May 18, 2002

After their early first round exit from the 2002 playoffs, the Sonics must now turn an eye towards the off season, where championships are really won and lost. Seattle must now design a plan to deal with stars Gary Payton and Rashard Lewis along with decisions concerning Vin Baker, not to mention the teams’ own free agents Jerome James, Earl Watson, Olumide Oyedeji, Randy Livingston, Ansu Seasay, and Art Long. During the regular season (ignoring the odd mid season trade or call up), for the most part general managers are glorified spectators. However, once the summer starts, Seattle GM Rick Sund will more than earn his paycheck. Finally get a chance to prove his worth to this franchise above and beyond fetching Walker and Shultz’s double mocha lattes.

To prove his worth Sund needs only go about his off-season duties with this mantra firmly in mind, “A penny saved is a penny earned”. Sund and the Sonics seem already to be on the right track; through their discussions with the media Seattle appears to be ready to offer Rashard Lewis more than any other team in the league will be willing to give him, yet less than his requested maximum contract. The team also looks to be taking a fiscally responsible position with Gary Payton, now preferring to ride out his current contract instead of negotiating an extension this summer in order to sign Payton to a deal for less money next summer. Vin Baker will be moved if the right deal offering cap relief in return is offered. And of the free agents available, Jerome James and Earl Watson are the real priorities but neither will be shopping for the caviar and champagne-filled diamond encrusted golden private jets that some of their NBA peers have just yet.

And what is the payoff down the road for these penny-pinching miser-like actions now? The wealth of talent available in next year’s free agent pool which includes players like; Baron Davis, Andre Miller, Clifford Robinson, Steve Francis, Reggie Miller, Jermaine O’Neil, Elton Brand, Lamar Odom, Alonzo Mourning, Wally Szczerbiak, Shawn Marion, David Robinson, along with players like Jerry Stackhouse, and Antonio McDyess with options to become free agents in 2003. The rumour floating around right now though is that the Sonics will have their eyes on none of these aforementioned stars, (cough ahem . . . McDyess cough); the real prize for Rick Sund and company will be in this year’s MVP candidate Jason Kidd, who is expected to use his player option to join the free agent class of 2003.

Jason Kidd has been a breath of fresh air for the perpetually underachieving New Jersey Nets franchise, taking them to new heights in the NBA regular season as the first place team in the East and now leading them into the Eastern Conference finals. In doing so Kidd received high praise from all corners of the NBA media as well as serious consideration for the league MVP for ranking first in the league in steals, second in assists, with eight triple-doubles, 44 double-doubles, averaging almost 15ppg, 7.3 rpg, and shooting over 80% from the free throw line.

Not only is Seattle supposedly looking at Kidd with all desire and longing of a 15-year-old boy who found his father’s Playboy collection (like 29 other teams), but Kidd seems to be looking back. Kidd has close ties with Sonics star Gary Payton reaching back to when a young Jason Kidd looked up to Gary on the playground courts of Oakland, and has expressed a great deal of interest in being with Gary again in Seattle. Add to that the fact that Sonics owner Howard Schultz is himself a close friend of Jason Kidd and it would seem that Seattle is a natural fit for Jason. These ties are what have fuelled the rumours of Seattle’s interest in Kidd, making Sonics fans everywhere salivate over the possibility of Kidd’s bringing cohesion and title contention to Seattle as he has done for the Nets.

The problem is that in order for Jason Kidd to fit into the Sonics structure the team would need to see some drastic changes over the next year. Understandably a Kidd/Payton backcourt could convince even the most pessimistic fans to let themselves be carried away by dreams of championship parades, but acquiring a free agent of that stature in one of the few positions a team is already excelling at seems ridiculous.

If the Sonics were to seriously consider bringing in Jason Kidd first they would have to deal with the fact that the team could not support the contracts of Payton, Kidd, Lewis and Baker. The obvious odd man out for fans would be Baker, which would leave the team with precious few weapons in the frontcourt with Booth and Radmanovic taking over the post-positions. Next the team would have to address the extreme overcrowding of guards; with Kidd and Payton receiving the lion’s share of the minutes both Barry and Mason would experience drops in minutes and productivity unless they were then moved to bring in some big men for the front line. This is not to mention Earl Watson, who would have to become very comfortable on the bench.

What would make much more sense would be Kidd coming in as a replacement for Gary as opposed to a complement; after all, Gary’s age should be catching up to him sometime in the next decade, and the lineup of Kittles, Van Horn, Martin, and MacCulloch is not far from Barry, Lewis, Radmanovic, and Booth.

But if Gary leaves to make room for Kidd, wouldn’t that defeat the whole purpose of Kidd’s motivation to reunite with Payton? And wouldn’t Seattle be stuck with a very similar line-up to the one they have now with an All-Star point guard who can distribute, defend and rebound to lead the team?

The truth of the matter is that by 2003 Seattle will be looking for pieces of the puzzle instead of cornerstones and wholesale changes. The development of Mason, Lewis and Radmanovic will continue to improve Seattle to the point that they will be one or two pieces away from contention, (Likely the high quality power forward Baker was supposed to be . . . McDyess cough). Kidd’s mention of playing with Payton was probably motivated more by letting teams know he would shop around then for any real desire to be in Seattle; much like how Chris Webber publicly speculated about playing with Payton while his free agency was impending.

The only real place Kidd’s joining the Sonics would be a sure win would be for the team’s marketing department. A high-profile move like Seattle’s acquiring Kidd and the subsequent moves required to make it viable would ensure that as the season began all eyes would be on Seattle to see how the experiment turned out. Perhaps more coverage and publicity is the only win/loss column management really cares about; perhaps being sure to have more nationally televised games is the real goal instead of actual team success. If, however, that is wrong, and Rick Sund will be working to make a winner in the coming years, the acquisition of Jason Kidd is probably best left to Playstation2’s Seattle fans, in which case Vin Baker should probably be traded for Shaquille O’Neal.

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