The Sonics’ smartest move for the 2002-03 season may have come before the previous season was far in the rear-view mirror. In a change from how things have been done in the past, the Sonics required season-ticket holders to decide whether to renew their tickets by May 13, with the first payment due then.

Back in April, neither the front office nor the ticket sales department nor the pr department might have known how things would go this summer, but they had foresight enough to recognize that there might be some rough water ahead for the good ship SuperSonic.

That, in fact, has been exactly what has happened to the team. Lost in our discussion of how Rashard Lewis leaving for Dallas or Gary Payton not getting an extension might affect the Sonics next season, next summer, and in the decades beyond is how these moves might affect the team’s ability to sell itself. With Lewis perhaps on his way out and Payton maybe next, would you be interested in purchasing season tickets right about now?

Aside from some extraordinarily and irrationally negative columns in the local papers, there was a great deal of optimism after the Sonics’ May 5 dismissal from the playoffs at the hands of the San Antonio Spurs. While those that followed the team and the NBA closely had, for the most part, expected the Sonics to make the playoffs, it was a surprise -- and a pleasant one -- for many casual fans. And with the youngest roster of any playoff team in the Western Conference and everyone -- save Vin Baker -- seemingly likely to return, the Sonics’ future looked bright in May.

Fast forward a month and a half and things were still going smoothly. It seems like a far longer period than just 18 days has passed since the evening of July 18, when the Sonics re-signed center Jerome James to a three-year deal and the rumors that the Boston Celtics might be interested in trading for Vin Baker were confirmed by the Seattle papers. Oh, what a glorious day that was. And things were still looking up the next Monday, July 23, when the Baker trade became official and Wally Walker announced that the Sonics would exceed the luxury tax to re-sign Lewis.

At that point, the Sonics could have sold season tickets to even the most cold-hearted Seattle basketball cynic.

But soon the facade all came crumbling down with the news that Lewis would be taking visits to other teams interested in signing him for their median exception. Ever since he set foot in Dallas on the 25th, the story out of Seattle has become increasingly apocalyptic.

It would be one thing if this were an isolated incident; the first summer that the Sonics had looked to be in dire straights. In reality, it is far from that. For at least the last two summers (and, depending on your perspective, three), the Sonics have had similar troubles that have given the team a public black eye.

Last year, the real problem was inactivity. As August begun last year, the Sonics had lost a pair of free agents they hoped to either return or sign-and-trade (Emanual Davis and Ruben Patterson) while failing to add anyone in free agency, leaving them without a starting center. This inaction, along with the lingering questions about Payton’s future, left fans angry with Seattle management. Signing Calvin Booth was something, but left many fans wondering if he would not be quote unquote “The next (Jim) McIlvaine”. All told, there was little to commend the Sonics last summer to all but the few diehards who saw the potential in players like Peja Drobnjak and Jerome James.

In 2000, the Sonics managed to add a Hall-of-Famer at center in Patrick Ewing. And while acquiring Ewing was no problem from the PR perspective, the manner in which he was acquired was. As you well know, the eventual deal that brought Ewing to Seattle and sent Horace Grant and a gaggle of unwanted salaries away was not the first Ewing deal that seemed completed. In August, the Sonics were near making a deal that would have sent out Baker instead as the key player. By the time the Dallas Mavericks intervened by offering the Detroit Pistons (another part of the four-team deal) more for forward Christian Laettner, the deal had gone too far for the relationship between Baker and the Sonics to be unharmed. Coach Paul Westphal and then-GM Walker had to fly out to Hawaii, where Baker was practicing to play in the 2000 Summer Olympics with Team USA, to console their power forward. Also upset was Payton, Baker’s close friend, upset both at the possibility of losing Baker and the fact that he had not been consulted by management, a right he felt he had earned. The distrust created by the aborted deal between Baker and Payton and management lingers to this very day.

The summer of 1999, in hindsight, was similar to last summer in that fans expected the Sonics to acquire a big name to fix the problems made evident as the team missed the playoffs during the lockout-shortened season. Guard Mitch Richmond, then with the Washington Wizards, and forward Gary Trent, at that time a Dallas Maverick, were just two of the established NBA players connected by rumor to Seattle. But when training camp opened, the only name player the Sonics had acquired was veteran guard Vernon Maxwell. Small forward looked at the time like a major hole, with the untested Patterson (signed as a free agent after scarcely playing during his rookie season with the Los Angeles Lakers) the probable replacement for veteran Sonic Detlef Schrempf, who failed to help matters by joining what once seemed a team of All-Stars in Portland. It was little wonder then, that despite the addition of Grant at center (before the summer really began in earnest), the Sonics were viewed at best as fringe contenders for the playoffs in the loaded Western Conference.

