TACOMA, Wash. -- Former Seattle SuperSonics coach Paul Westphal told The News Tribune of Tacoma, Wash., on Monday night that it was Vin Baker, not All-Star guard Gary Payton, who was the main reason he was fired.
|  | | Vin Baker was his biggest disappointment as Sonics coach, says Paul Westphal. |
Westphal told the newspaper in a telephone interview that it was his inability to get Baker to play at a high level that cost him his job, not the recent, highly publicized in-game confrontation with Payton.
The Sonics named assistant coach Nate McMillan as the interim head coach Monday, replacing the easy-going Westphal. Tuesday morning, McMillan told KJR radio in Seattle that he plans numerous changes to the team's starting lineup, but did not divulge what he had in mind because he had not spoken to the players yet.
"I'm not pointing a finger at Gary," Westphal told The News Tribune. "Everybody knows that Gary is a very volatile, intensely competitive person. I would be happy to go to war with Gary in the future if it came to that. Did we have some unpleasant exchanges from time to time? Yes. Did we work through them and get to the point where we were establishing better understanding? I think so."
Westphal was not willing to say the same thing about Baker, however, and even used the Sonics' Nov. 17 home loss to Dallas as an example of his struggles with Baker. After the loss, he told Sonics general manager Wally Walker that Walker should fire him.
"I was very upset with myself because I thought we had that game under control, and I put Vin and Patrick (Ewing) back in the game because they were the starters," Westphal told the newspaper. "I didn't make that substitution thinking we would lose the game, but I made that move thinking there was a better move, and that I should be making the better move but I didn't want Vin to be upset by not going back in the game.
"And I sure wasn't going to put Vin in the game and not put Patrick back in the game. And so I put those guys in the game and we proceeded to lose the game. And I was upset because I felt like I had made the move based on politics rather than what was the best thing for that particular game. And I shared that very frankly with Wally, that I felt that I had been doing a terrible job because I was playing players, one player in particular, to keep him happy rather than to win the game. And I said that is no way to coach."
Westphal said his two-plus seasons trying to motivate Baker was like "a trip to the dentist."
"I would say for three years it has been a constant puzzle to figure out how we could get Vin Baker in position to be an All-Star again," Westphal said. "What buttons to push, what opportunities to give, when to be encouraging, when to be demanding, when to play him, when to sit him.
"It has taken a long time, and I would say I never got the solution because he is not much better now than when I got the job."
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