A Quick Fall in Seattle for Westphal

The fall of Westphal: Game over. Cuckoos win again.

Paul Westphal, a nice easygoing guy and one especially beloved by his coaching peers, was axed by the Seattle SuperSonics last week and the only question was:

What kept them?

Westphal’s team was supposed to be better, but he had a mutiny on his hands, with Vin Baker blaming him for everything that had gone wrong with his career and Vin’s buddy, Gary Payton, pining for Westphal’s predecessor, George Karl.

It was Karl who turned the SuperSonics into a power in the ‘90s, before his mentor, General Manager Bob Whitsitt, left, after which Karl and management went their separate ways.

Karl coaches an offshoot of Don Nelson’s system, which uses smaller players, so there’s a problem handing a Nellie team, such as the ‘90s Golden State Warriors, or a Karl team, such as the SuperSonics, to an orthodox coach, such as Westphal.

Nevertheless, SuperSonic management did. Two disappointing seasons later, it also turned down Westphal’s request for a guarantee beyond this one, making him a lame duck.

In the NBA, the definition of a lame duck is one that’s about to become a dead duck.

You know you’re in trouble when things start unraveling on media day. Baker, who was almost traded in the first Patrick Ewing deal, said he couldn’t forgive Westphal, although it hadn’t been the coach’s idea.

“It’s like if you ever cheat on your girlfriend and she takes you back,” Baker said of his poor, broken heart. “Every time you walk out the door it’s going to be a situation if you come back late.”

With Baker’s contract (seven years, $87 million) and performance, he should have been happy the SuperSonics were meeting the payments and hadn’t brought in a team of lawyers to find a loophole.

For his part, Payton announced if Westphal wanted to communicate with Baker, he should tell Gary, who would relay it to Vin. That way, Baker’s mind wouldn’t be further messed up.

That was before camp even opened. I’m not making this up.

So it shouldn’t have been a total surprise the SuperSonics started slowly, that Baker pouted and, after a loss at Orlando, complained so loudly about Westphal, the coach came in and offered to resign if that’s what the players wanted.

Payton intervened on Westphal’s side, although perhaps not to save his coach as much as his teammates’ reputations.

Said Payton later: “I wasn’t going to have this come out in the media like we voted a coach out.”

It also wasn’t surprising that the volatile Payton then got into it with Westphal in a game at Dallas, triggering their now-you’re-suspended-now-you’re-

not fiasco.

That same game, Westphal, second-guessing his strategy, told General Manager Wally Walker he should fire him. Westphal made jokes about his imminent departure to reporters. You think he wasn’t ready to go?

After the team finally fired him, Westphal said he was fine with Payton. Baker was another matter.

“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. “. . . I never got the solution because he is not much better now than when I got the job. . . .

“First it was the overweight, then the depression and this year it was the knee problem. I always wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt to establish where he had been four years ago. With the commitment the organization had given to him, I couldn’t say, ‘My way or the highway.’ ”

Westphal’s successor, Nate McMillan, is a blunt, no-nonsense guy who played for Karl. He was the SuperSonic point guard when Payton arrived and is one of the rare members of the organization who isn’t afraid of Payton.

Not that the situation had been hopeless, but before Westphal left, McMillan had offered to resign too, worried Westphal thought he was disloyal.

The first thing McMillan did was to bench Baker as the SuperSonics, who promptly started playing again, upset the Trail Blazers at Portland and massacred the Lakers at Seattle.

As for Westphal, he has this season’s salary,

$1.5 million, as termination pay and, best of all, this asylum in his rear-view mirror.

FACES AND FIGURES

More from the last days of Westphal: In a recent loss at Sacramento, Baker tried to fight Chris Webber in the hall. “He had to save face,” Webber said. “I understand. He knew all those security guards and all that would be there. I don’t care. Vin is one of the softest power forwards in the league.” . . . Despite the Trail Blazers’ recent surge, Will Perdue says they have a little problem: “We get a nice lead and guys start to think about themselves. They look at this guy and he has 14 points and that guy has 18 points, and he only has two. . . . Half the guys realize what is necessary to win and what sacrifices have to be made. Some guys are still learning the process. That’s the biggest thing I see with Scottie [Pippen]. We play best when he is on the floor because of his leadership, but when he’s out of there, things go haywire sometimes.” . . . Add monumental achievements in denial: Portland’s Shawn Kemp, still hugely overweight, is averaging career lows of 8.5 points and 4.1 rebounds but leads the NBA in personal fouls--in only 19 minutes a game. “When you’re used to starting for 10 or 11 years, then you’re coming off the bench, some nights you feel it, some nights you don’t,” he said. “I’m not afraid to admit that. I’m going to get criticized a lot this year over that, but that’s just the way it is. It’s more a mental game now than it is really physical for me.”

I’m really going to miss this guy when he’s gone: Boston’s Rick Pitino says the Washington Wizard commercials, in which Michael Jordan guarantees they’ll make the playoffs, are funny. “They can’t do anything right now,” Pitino said. “He may be able to do something in three years--two or three years. And that’s what I tried to tell Leonard [Hamilton, the new coach]. He said, ‘We got Michael.’ And I said, ‘Michael--unless he suits up--cannot help you.’ ” . . . Pitino must have forgotten he guaranteed the playoffs this season too and has messed up the Celtics’ salary cap so it’s as bad as Washington’s. . . . Miami’s Pat Riley, not altogether happy about being asked about his first losing November: “We’re breaking it down by months now? I’m not worried about the month of November. I hope somewhere in March we deal with it.”

The new kinder, gentler David Falk met with Atlanta Hawk officials to plan Dikembe Mutombo’s future. They issued a polite communique that still seemed to suggest Mutombo will be traded, either at midseason or draft time, before he becomes a free agent. . . . In New York, calmer heads are warning the Knicks against falling into the trap of committing $14 million a year to another Falk client, just because he’s available. “The Knicks don’t need the offensively inept and declining Dikembe Mutombo to compete in their watered-down conference,” wrote the New York Times’ Harvey Araton. “Their next bold move should be made with the idea of competing with the young bloods out West.” . . . Knick guard Chris Childs, on their 4-4 start in Madison Square Garden: “It’s a 360 how we played at home last year. We have to rebuild the mystique.” Mystique? . . . In a rare breach of his ermine-smooth style, Garden President Dave Checketts favorably compared his coach, Jeff Van Gundy, to his old coach, Riley, telling Sports Illustrated, “So much of what Pat does is to maintain Pat’s image, and it takes away from his ability to focus on coaching. Jeff is consumed with getting his players to play in a way that will help him win. He’s the perfect coach for New York.” . . . Nelson on Utah’s fast start: “They’re probably the best team in basketball early in the season. They’ve been together so long and they’ve been running the same stuff and they really make you pay the price.” . . . Famous lost words: Chicago’s Ron Mercer, on the helpless Bulls: “The majority of time, it seems to be one thing or the other.”