1991: The Beginning of an Era
SEATTLE – Shawn Kemp was young, Gary Payton was even younger.
The Reign Man was in his second season. The Glove was a rookie. The 1990-91 season marked the beginning of the Kemp/Payton era. The birth of the high-flying Sonics of the 90’s. It was the year Seattle fans began to understand there was something special happening with the franchise.
The Reign Man was coming off a rookie season where he played in 81 games and averaged 6.5 points and 4.3 rebounds. The Glove was the No. 2 pick in the 1990 draft behind Derrick Coleman.
Looking back at the team’s record – 41-41 in the regular season – a first-round exit – and it wasn’t a year that would be remembered for overwhelming success. But it did set the foundation. This was the year Kemp and Payton began to establish their legacy with the Sonics.
K.C. Jones took over as the team’s coach, replacing Bernie Bickerstaff. He helped teach Kemp and Payton what it meant to be a part of a championship organization. Jones brought a 12-title legacy with him - and made an impact on his young duo.
The Sonics were a team in transition that season. The team added Payton, but Olden Polynice was swapped for Benoit Benjamin. And, early in the year, Xavier McDaniel was shipped to Phoenix for Eddie Johnson. Dale Ellis was traded to Milwaukee for Ricky Pierce. The roster was loaded with fresh faces.
McDaniel was the team’s leading scorer when he was traded, averaging 21.8 points per game. But, Johnson and Pierce provided immediate relief, averaging 17.4 and 17.5 points per game, respectively. The dropoff in production was surprisingly small (if there was any dropoff at all).
The Sonics had six double-figure scorers on the roster at the end of the regular season and that doesn’t include Payton, who averaged 7.2 points and 6.4 assists as a rookie. Gary was coincidentally the only player on the roster to play in all 82 games.
With all of the transition, it was a turbulent time for the franchise. However, it was a starting point, a solid foundation on which to build a perennial contender.
The transition would continue the next season, with Jones being fired during the year and eventually replaced by George Karl. Subsequent moves would add more pieces that would build the Sonics into one of the top teams in the Western Conference, a team that eventually played Jordan’s Bulls for a championship in 1996.
The ‘91 Sonics advanced to the first round of the playoffs that season, sliding in as the No. 8 seed to play the top-seeded Trail Blazers – a squad that featured Clyde Drexler, Jerome Kersey, Terry Porter and Cliff Robinson. Portland boasted a league-best 63 wins and was the favorite to win it all (yes, above even Chicago, Detroit and LA). However, the underdog Sonics put up a hell of a fight.
The Trail Blazers won the first two games at home before the Sonics evened the series in Seattle. Johnson averaged 24 points a game in the series (including 34 in the Game 4 win), while Sedale Threatt scored 29 in Game 3 to give the team life. Payton led the team in assists in all but one of the five games. Pushing Portland to their absolute limit, the Sonics came within 12 points of a first-round upset.
This season showed what would be possible for the Sonics in the future. Kemp and Payton took their postseason lumps, and it translated to impressive playoff showings the next couple of seasons.
The stage was set.