-goal percentage. Payton was leading the league with 2.69 steals a game.

There’s no disputing the value of Payton and Kemp. Still, Hawkins, the eight-year veteran who has played in Philadelphia and Charlotte, could be the Sonics’ MVP.

Hawkins is giving the Sonics 15.8 points and 34.6 minutes a game. He’s his team’s top 3-point shooter.

But he’s more than that. His teammates and coach love him for what he gives them in the lockerroom.

“When I first met with coach Karl, he said things weren’t quite as bad as everybody made it out to be,” Hawkins said. “I’ve found that out to be true. No one’s griping about minutes or shots. Everybody is fighting for one goal - to win games.”

Karl smiled when he was asked about Hawkins.

“Not only is Hersey a better basketball player than we thought he was, he’s an unbelievable professional,” Karl said.

McMillan smiled, too, when Hawkins’ name was mentioned.

“I haven’t met too many guys like Hawk,” he said. “He’s a guy who never complains about anything. Shots. Minutes. Anything.”

Who’s kidding who?

Seattle Coach George Karl, doing one of those stick-up-for-your-guy numbers, said John Stockton and Gary Payton are “a hell of a lot better” than All-Star starter Kidd. Kidd clipped the quote, taped it to his locker and scored 36 points with nine rebounds and eight assists against Payton in a 103-100 Maverick victory.