Though their 33-27 record may leave the Sonics percentage points out of the seventh seed in the Western Conference, it is good enough that they would be a game up on the Boston Celtics for home-court advantage during the first round if they played in the Eastern Conference. With a favorable schedule down the stretch, it's a very real possibility that the Sonics improve on their 44-38 record of a year ago.

The Sonics are demonstrating that they have one of the deeper lineups in the NBA, with seven different players scoring in double figures at least once on this road trip, and six in a game on two occasions. The bench, led by Peja Drobnjak and Desmond Mason, has provided a huge lift.

Rightfully, these players are all getting credit for their performance.

But there's someone else who should share in the euphoria over this Sonic resurgence. The Sonics are finally playing exactly how I envisioned them this off-season, from Vladimir Radmanovic demonstrating the potential to become a key member of the European invasion to Jerome James throwing his big body around and blocking shots to Peja Drobnjak savvily running the offense through the high post and killing the opposition with his deft touch from the perimeter. The architect of this vision is none other than the man many Sonics fans love to hate, Wally Walker.

Where are the comments in the message boards reading, "Wow, Wally really was right about Drobnjak's ability to contribute off the bench"? How about the columns praising the Sonic front office for the scouting work which led to them bringing in talented but inconsisent James?

It's clear to me that the Sonics are moving in the right direction. After a downswing through the last three seasons, the Sonics are moving upwards again. They will not likely finish with a significantly better record than last season -- if better at all -- but that's not necessarily an indication that they are stagnating. Instead, as they do it with a lineup that, while perhaps not as young as it's made it to be by Kevin Calabro and Billy McKinney, is clearly younger than last season's.

With Baker out, the Sonics start a rookie (Radmanovic), a second-year player (James), and a third-year player (Rashard Lewis) along with the veteran backcourt of Gary Payton and Brent Barry. The bench is extremely youthful, with two more rookies -- Drobnjak (admittedly much older, at 26, than the average rookie) and Earl Watson -- joined by second year players Desmond Mason and Art Long (another guy who's older than he would seem based on experience).

Even if the Sonics aren't as youthful as the Los Angeles Clippers, their main competitors for a playoff berth, they are still far ahead of last season when 38-year old Patrick Ewing was a key contributor.

Barry, at age 30, is no spring chicken, but he's hardly ready to be put out to pasture either. This has been undoubtedly the best year of his career thus far, as he's added 2.2 points, 1 board, and 1.5 assists per game to his previous career highs. With a quarter of the season left to be played, Barry is slightly more than 100 points and 500 minutes away from setting career highs; both should be accomplished by the time the month of March has gone out (assumedly like a lion, judging by the fine weather we in Seattle have been enjoying).

Perhaps even more impressively, Barry has shaken off the allegations of fragility engendered by last season, when he missed 15 games, by (knock on wood) joining fellow starters Lewis and Payton as the only three players on the roster to suit up for every game. For that matter, I can't even rembember more than one time (an eye poke against Sacramento) where Barry has so much as left the game because of injury.

Even with projected development from Mason, Barry has to be considered the Sonics' starting shooting guard for at least the forseeable future.

I think it's so clear from the first 60 games of this season that Gary Payton hasn't lost a step this season, perhaps even improving at the age of 33, so as to not even be worth discussing. If there was any doubt out there that Payton would be an effective player by the time that his desired two-year contract extension concludes (and there wasn't on my part), it should have been absolved. Perhaps a strategy like the one employed in Utah the past few years, with John Stockton slowly having his minutes cut to retain effectiveness, may be necessary at some point, but Earl Watson would seem to be more than capable of handling this additional responsibility down the line.

At small forward, even my hypercritical self has to be pleased with the recent play of Rashard Lewis. After a horrible 42% shooting month of November, Lewis has rebounded with 51%, 48%, and 49% in consecutive months. More importantly, Lewis is developing other skills, like an improved ability to play the passing lanes, a budding post-up game, and flashes of the ability to beat his man off the dribble. A summer of focus on these two areas of his game -- along with more touches if certain shot-happy players were moved -- might elevate Lewis to stardom.

Alongside Lewis is a player who I can't help but seeing as a future star in Radmanovic. While he may continue to struggle with decision-making (and exactly what 21 year-old foreign rookie doesn't?), Radmanovic shows flashes of brilliance. Though he didn't exactly leap off the score sheet with 13 points today, Radmanovic was a key part of the Sonic offense, marked by a play at the end of the first half where he took the inbounds with 1.3 seconds left, drove past his defender, and buried a Detlef Schrempf-esque rainbow jumper that, as Calabro might say, "came down wet," to give the Sonics a double-digit advantage at the break. Is Radmanovic so far behind where Lewis was two years ago, when he broke out at the end of the season to give fans an indication of what was in store? I don't think so. . . .

