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02/08/2002

New attitude grows on Gary

Payton's disposition matches his sparkling level of play

By Laura Vecsey

It used to be one thing kept Gary Payton from being universally accepted as one of the best to play in the NBA.

Attitude. And not the good kind.

You can't pin that on him now.

He won't let you.

At 33, Payton is playing the best basketball of his career. He is in Philadelphia this weekend for the All-Star Game, his eighth appearance in 12 years. He is the lone Sonic who will be on the court Sunday.

He is shooting less, or at least fewer 3-pointers. He is passing more, practicing hard, and talking to teammates and reporters. He is filming public service announcements and donating millions of dollars to kids and his alma mater, Oregon State, all within the context of being the kinder, gentler Gary Payton.

"First it was about how I couldn't shoot. Then it was my attitude. Now they're saying, 'You're getting old.' But this is my best year. I'm wiser," Payton said.

He is 14th in the league in scoring at 22.7 points per game, third in assists at 9.1 and fourth in minutes played, averaging 41.4. How much longer can he go at this pace?

"When I was young, it was about your ability. Now it's about how smart you can be and who you can outplay. All these guys nowadays are very quick, they're very athletic, while I'm the same guy. I'm basic," he said. "I don't have to go through my legs. I don't have to do that crossover or spin move. I'm just going to 'D' you up and I'm going to score on you when I want to. That's what I'm about."

The funny thing is, Payton was supposed to be traded by now.

Driven to toughness

Inside the organization, where a long question about how and when to rebuild after the 1996 NBA Finals appearance has kept the Sonics treading water, the feeling was that Payton, while sensational on the court, was also a royal pain, no longer worth the trouble.

That's what started the drumbeat to blow up the Sonics. Send Payton away. Get draft picks, get younger, get another All-Star, just do something because this thing's not working.

Worse, the best player on the team was acting like a lunatic, throwing remote controls and chairs, free weights, cursing out rookies whose mistakes frustrated him and snubbing teammates who mysteriously faded away during crunch time, leaving the junkyard dog to scratch and claw alone. Trust came the hard way for Payton.

Even the people who know him best and who stick by him tell you Payton's a tough kid, always has been, but then, you look where he came from and what molded him, and it makes sense.

To understand Payton, you have to know a little about his father.

You have to understand what Al Payton expected from his son. You have to know that of the 20 kids the senior Payton has fathered, Gary is right in the middle, the youngest of six Al Payton had when married to Gary's mother.

Al drove Gary so hard, it turned Gary hard, too.

"In my younger years, if I got hurt and couldn't play, he'd call you all kinds of things, wussy and stuff like that. He'd tell me, 'You have to get out there. You're the man that makes this team go and we're going to win with you.' You have to play through that sometimes. That's where men are made. Every time I think about being hurt, I say forget it. I've got to be there for my teammates. That's where you get the big heart. My father installed that in me," Payton said.

This made Payton exceptional on the court, until the point where all that intensity and meanness started to backfire. Finally, it seemed time for the Sonics to cut him loose.

By last season, after Paul Westphal's coaching reign ended in turmoil and with new owner Howard Schultz buying the team, there came a serious flirtation with changing the personnel and chemistry of the Sonics. Payton was nearly traded on more than one occasion.

The franchise for which Gary Payton is acknowledged to be by far its greatest asset was willing to let him go, mostly because he was stuck in a pattern of behavior that hurt his team as much as it propelled Payton to greatness.

Time to chill

In much better control of his emotions and expectations, Payton has clearly turned a corner.

It's not out of defiance he has come to this reversal. He's no time bomb ticking underneath some artificial façade of calm and acceptance, like a man trying to get out of jail on good behavior.

Not that Payton doesn't understand that acting like a solid citizen in addition to playing the best basketball of his career won't put him in a good position to talk his way out of Seattle this summer, should he and the Sonics decide to part company.

It simply was time to chill out.

"I'm not a troublemaker. Everybody says I'm a troublemaker. When all this stuff was happening last year, when I was mad because we were losing, they made me think I was the bad guy because I'm the vocal guy and I don't like losing," Payton said. "This summer, when I sat down with my father and we talked, he was like: 'Son, people have to change. I had to change. You've got to change.'

"My father changed when he got sick (three years ago with diabetes and heart disease.) He understood how helpless he was. People had to come help him sometimes. We talked about that.

"He told me: 'I'm going to be with you whatever you do. If you want to be the guy you've been and don't want to change and be the guy that I groomed you into being, then do it. I'm the one who did this to you.' He made me like a junkyard dog and he understood," Payton said.

"But he said I had to understand we have to change sometimes. I decided I'm not going to make any trouble. My father told me: 'God's going to help anyone who's always helping everyone and it'll work out.'

"I think it's working out in a major way right now with me being quiet, playing the game I'm playing, doing the things we're doing. People didn't think we were going to win (this) many games, but we're there. If we go to the playoffs and make a strive for it, then it's going to be that much better and more to my advantage. So I'm not worried about it."

'I want to say here'

If there's no contract extension this summer, the Sonics won't have much choice but to trade Payton, since he would likely walk away after the contract expires in 2003. He signed an $87 million deal in 1996.

"It's up to the organization. I'm just playing. I'm not worried about management. I'm not eager to go right now. I'm not forcing no issues about no contract issues. If it doesn't happen, it's even better for myself. I think I'll be in a better situation," he said.

"I've got four more years of good basketball and I think I'll be playing just as good next year as I am this year. If we go without an extension, then when my contract is up, I can go make a decision for myself."

Payton has changed his attitude; he has bought into the theme of developing young players like Rashard Lewis and Desmond Mason. He also is calmly waiting to see what the future brings.

"I want to stay here. I went to one college, one high school, I want to be with one pro team. But everything is about business. I'm not saying I want to leave, I don't. I want to be here. But if things don't work out, then I have to go somewhere else," he said.

"It will work out."

In Seattle?

"Probably not," he said with a smile, not a scowl or with agitation.

The new Gary Payton isn't sweating much these days

ON SONICS REBUILDING

"That's what the organization wants to do. With the guys around me, they can grow. They've never been in a situation where they've been in a hard playoff series.

"Remember those first few years we went through it, me and Shawn (Kemp). We weren't the ones who got us there. It was Detlef Schrempf and Sam Perkins. By the time it was '96 and we had grown to be ourselves, what'd we do? We stepped up and we went to the championship. That's the way it's got to happen. We have to put these young guys in a situation where they know what it takes to play against Karl Malone or Shaq in the playoffs."

ON RUMORED TRADE TO MINNESOTA LAST SUMMER

"I couldn't tell you I wouldn't want to be (in Minnesota) right now. But I'm not going to tell you I wouldn't want to be (in Seattle) right now because these guys are like brothers to me."-- Gary Payton

SeattlePI.com - 02/08/2002

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