Payton Won’t Give It A Rest
Seattle coach George Karl said in the preseason that he would like to cut back on the minutes of point guard Gary Payton, who has averaged 38.3 minutes a game over the past three seasons. The averages are more impressive - and more taxing - because Payton has missed only two games over his seven-year career.
But thus far this season, Payton has averaged a team-leading 39.1 minutes a game, which projects to 3,214 minutes all season, a career high. He currently ranks 13th in the league this season in minutes played.
“Gary only sees one thing,” Karl said, “and that is winning. And if he sees sitting affecting winning then he doesn’t want to sit.”
However, Karl’s concern is that Payton may be looking at the immediate advantages and ignoring the toll the minutes may be taking on his body over 82 games, plus the playoffs.
“What you hope,” Karl said, “is that you get enough blowouts that you can keep (Payton, Vin Baker and Detlef Schrempf) under 3,000 minutes.”
No place like …
Sunday’s game against Milwaukee kicked off a stretch in which the Sonics will play six of seven games at home. Their only road trip is a one-night venture to Denver this Saturday.
Karl is looking at the rest of November as a time to get back to fundamentals.
“It’s time to get better a little bit,” Karl said. “I think everybody needs a little bit of review in the defensive schemes. We’ve already talked about the rebounding, we want to look at some habits we have and we have an outside concern about free-throw shooting.”
In reserve
Sonics center Aaron Williams, who started the first nine games of the season, on being relegated to coming off the bench:
“It’s not very exciting, that’s for sure,” Williams said. “But I don’t think I’ve been getting the job done anyway. You always like to do well. But as long as the team is winning, that’s the main thing.”
Rebounds
Baker kicked off the Sonics’ “Read to Succeed” program when he spoke to students at the African American Academy in Seattle Tuesday morning. Baker is the first of six Seattle players who throughout the season will speak to children at Seattle-area schools about the importance of reading.
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