Baker

	Payton

Paul Westphal is not a bad man.

Nor is he a bad coach.

He just didn't fit Gary Payton.

It's not Westphal's fault. He is who he is and that's been good enough to be an all-star player and coach of a team that made the Finals. And maybe if he gets another shot, with a different team, he'll make the Finals again. But it wasn't going to happen with Payton and Vin Baker. Not after Seattle had Baker on the block last summer without telling Payton, Baker's best friend. The rest was just inevitable.

When I asked GP during camp about the near-trade of Baker, he was to the point.

"They're taking it as a business, and I should take it as a business," he said then. "But when I got a whiff of it and asked my baby brother (Baker), um, I got very upset. You know, I think that it should have been handled a little different."

Westphal went to Hawaii, where Baker and Payton were at Olympic team practice. He tried to talk to them. They didn't want to hear him. When it came to each other, they all had tin ears. For example, Westphal tried to play the disciplinarian role with Payton last week -- about three years too late. And yet, he had the support of everyone in the Sonics' organization to suspend Payton for more than one game after GP's meltdown against the Mavs in Dallas. And then, incredibly, he changed his mind. Ballgame. Team officially lost.

Another example: Westphal doesn't curse. He just doesn't. No one disputes this. He is proud of it. As he should be. In many places in America, it would be a badge of honor.

In an NBA locker room, it is not.

Rightly or wrongly, players expect to be ... ah, how does one put it? There's a twelve-letter expletive that is a favorite among athletes. Take that expletive and remove the last two letters. Athletes expect coaches to do this (the expletive) to them. In other words, players expect coaches to profanely yell at them on occasion when they're not playing well. Coaches who don't are viewed as suspect. Is this screwy? Maybe. But it's reality.

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Nate McMillan, the new coach, will do this to Payton. The two were backcourt mates when the Sonics did their most damage. If it had been up to McMillan (and anybody else in the Seattle organization), Payton would have sat, and maybe for more than one game. He told Payton this on Monday. (Ironically, when team president Wally Walker asked McMillan who he thought should coach, McMillan recommended fellow assistant Dwane Casey for the job. When Walker asked Casey, he recommended McMillan.)

"If Gary can't play for Nate, he can't play for anybody," says an Emerald City Insider. "Not Larry Brown. Not (Pat) Riley. Nate."

Somebody has to get to Payton. Most nights, he's still a top-five player on the floor. But facts are facts: he's been catered to for the last five seasons, and the Sonics have dropped further and further behind in the West. He wanted Vernon Maxwell, and he got Vernon Maxwell; he wanted a lower-key coach after his love-hate thing with George Karl, and he got one. (Okay, he didn't get Mitch Richmond.) And yet, he winds up getting into fights with almost everybody, from the thrown weight at Horace Grant last season after a practice, to scraps with Baker before games. It happened more than once last season; one spy says Baker came out for warmups before a Seattle-Denver game with a fresh welt under his eye that Sonic players said came from Payton.

But Payton may be the lesser of Seattle's evils. Despite his hard work this past summer to get in shape, Baker remains broken. Last Saturday, Chris Webber crushed him. Webber's performance and his taunts (still angry at being snubbed from the Olympic team, Webber was screaming at Baker all night, "where's my gold medal?") goaded Baker into a fight with his team down 20 in the second half.

Don't be surprised if Jelani McCoy gets more time at power forward, with Baker coming off the bench. Baker and Patrick Ewing are just too slow getting back on defense; too similar in the halfcourt set on offense. If the 38-year-old Ewing has to come off the pine, he may never warm up. The hope-the gamble-is that Baker can handle being a sixth or seventh man.

Seattle's got a bigger bet to make next summer. Do the Sonics stay with their two Olympians, or blow up the house and start over behind promising youngsters Rashard Lewis and Desmond Mason? There are still any number of suitors for Payton (Riles will be more than willing to shuffle whatever bodies he has to make that happen, for example), but you never get comparable value in return for superstars, and there won't be a big audience for Baker.

McMillan was named interim coach on Monday. Not being permanent may not be the worst thing for him.