Gary Payton Put Up Or Shut Up

This may come as a bit of a stunner, but the brashest player in basketball, the one whose confidence often strays over the fence into cockiness, will not issue any guarantees about the Seattle SuperSonics' first-round playoff fortunes this year.

After two straight premature postseason exits, Gary Payton has learned his lesson.

"I'm just going to play," he says as Friday's playoff opener against the Sacramento Kings, and the eve of his redemption, approaches. "I'm not guaranteeing anything. The last two years, people want to say that I got outplayed, and that's why we lost. Fine. They can say what they want to say.

"I have more to prove than anyone else on the team. I know this is the year everybody has been waiting for. This is the year I have to step up in the playoffs and prove to people what I can do."

And maybe that's making a guarantee without actually saying it.

"There's no way in God's green earth that Gary lets that team lose in the first round again," says Eric Goodwin, the Seattle-based representative and confidant of Payton's. "It hurts him that he's been blamed for the loss last year to the Lakers and the loss the year before to Denver. It burns him up inside."

That inferno has been Payton's personal hell the past two years, but it also is his guarantee. As the flames lick at his insides, they don't let him forget the transgressions of his recent past.

Payton says he has faced that past, addressed it and knows how to avoid repeating it. But here he traipses into another fuzzy area. His bravado has been perceived as trash talk, which in itself strips him of credibility.

And that credibility has waned more with each stake-through-the-heart playoff loss.

So when Payton says things will be different, why should people allow themselves once more to believe? Confidence, after all, always has been Payton's bed of nails. But now he says he finally is thick-skinned enough to sleep on it.

"I'm expecting it," Payton says of the criticism. "People have been putting me down since I came into this league. I know people are going to be looking for a scapegoat, and I know I'm going to be one of them.

"If anything goes wrong on the Seattle SuperSonics, it's going to be either me, Shawn Kemp or George Karl who will get the blame. If that's the case, we can't even worry about it. We should just go do what we think needs to be done."

This should be the postseason that defines Gary Payton. More than Kemp, his more nationally visible teammate, Payton now defines the Sonics. With the ball and the responsibility, plus a defense built around his rare abilities, Payton controls the fate of the Sonics.

That hasn't always been the case.

"Ever since I've been in Seattle, it's probably been a team-concept approach stronger than on any other team in the league," Sonic Coach George Karl says. "Whatever has happened the past four or five years here has been because of all the pieces, not just one or two.

"To put the blame on one guy is stupid. It's just not right. Gary Payton was not the only reason we succeeded, so he also is not the only reason why we failed.

"Maybe now that changes. The playoffs this year are going to be Gary Payton's stage."

If they weren't before, then why all the hoo-ha over Payton's inability to win the big ones? That theory is a trinity built upon Ball State University, Robert Pack and Nick Van Exel, all of whom supposedly took down Payton and therefore his team in postseason play.

Ball State was the first piece to fall. That's the team that shocked Oregon State 54-53 in a first-round NCAA Tournament game Payton's senior year. Payton made three of 12 shots from the field, scoring 11 points, 14 below his average, and was labeled a choker.

"I don't know how anybody could question his ability to win," says Ralph Miller, who coached Payton at Oregon State. "There were a lot more people involved on those teams than just Gary Payton.

"He wants to win and he reacts extremely well under pressure. I think that was true when he played for us and is true at the present time in his career in Seattle."

Still, the anti-Payton sentiment took on steam when a little-known backup point guard named Robert Pack stripped him with 12 seconds to go in what would turn out to be a Denver Nugget overtime win in the fourth game of a 1994 first-round series. Pack would then score 23 points in Game 5, helping the Nuggets become the first No. 8 seed in NBA history to knock off a No. 1.

Last year, the Sonics again expired before their time, under a hail of Nick Van Exel three-pointers. Van Exel plays point guard, Payton's position. The posse was formed.

"Robert Pack?" Payton says the name with some disdain. "He ain't even in the playoffs. Nick Van Exel? He's coming off an OK year. They both had a great playoff series. That's all I can say.

"If anyone says Robert Pack and Nick Van Exel beat the Seattle SuperSonics by themselves, I don't believe that. If those guys want to say they did it by beating me, that's OK. They can believe that."

And, truth be known, the case against Payton has gaps as large as those on Nixon's Watergate tapes. During each of his first three years in the NBA, he helped the Sonics go one round further in the playoffs. When the Sonics reached Game 7 of the Western Conference finals in 1993, Payton was a steady, albeit not spectacular, influence.

Even Payton, however, will concede a letdown against the Nuggets in 1994. Last spring was a different story. Then, the Sonics were beaten by fickle fingers - fate's and Payton's.

