Glove's story: Payton insists he didn't ask for trade

Believe his words, Gary Payton said yesterday in his first interview since being traded Thursday by the Sonics.

"I didn't ask for this," he told The Times in an exclusive interview. "All of that other stuff or anything else that you might have heard never came from me.

"This is not what I wanted, but I'm going to make it OK for me. You can believe that. I'm going to make it a good situation."

During his 12½ seasons in Seattle, Payton was not in the lineup five times while playing 999 games wearing a Sonics jersey.

Last night, however, the corner stall inside the team's locker room that Payton occupied for more than a decade was empty. A piece of tape with the word "Murray" covered Payton's tag.

On the giant screen hanging above the floor at KeyArena, a video montage replayed the greatest moments in Payton's career while the near-capacity crowd gave him a standing ovation. It was a tribute to the greatest player in franchise history.

As the spotlight circled the darkened arena, it became clear there was something missing.

"Where is he?" someone yelled from the stands.

Payton skipped his farewell party and, according to friends, remained home with his wife, Monique, and three kids. Just as the Sonics never informed him of the trade to Milwaukee, they never notified their career leader in points, steals, assists and games played of the team's plans to honor him last night.

"This is a busy day for me," Payton said earlier in the day after arriving at the Bucks' morning shoot-around. "I've got to get these physicals taken care of and then they got me going here and there.

"I don't know if I'm going to be at the game. Right now, it's 50-50. ... Basically, I'm just trying to put all of this behind me."

Payton met informally with his new team yesterday and did not participate in the Bucks' workout. He joked with Bucks forward Tim Thomas and exchanged lighthearted words with guard Sam Cassell.

Afterward, Payton had little to say about the Sonics, his tenuous relationship with front-office personnel or his close ties with Coach Nate McMillan.

Payton gave few details about the day he was traded, other than to say he spent the night at his house with Desmond Mason, who also was traded to Milwaukee.

"It was emotional," Mason said yesterday. "When I got there, Gary was just resting. It had been a long day. I just wanted to talk to him. My wife, it was tough for her. And I know it was tough for Gary's family. So they had the opportunity to hang out together and just sort of console each other.

"It was good. It was really good. It helped me a lot. ... His wife was like, 'You know what, we're just going to cook dinner.' So we just kind of relaxed and tried not to think about what happened. I thought it was good. It kind of got our mind off (the trade). We played some darts, played some pool and just occupied ourselves."

Payton said he was eager to rejoin Milwaukee Coach George Karl, who had been in Seattle for six-plus years. The Payton-Karl combination produced the finest regular season in franchise history when the Sonics finished the 1995-96 season with a 64-18 record. At the time, it was the 10th-best mark in NBA history.

That season, Seattle advanced to the NBA Finals and lost in six games to Chicago.

"Why can't it happen again?" Payton asked, speaking of another trip with Karl to the Finals. "If you ask me, they — I mean we — got enough pieces in place to make a run. ... I know this much, I'm happy to be back in the playoffs. To be on a team going to the playoffs and that can make some noise if we come together."

Before the season, Payton said similar words about the Sonics. He was optimistic about a return to the Finals and finishing his career in Seattle, even though the dialogue between his agents and the team's management became contentious.

After a third request for a contract extension was denied last summer, Aaron Goodwin, one of Payton's agents, said Payton would not re-sign with the Sonics after the season when he became an unrestricted free agent.

Despite the tough talk, Goodwin believed reconciliation was possible.

"Gary did not want to go, but he was being forced out and we realized that," Goodwin said. "Only at that point, we took the aggressive role. Gary is not going to sit there and beg Seattle to keep him. He wanted to retire there. But at some point if you get beat down, you move on.

"By asking for an extension, he was taking less money than if he went on the (free-agent) market. Three years in a row we asked. When things got bad, he never sulked. We asked could Gary talk to Howard (Schultz, Sonics owner), and that too was rebuffed.

"After that it became clear what was happening. From that point on, we became the aggressors. That's why I said, Gary wouldn't re-sign. That's my job."

Payton never publicly said he wanted to leave the Sonics. Whenever his contract situation was brought up, he'd always say: "That's something for my agents to handle."

Privately, when he talked about Seattle, he spoke of his wife's affinity for the community, his charitable work with the Gary Payton Foundation and the city's close proximity to his hometown of Oakland.

"Have you ever heard me say I wanted to leave?" Payton asked yesterday. "No. I never said that. Not once."

Still, the Sonics believed Payton would not re-sign with them and that belief pushed them to accept Milwaukee's offer when the Bucks dangled Ray Allen, Kevin Ollie and Ronald Murray.

Payton seemed ambivalent about the trade and said: "It's not a life sentence. It's 2½ months. That's it."

When asked if he planned to re-sign with Milwaukee, Payton was noncommittal.

"I don't know. We're going to get through this season, get into the summer and see what happens," he said. "That's all I can say on that."

Percy Allen: 206-464-2278 or pallen@seattletimes.com