There was a point last season when Seattle SuperSonics forward Rashard Lewis was 36th in the league in scoring.

Of the 35 players in front of him, all but a handful were either making the maximum salary allowed in the league or were about to begin making the max after their rookie contracts expired.

And some of the players who were not making max deals included Michael Jordan, who should have been but is playing under a special circumstance; Steve Nash, who likely will hit the max on his next contract; and Sam Cassell, who is roped into a bad contract, granted, but is there by his own doing so I NEVER EVER want to hear him complain again.

	Rashard Lewis, left, hasn't been an All-Star, but he thinks he should be paid like one.

For a while in the NBA, it became almost passé to have a max contract, as if it were a rite of passage. There were even players well below the skills of Quincy Lewis much less Rashard Lewis -- Vin Baker, Shawn Kemp, Scottie Pippen and Damon Stoudamire immediately come to mind -- who were making ludicrous amounts of money.

Those days, it appears, are over. Teams are becoming much more frugal and much more circumspect when it comes to doling out large chunks of cash to players, particularly ones with "potential."

Yes, Jason Kidd and Tim Duncan will command maximum contracts next summer, and Shaquille O'Neal will get one any time his contract expires. But gone are the days when players say, "I want the max," and teams' knees buckled like a one-legged man playing piggyback with Jerry Krause.

That's the reason this Lewis situation has become so delicate in Seattle, which may be on the verge of losing the player it had labeled as the future of the franchise.

There are two ways to look at this Lewis thing.

Just about everybody in the basketball world agrees that Lewis is not worth a $102 million contract, or perhaps even the $90 million deal that he is seeking. After all, he has never made the All-Star team, is not even the first option on his own squad and disappears from games from time to time.

On the other hand, the guy is only 22 years old, averaged 17 points and seven rebounds last season and has buckets of things to learn about the game, which almost assures him of becoming a double-double producer each night for many years if his learning curve continues on an upward pattern.

The Sonics have taken a stand -- which in some ways should be lauded. They are not going to pay Lewis the maximum. They are going to pay Lewis what they think he is worth, and if they lose him they will say, "We think that playing basketball for more than $60 million is extremely reasonable. We could not help it that Rashard does not agree."

Still, whether they agree with it or not, the Sonics have treated this situation rather arrogantly. The message they have sent to Lewis is this: "We can pay you more than any other team can pay you. We know it. You know it. So come sign."

What the Sonics did not count on is that players have not yet grasped the new economic atmosphere of the NBA, and they need a little more ego-massaging than what the Sonics have been willing to give. Particularly after they have touted him for so long.

It is akin to a guy wining and dining a beautiful woman for a few months, asking her to marry him and then, after she agrees, going out and golfing with his buddies every day of their engagement.

To make matters worse, the Sonics signed unproven center Jerome James to a three-year, $15 million deal a year after they signed unproven center Calvin Booth to a six-year, $34 million deal, which, using the same analogy, is like the guy hitting strip clubs on the way home from the golf course.

Now, would it surprise anyone if the girl broke off the engagement when she met another guy?

That other guy happens to be maverick Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, who not only is wining and dining her, but also flying her to Cabo for an all-expenses paid bash on the beach.

	The Sonics are playing a dangerous game here, allowing Lewis to be wooed by the Mavericks. It's one thing for him to go visit Cleveland. It's quite another for Lewis to go to the organization that treats their players better than any other in the league.

The Sonics are playing a dangerous game here, allowing Lewis to be wooed by the Mavericks. It's one thing for him to go visit Cleveland. It's quite another for Lewis to go to the organization that treats their players better than any other in the league.

Not only that, Cuban has a history of taking care of his own; Dirk Nowitzki, Michael Finley and Nick Van Exel all make the max now, Nash likely will make the max and Cuban could pay Lewis the maximum in the summer of 2005.

Surely, when Lewis visited Dallas on Thursday, it was pointed out that even using today's deflated numbers, Lewis could make more over the next seven seasons in Dallas -- $66 million -- than he could over the next seven seasons in Seattle, which is offering less than that $66 million figure though is likely to come up to $70 million. Overall, if Lewis gets maxed out in Dallas in '05, he could earn a $128 million deal over the next 10 years.

That's why it's now a 50-50 chance that Lewis signs with the Mavericks, because they are the only team that seems willing to give players the max. I remember having a conversation with Sonics coach Nate McMillan a few years back when he was an assistant coach. He had recently finished playing the last year of his contract, which paid him $4 million. And here is what he said, both enviously and incredulously:

"I was doing the math the other day on Rashard. And I figured out that after his first contract is up, he is going to sign a max contract for over $100 million (which is supposed to be this contract). When that one is up, he will only be 29, and he can sign ANOTHER max contract for over $100 million. When he's all done, the guy will stand to make $250 million in his career."

Times were much different when those comments were made, clearly. And when it comes right down to it now, Lewis is becoming the poster child of the new NBA, complete with salary cap, luxury tax and escrow.

For some reason Lewis becomes the poster child for everything. When he came out of high school in 1998, he became the quintissential David Stern example of why you should go to college, sitting in the green room on draft night, passed over and over in the first round, slipping to the second round and crying on national television.

It's funny, really, because the Dallas Mavericks were choosing 30th that night, and instead of taking Lewis they selected Ansu Sesay.

As life moves in a circular motion, Sesay ended last season on -- you guessed it -- the Sonics' roster, and they plan to re-sign him to a minimum salary contract.

The Sonics took Lewis two slots later in that draft, at No. 32, and now, in thick irony, they may lose him to Dallas because they won't sign him to a max contract.

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