Sonics Face Challenge In West

Terry Cummings certainly isn’t a savior. Who is, in the NBA at age 35?

But he certainly is the kind of stretch-drive transaction championship teams make. A basketball version of Vince Coleman, let’s say, who need not ever rent more than a hotel room to make a lasting impression on the city.

Cummings now makes this team 11 deep - everybody now on the active roster except Greg Graham has made a contribution when it’s mattered this year, meaning the Seattle SuperSonics once again may truly be the NBA’s deepest team, particularly once Nate McMillan comes back, which should happen around the AllStar break.

And with Cummings coming to town just as the team has ripped off a 6-0 start to the New Year, the temptation is to once again elevate the Sonics to the exalted status they held before going 7-8 in December.

A lost December that many were ready to pin on the absence of Vincent Askew, Ervin Johnson and Frank Brickowski - an obvious but too easy excuse.

Now, as then, the truth is a picture muddier than Dennis Rodman’s future.

Critics seemed quick to blame the Sonics for the departures of Askew and others, without really accepting the legitimate excuse that the loss to injury of McMillan was more critical than anything else.

Of course, the Sonics could have better anticipated the loss of McMillan, who struggled with similar injuries all last year, although that’s in part why the team signed Craig Ehlo, who so far hasn’t panned out.

And the team’s recent good fortune, as even most of the players and coaches will tell you, is as much a function of the schedule as anything else. Seattle won its first six games of the New Year by an average of 16 points, with the narrowest margin being nine. But only Miami of the six foes had a winning record, and only the Heat and Indiana figure to make the playoffs.

Four of those games were at home, with the two road wins at Vancouver and Denver.

More telling will be a two-week stretch before the All-Star break when the Sonics host the Lakers on Super Bowl Sunday, the rapidly improving Bullets on Jan. 31, the Bulls on Feb. 2 and Utah on Feb. 5, although the absence of McMillan will still give Seattle a ready-made out.

The Sonics will have all the intangible advantages in each game - playing at home, with a day or two of rest before, and other than the loss of McMillan, a fully healthy team that can no longer use breaking in newcomers as an excuse.

And while many of the Sonics players will no doubt downplay the importance of those games, the contests against the Lakers and Jazz are critical for playoff considerations.

First, the Sonics need to beat the Lakers to win the Pacific Division and capture the No. 2 seed into the playoffs, which as of Friday, would mean playing No. 7 seed Sacramento in the first round of the playoffs.

But finishing second in the division would mean at least the No. 3 seed and a meeting with a much-tougher and continually improving Minnesota team in the first round, or sliding to No. 4 and facing dangerous and incredibly unpredictable Portland.

Finishing at least in the top three is especially critical this year when the gap between Portland at No. 5 and everybody else at No. 6-7-8 is as wide as the holes in one of Isaiah Rider’s explanations for missing practice.