I discussed James last week in this space (he was a popular topic last week, with the Post Intelligencer and News-Tribune both running James stories as well. He then went out and played rather poorly in the next four games, struggling with fouls while continuing to dominate games at times. The verdict has not changed . . . this is a starting center in the NBA, and quite possibly a very good one.

So there we have a five-man lineup that can, in my opinion, be as formidable as nearly any in the NBA in the near future. A dynamic, multi-talented group that includes a shooting guard who handles like a point guard and rebounds like a small forward, a point guard who can create for himself and others, a small forward who can play the four or the two and is lethal from the perimeter, a well-rounded four who can take his opponent on the perimeter and drive past him or shoot over him, and a center who is a monster defensively and a threat through second chances and post-ups.

To that, I'd add a solid bench corps that is essentially the same as it is this season. Throw in a healthy Calvin Booth blocking shots when James is out and also scoring from the perimeter, and suddenly you have a potent nine-man rotation.

And yes, Wally Walker did manage to put that group together. Well, not entirely. To be fair, Payton was handed to him by Bob Whitsitt. However, every other player is a Walker acquisition, all but one undoubtedly a very good pickup.

Barry was flat out stolen from the Chicago Bulls, who handed him over in exchange for an aging Hersey Hawkins, who played just one year in Chicago before being cut, because the Bulls had prematurely decided that Barry was a free agent bust. They used the money on Ron Mercer (or, depending on how you view the situation, since Hawkins wasn't actually off their cap until this past summer, Charles Oakley). Neither Mercer nor Oakley is currently half the player that Barry is.

Lewis was a second round draft pick, of course. He has panned out, I would say . . . Lewis would probably rate right now as the second-best Sonic second rounder since Dennis Johnson a quarter-century ago, behind only Nate McMillan.

Radmanovic was the number twelve pick, and looks to be a good one in my eyes. I would say that only three players selected after Radmanovic have had a bigger impact this season -- Brendan Haywood, Jamaal Tinsley, and Tony Parker. Of course, the Sonics are hardly in the market for a point guard, so Haywood is the only guy I'd argue that the Sonics ought to have taken over Radmanovic (based on future potential as well, of course). Several players picked ahead of Radmanovic, including Detroit's Rodney White, Cleveland's DeSagana Diop, and Boston's Kedrick Brown, look like they might be worse picks. Of course, only time will tell.

James is a find of the first degree for the Sonics. This guy on a minimum contract is unbelievable . . . credit goes to the organization for hiding him during the summer (this theory was finally proven by Jim Moore in an article last week in the P-I).

The four players picked directly before and after Watson were Mehmet Okur, Michael Wright, Jamison Brewer, and Bobby Simmons. I don't believe Okur has come over yet, so it's hard to make a comparison, but Simmons is the only player of this group to have had any role in the NBA this year, and he hasn't played in quite some time. Fabulous pick.

Mason was the 17th pick last year, and definitely has panned out as well based on that position. Actually, it was quite a deep draft for swingmen, meaining that Toronto's Morris Peterson and the Clippers' Quentin Richardson -- contributors both -- went after Mason. With hindsight, Richardson was a better pick than Mason, but that makes it just a good pick instead of a great pick. Mason still looks better than a number of players selected earlier, including Marcus Fizer, DerMarr Johnson, Chris Mihm, Joel Pryzbilla, Jerome Moiso, Etan Thomas, Mateen Cleaves, and Jason Collier.

Although Drobnjak struggled for the first three months of the season, his play the last two weeks has been enough by itself to make him a fairly decent use of the 42nd pick. Yes, I'm dead serious on that one . . . mid second rounders don't usually amount to much, and Drobnjak looks like he will.

That leaves us one questionable roster decision. Was Calvin Booth the right use of the median exception? I didn't think so then, and I'm still unconvinced, with the solid play of Nazr Mohammed in Atlanta and Todd MacCulloch, a key starter for the excellent New Jersey Nets. I think Booth will prove his harshest critics wrong when he finally gets healthy, which may not be until next year, but this is still a move that can be questioned.

Remind me again, after reading that, why everyone thinks Walker is such a horrible GM or CEO?

It's quite clear that the Sonic organization has become one of the best in the NBA at identifying talent in the second round or through young players signed to low-risk contracts. Lewis, James, Drobnjak, Watson, and Long -- more than half the current rotation -- would fall under this category.

The organization has also generally done a good job when looking to trade for talent, doing a good job of discarding undesirable contracts while also upgrading the talent base in moves for Horace Grant and Patrick Ewing in particular. That means that the Sonics are a rare NBA team that does not have any players on the roster simply because of their bloated contracts, leaving them free to pursue the unheralded talents mentioned above.

Unfortunately, the organization continues to struggle with high-profile decisions. Leaving Payton dangling on the trade block was clearly a mistake, and the jury remains out on Booth.

No organization can be perfect, and the Sonics look to be leaning towards the right decisions this summer -- re-signing Lewis and Payton. This team is moving forward . . . and that's because of Wally Walker, not despite him.