After 19 seasons with Seattle, McMillan now a visitor

SEATTLE – More than halfway through the regular season, the strangeness of a Nate McMillan NOT associated with the green and gold of the Seattle SuperSonics has worn off.

That doesn’t mean tonight’s return to Seattle with the Portland Trail Blazers won’t be a little weird for the man once considered “Mr. Sonic.”

“It’ll be different for people watching the game and for us a little bit,” said Seattle’s Rashard Lewis, who played under McMillan for five seasons. “After Monday’s game everything will go back to normal.”

McMillan will come to KeyArena in a bus, instead of his own car. He’ll give a pregame talk in the cramped visitors’ locker room and man a bench he’s never sat on.

Once the face of the Sonics organization – his No. 10 hangs in the arena rafters – McMillan is prepared for the weirdness.

“I’ve managed to develop a lot of friends over the 20 years that I was there and going back for the first time, a little weird, but you’ve got to do it,” McMillan said.

He’s still being embraced by the Sonics organization and its fans. The team has planned a pregame video tribute to McMillan, who spent 19 seasons with Seattle as a player and a coach.

Even with most of the Pacific Northwest focusing on the Seahawks and their Super Bowl matchup with Pittsburgh next Sunday, McMillan’s return is a noteworthy event, even if he thinks it pales in comparison.

“They’re excited about their football team and they should be,” he said.

McMillan was a second-round draft pick in 1986 out of North Carolina State and played in Seattle for 12 seasons. He was an integral part of Seattle’s domination of the Pacific Division during the mid-1990s, when the Sonics won four division titles and advanced to the 1996 NBA Finals, losing to Chicago.

After his playing career ended, McMillan spent two seasons as an assistant before taking over as head coach from Paul Westphal early in 2000.

Last season, McMillan led Seattle to an unexpected Northwest Division title and 52 wins. He pushed players at the right times, found rotations and player combinations that worked, and captured the attention of a city that had pushed the Sonics to the background.

In the playoffs, Seattle dispatched of Sacramento in five games, then gave eventual champion San Antonio a strong challenge. The Sonics pushed the Spurs to six games, and then lost.

Seattle faced a difficult offseason with nine free-agent players. Even with his contract ending July 1, few expected McMillan to be an issue. But Portland aggressively pursued him.

A day after it was announced that Ray Allen had agreed to a five-year deal worth up to $85 million, the rival Blazers announced they had wooed McMillan away from the Sonics.

“I’ve never been too comfortable, where I felt like I couldn’t move or wouldn’t move,” McMillan said at the end of last season.

His players understand the importance of tonight’s return.

“It is” a big deal, said Portland’s Ruben Patterson, another former Sonic. “But we’ve just go to go out there and try to win. You know he’s going to want that game real bad.”