Changes In Sonics Expected But Karl Optimistic About Future

Seattle SuperSonics president and general manager Wally Walker is taking a few days to think things over before talking publicly about the team’s future.

The questions he is wrestling with are many, after a 57-25 regular season that was a drop off from the 64-18 record of 1996, and losing in the second round as opposed to the NBA Finals the year before. Among the questions Walker is undoubtedly grappling with:

Does this team as currently constructed have another run at an NBA title in it, or is rebuilding in order?

Were the flaws this season physical or mental? The team often talked of the pitfalls that can occur the year after a run to the NBA Finals, and still they seemed to fall victim to most of them, including exhaustion.

“I’m tired of basketball,” said guard Gary Payton after the 96-91 loss Saturday to Houston in Game 7 of the Western Conference semifinals, pointing out that he’d hardly had a break since the start of the 1995-96 season thanks to the long playoff run last year and then playing for the Dream Team in the Atlanta Olympics.

What of Shawn Kemp and his possible desire to move on? That seemed to be what Kemp was intimating with his vague comments after the game Saturday. If Kemp doesn’t want to move on, he made no attempt to make that clear, saying only “We’ll see about the future on that,” when asked about his continuing in Seattle after the Houston loss.

Sonics coach George Karl, for one, says the team has another good year left in it “with some minor tinkering.”

He disputes that the team has gotten old and now is on the downslide.

“I remember everyone saying the Utah Jazz were too old three, four years ago,” Karl said.

Karl’s minor tinkering likely involves getting another shooter or two off the bench, and another big man in the Terry Cummings mold if Cummings himself doesn’t come back.

And Karl probably is in no mood for major tinkering because he has only one year left on his contract - at a guaranteed $3.5 million - after which he has given every indication that he probably will move on. He won’t want to undergo any major changes in a season in which he might be trying to set himself up for another job.

If the Sonics, however, decide that Kemp has to be traded after his season of discontent, then all bets are off.

Trading Kemp wouldn’t necessarily be easy. He is due to make around $3 million next year, and because the Sonics have little salary cap room, they would have to take a player making roughly the same amount in return - or engage in a multiplayer deal - and it might be hard to get equal value that way.

Even thinking about trading Kemp, though, was the last thing the team wanted to do before his bizarre season. It was a season that started with a training camp holdout in protest of the free-agent contract given to Jim McIlvaine, included a lengthy slump and missed flights and practices, and ended with his uncertain statements after the Houston loss.

After the run last year to the NBA Finals, the Sonics figured they were set for years with the duo of Kemp and Payton, and would need only to recast the supporting players every other year or so.

Barring a trade of Kemp, though, the Sonics figure to be in a position to make only minor moves with little cap room and 10 players under guaranteed contracts for next season.

With that in mind, the most logical course of action would seem to be keeping the team mostly intact, signing a few cut-rate free agents - it is estimated that 40 percent of players next year will make the expected new minimum of $272,000 because so many teams spent all their money last year, meaning there will again be a lot of bargains available - and maybe making a minor trade or two.