I was busy carving out this week's column--knocking around fragments of ideas, struggling to make sense of the bizarre, loopy network of cross purposes and half-blown circuits that has locked the Sonics into a ritualized pattern of defeat--when the announcement came zipping over the airwaves: Paul Westphal is no longer with the Sonics organization, and the new "interim" head coach is Nate McMillan. Stop the presses! They've canned the boss! The immediate irony in this not-quite-unexpected turn of events was that for an hour prior to the announcement, the talk-radio heat had been focused not on Coach Westphal, but almost entirely on the person of Gary Payton. On KJR's open-lines sports show, you could hear the fury building as caller after caller spun caterwauling variations on the same theme, complaining that Payton's recent tantrums on and off the court exhibited both an unattractive peevishness and a permanent, crippling inability to engage and lead his teammates. There were even suggestions of trading Payton away, of swapping his whole megalomaniacal me-show for a player more willing to involve and integrate every other player on the floor.Then, right before it looked like Payton might have to don the billion-dollar dunce cap, the big bomb was dropped.

During the press conference in which Westphal's ouster was made official, McMillan, Sonics President/General Manager Wally Walker, and newly promoted Associate Head Coach Dwane Casey fielded a number of questions about the recent controversies that may or may not have led to the executive axing. There was no mistaking the subtext: Following Payton's suspension--and subsequent unsuspension--for refusing to leave the floor after being benched by Westphal late in the November 21 game against Dallas, it became obvious that the situation between the two had become completely untenable. It was only a matter of time. Walker, in addressing his decision, stuck to diplomatic generalities. "It was an organizational decision for which I'm responsible," he said. "It's no particular fault of the coaches; it's just the way the business works. The decision was a cumulative one."

McMillan's answers were a little more revealing, especially when he took on the subject of Gary Payton. "I don't see any problems with Gary," said McMillan. "I don't think you control Gary; I think you have to coach Gary. I understand that he's a very competitive player. When he talks to you, he talks to you in a tone [that] you could feel [is] personal sometimes. I'm happy to have a point guard with his capability to start off my coaching career with. I think it's going to be different from the relationship he had with Paul." Let's hope so. I can't imagine McMillan would react well to being called a "bitch."

What a horrible couple of weeks! But lest we forget (amid all these head games and double takes) that it is a professional sport we are discussing here, with actual applicability in an intended realm of influence, I would like to draw attention to the emphasis McMillan made on a certain technical aspect of the game. "I think we have to focus definitely on the defensive end of the floor," McMillan said when he was asked about the changes he plans to make. "I believe that defense wins games." Amen! If there is any one thing to which you can attribute the Sonics' vulnerability this year, it's their lack of intensity on defense. Conversely, when they play strong, swarming defense, they win. Period. Westphal was never big on stressing this side of the game, choosing instead to fiddle with line-ups and match-ups that would lead to fortuitous combinations at the offensive end. On the other hand, McMillan--a disciple of former Sonics Coach George Karl--should bring discipline to a currently chaotic defensive scheme.