You knew it was coming.

	Payton and buddy Vin Baker were two of the main reasons that coach Paul Westphal just had to go.

You could feel it, as surely as you can smell rain approaching on a warm summer day, when the wind picks up and the leaves turn over.

The firing of Paul Westphal was, as everybody close to the team and even casual observers knew, inevitable.

Here is what's difficult, the hard part about the NBA, the WRONG part: Westphal probably did not deserve to be fired.

He is a decent coach and a good man.

And the latter portion of that statement is what got him fired in today's Gen X NBA, where many players cannot relate unless a person has a $90,000 Mercedes and a posse of at least six people.

Westphal was an openly religious man, a deep conservative who said that even as he played his career during the drug-ridden days of the 1970s, he never saw it going on because he either was in his room or did not associate with that sort of behavior.

And he coached a team that had volatile personalities and a different belief system, or at least a belief system that did not jibe with Westphal's.

It made for difficult times even when things were going well, because Westphal could not relate to people who did not want to listen, or who did not appreciate the things it took to win the way he wanted them to win.

The day that Westphal disclosed to the media that he had offered to resign on Nov. 6, Westphal said this:

"I don't think anybody can impose the desire to do the right things for the right reason for somebody else. You can give them the opportunity to do that, and then they choose. When a team chooses to sacrifice and to respect each other and to do what's right because it's right, you've got something very special.

"The best coach ever is John Wooden. He said out of 15 guys, five guys are with you no matter what, five guys are never with you because they have their own agenda, and five guys are in the middle. You have to win those five guys in the middle."

	'Phal Guy
	Paul Westphal inherited a team in Seattle that was coming off a 61-win season and three straight Pacific Division titles, but he failed to feed off the momentum that George Karl left behind. In Westphal's first season the Sonics missed the playoffs for the first time since '89-90, and last year the Sonics dropped a first-round playoff series for the first time since '94-95.
		W-L	Finish
	'00-01	6-9	5th
	'99-00	45-37	4th
	'98-99	25-25	5th*
	'97-98	61-21	1st
	'96-97	57-25	1st
	'95-96	64-18	1st
	* Westphal's first season as coach

Westphal could not win those five guys in the middle, because two of the five guys who have their own agenda were Gary Payton and Vin Baker.

And when Payton threatened Westphal in Dallas last week, and Westphal suspended him, and then unsuspended him, not only did he lose Payton for good, but he also lost the rest of the team.

Over the next three games, the Sonics lost by 27 points, beat the Clippers and lost by 24 points to Sacramento, after which Brent Barry said, "The frustration is building. It's mounting. It's a bad seed to be sowing so early in the season. It seems like we've gone through a lifetime, and we've played only, what, 15 games so far. These 15 games have felt like an entire season, with the ups and downs of this year. We need to get it corrected as soon as possible, but I don't have the answers for that."

Apparently, the Sonics think they have the answer -- and, really, at this point, who can argue. Things were not getting any better, and some would argue they were getting worse, especially when you witnessed Vin Baker running around the inside of Arco Arena trying to resume a fight with Chris Webber.

The answer, they hope, is Nate McMillan, longtime Payton teammate and now assistant-turned head coach.

This is why McMillan should command at least a semblance of the respect that Westphal never had.

In Miami on Nov. 7, McMillan and Payton began playing a game of one-on-one before practice.

Payton faked a drive, stepped back and hit a shot over McMillan. On the next possession, McMillan faked a shot and drove by Payton, who virtually tackled him.

McMillan called a foul. Payton said no way. McMillan demanded back the ball, and Payton relented. Believe me, he never relents in a game of one-on-one.

On the next possession, McMillan hit another jumper over Payton, then started taunting him. "Defensive player of the year my ass," McMillan said.

Payton got down into his intense defensive stance, the one he uses when he really wants to clamp down on a player. McMillan hit another shot over him and kept taunting.

At 5-0, Payton stalked off the court, his former teammate -- and now his head coach -- having schooled him.

And he said nothing.

And that says a lot.

Frank Hughes covers the NBA for the Tacoma (Wash.) News-Tribune. He is a regular contributor to ESPN.com.