The Lakers preyed upon his broken right index finger. Every time they forgot about it, former Sonic Sedale Threatt reminded his teammates to keep on slapping. The Lakers also changed up their offensive sets to avoid Payton's defensive disruption, and geared their defense to attacking Payton's postups.

Basketball people know. Bernie Bickerstaff was the one who researched Payton, then drafted him for the Sonics with the second overall pick in the 1990 NBA draft. He's aware of what people are saying.

"If they've got a problem with Gary out there," the Denver Nugget coach and team president says, "send him here."

Nobody is totally exonerating Payton. Changes were necessary.

First and foremost, Payton had to focus on becoming a leader. His attitude had to change. Even his demeanor and body language, so easily misinterpreted.

"He has a tendency to talk all the time," Miller says. "I think the term is mouthy. And he's certainly that. The net result is that people who don't know him get an entirely different impression than what truly exists.

"He used to come over to the bench to ask me what I wanted him to do. Problem was, he just never could smile. He'd come over with a grimace on his face, and it looked like he was jawing at me. That, he never did.

"In fact, Gary was one of the easiest young men to coach that I've ever had under my jurisdiction. He was as easy to coach as A.C. Green."

That, people just don't see. An image makeover was necessary.

But Payton's mission was challenged during training camp when he was threatened with a paternity suit. His handlers moved quickly to isolate him from the scandal. The suit was thrown out and the matter settled.

But one offshoot was that Payton's fianceee, Monique James, and their two children, Raquel and Gary Jr., moved to Oakland for a few months, to separate them from the fray. But Payton found his isolation helped him focus during a critical season, and the plan was extended.

This season has been a whistle-stop tour for Payton from the beginning. As one of the most attractive of those who will be free agents this summer, he has been lobbied by fans and players in cities from New York to his hometown of Oakland. Every night seemed like an audition for a part that is expected to pay him some $50 million over seven years.

Payton's free agency also has put some pressure on the Sonic franchise, which wants desperately to retain him. In fact, when one player was perceived to be openly critical of Payton earlier this season, team sources say he was told by management to keep any opinions of Payton to himself.

Sonic management also has looked the other way as Payton has continually evaded the media after home games. The trend has been a source of minor irritation to his teammates, who feel they have had to speak for Payton more than they'd like.

"It's been equally motivating and distracting," Goodwin says of Payton's looming free agency. "He wants to be an elite player in the NBA. If someone is perceived to be better than him, he wants to go after that player and show that he's better. Gary knows that if he proves he's as good as he thinks he is, the money will come.

"But there's been a lot of pressure. Basically, he's got to perform well in front of every team, every night."

When under duress, Payton most often leaned on his roots as a defensive player and put together a spectacular season.

All of his biggest statements as a player this year were made at the defensive end: From his three steals during the last 70 seconds of a 112-106 victory in Houston; a steal and a court-length dash for the winning basket of a 112-110 win in Sacramento; a strip of Kendall Gill at the end of a 98-96 victory in Charlotte; a late strip of Michael Jordan to help preserve a 97-92 victory over Chicago at KeyArena.

Payton led the league in steals for the first time in his career and is considered the clear front-runner to win the NBA's Defensive Player of the Year award.

"I came into this season looking to stop everybody I came up against," Payton says. "I think I can do anything at the defensive end. I can change the momentum of games there. And the playoffs will be more suited to my game. In the playoffs, they let you play."

Reaching a comfort zone as a player, Payton also evolved as a leader. He finished among the league's top 10 playmakers for the first time in his career, averaging a career-best 7.5 assists. More than that, he sent all the right signals to his teammates.

"I think Gary understands he needs to be out there, that he has to be under control and has to keep a lid on his attitude and his temper," Sonic co-captain Nate McMillan says. "In the past, he'd get upset, then he would stop playing. I think he's learned that when he gets frustrated, he hurts himself, then he hurts his team."

In an unguarded moment, when Payton has his juices flowing and his gums flapping, he is asked how he will fare in the playoffs.

He already has orchestrated it all in his mind.

"I know my scoring is going to drop off," Payton says. "I'm not going to score 19 points a game. I'm telling everybody that now. Sacramento is down there, planning on ways to stop me from posting up their little guards. I know that, and that's fine. I'll probably score more like 14 a game and get 10 assists and do other things.

"I'm going to try to lead this team from the point-guard position. If we're going to do anything in the playoffs, that's what we need me to do."

Informed of Payton's statement, an incredulous teammate arches his eyebrows.

"He really said that?" the Sonic asks.

He really did.

And of all the talk Gary Payton has ever talked, this is the one he needs to back up most.