Only The Results Are Pretty

His game defies definition. It’s all raw angles and rough edges; all spins and swirls. Nothing about the way Gary Payton plays basketball is classical.

He isn’t your prototypical point guard. He isn’t a natural shooting guard. Even his coach calls his jumper “gross.”

He doesn’t soar like Michael Jordan or dunk like Shawn Kemp. He doesn’t dominate SportsCenter. He is unique. Payton is a jazz riff. A night at The Improv. More Picasso than Pissarro. More Monk than Beethoven.

Payton is long arms and a defiant jaw. He is a flatlining 3-point shot that somehow seems to fall when the Sonics need it most. A quick-handed swipe at crunch time.

He isn’t Jordan, but at this point in his career, at this stage of the NBA season, he might be the second-best player in the game.

Scottie Pippen? Grant Hill? Penny Hardaway? Payton.

“The game is coming very easy to him. It’s very simple,” said Nate McMillan. “He has a strange kind of game, but the thing about him that is a lot like Michael is when you challenge him, it’s on.”

At first, he doesn’t dazzle. But Payton grows on you. He swings a left-handed hook over Rony Seikaly. Or swishes a 3 from the corner and turns to the opposing bench to make sure they saw it.

He hides in the shadows of a pick, then pounces on a sloppy pass. He leads a fast break that finishes with one of Kemp’s dunks.

“His package is like Jordan’s,” Sonics coach George Karl said. “It’s got offense. It’s got defense. It’s got passing. It’s got stealing. It’s got all types of packages in it.”

Payton’s game is anachronistic. He is a daguerreotype in a technicolor world. He plays on the floor, not in the air. His game is a conglomeration. A little Bob Cousy. A little Lenny Wilkens. A bit of Larry Bird and a lot of Magic Johnson.

“I think he’s got a lot of old-time stuff,” Karl said. “The spins. He uses both hands. Quick releases. An unorthodox, fadeaway, jack-legged, off-of-one-leg type of offensive skills. And all of it works because of his quickness.”

Except for Jordan, nobody means more to his team than Payton means to the Sonics. This is his club. He isn’t afraid to carry it through the tough stretches, like last week’s 4-1 road trip. Even in Tuesday night’s 101-89 loss to Orlando, he scored 15 of his 23 points in the fourth quarter when the rest of the Sonics’ offense disappeared.

Payton, 28, is the kind of leader you can count on every night. Sore hip. Bad back. Back-to-back games. Back-to-back-to-back Hardaways - Tim, Penny, Penny. He’s there. He has missed two games in seven seasons.

Yeah, he can talk trash like Howard Stern. You get the feeling he could hold his own on “Crossfire.” On the floor he can scowl and mug and swear and howl.

But this isn’t Wimbledon. It’s the NBA. It’s Gary Payton’s world.

“I think sometimes his antics and the looseness of his trash talking gets in the way of his leadership,” Karl said. “But Gary in games, he’s prepared. He’s focused. That’s probably why I think he should be an MVP candidate. His consistency … has been the foundation of what we are.”

Payton isn’t the best player. Jordan is. He isn’t the best point guard. John Stockton is. He isn’t the best small forward. Pippen is. But in May, when the games mean everything, if you can’t have Jordan, Payton’s not a bad second pick.

“I think Gary Payton’s the second-best player in basketball,” Karl said. “The best player, who can play the game under any coach, in any situation, in any system? Jordan is No. 1 and Gary Payton’s No. 2.

“I think Gary’s become an every-possession guy. What’s that mean? It means tremendous mental toughness and focus and responsibility. I think everybody knows, if Gary doesn’t play well, we have a hell of a chance of losing.”

In March, in May and all the way into June; this Sonics season, this team is in the hands of the second-best player in the game.