It is my obligation as an honest columnist to note that, for the most part, these moves have actually turned out quite well for the Sonics on the court. Unproven and unheralded young players like Patterson, Drobnjak, James, Art Long, and even (briefly) Shammond Williams have all ended up contributors after being acquired by the Sonics, in many cases ending up far more valuable commodities than the veterans fans seemed to prefer.

The not-quite Baker-to-New York deal is an issue deserving its own column (and maybe, one of these days, I’ll write it), but suffice it to say that it is difficult to say whether it would have been beneficial for the Sonics. In the short run, it would have been great for the 2000-01 season; with Grant and Maurice Taylor (he would have signed with the Sonics for their median exception following the deal’s completion) up front instead of Baker, who had arguably the worst season of his career, the Sonics would have been locks for the playoffs. But in the long run, the Sonics might have been worse off with Taylor instead of Baker as their power forward. Scuttle at the time had it that the Sonics would have to promise their cap room for the upcoming summer of 2001 to Taylor and his agent, David Falk, who also represents Ewing, as a new, lengthy deal. That Taylor deal would almost certainly have been disastrous, as he frankly is not as good as Baker at his best and has been star-crossed since signing long-term with Houston, tearing a knee ligament and getting busted by the NBA for marijuana use.

So, in most of the cases, the angry fan majority ended up incorrect, as it often does. I, for one, am certainly regretting my initial gut reaction to hate the selection of Vladimir Radmanovic in the Draft last June (though, in my own defense, I was upset the Sonics had taken a small forward; little did I know then that Radmanovic would capably start at power forward by season’s end). And I’m not going to be so ignorant as to suggest the Sonics trade for aging, big-name veterans simply because their fans want it.

But in a time when their fanbase has been eroded by the overwhelming success of the Seattle Mariners and their own continued middling performance, the Sonics also have to make some concessions to their fans. At least, they can’t afford to be their own worst enemy with public missteps that alienate fans.

Let’s take the Payton situation. Staunch Payton supporter that I am, I don’t really disagree with the Sonics’ position that they are better off waiting to offer him a contract until next summer. Depending on how the rest of the summer unfolds, that may well be the smartest decision. But that doesn’t mean that the Payton situation can’t be handled better. First off, the position has been characterized in the media as, more or less, “No extension, no way, no how.”

I already was forced to lament the Sonics’ apparent rigidity on the luxury tax earlier this summer, and was happy when they realized that paying the tax would make sense under certain circumstances. I feel the same on a Payton extension. Why cut yourself off (at least publicly) to any possibility. What if Lewis’ next contract leaves the Sonics far less room under the salary cap (after renouncing Payton than they have projected)? What if Payton offers to take a dramatic pay cut and play for far less than his market value? I don’t seriously think the Sonics would refuse him in that situation . . . so why not explain that? A nicely-worded release thanking Payton for his years of service to the team and indicating that at the present time given the current circumstances the Sonics would prefer to wait to negotiate Payton’s next contract until next summer might go a long ways towards improving the Sonics’ standing with the public.

Similarly, in the Lewis negotiations the Sonics have looked neglectful next to the Mavericks, who have gone out of their way to make Lewis feel wanted and needed in Dallas. Hopefully, the organization will follow on my lead to make some public plea/gesture from the fans to indicate how much Lewis is wanted here, but until then they appear indolent and uncaring.

For season-ticket holders like me, the decision whether to attend next season has already been made, even if the Sonics end up rebuilding. But for the casual fans that the team needs to get the attendance it is hoping for, there is little incentive at this point to buy tickets, at the very least until the Lewis and Payton situations play themselves out. And that means for another year, the Key will probably be fairly empty for the season’s two months -- and perhaps beyond.

Kevin Pelton has served as beat writer, columnist, editor, copy editor, and webmaster for SonicsCentral.com since its inception. He also writes a weekly column for Hoopsworld.com and is a student at the University of Washington in his spare time. The Candid Corner is updated every Monday. Kevin can be reached at kpelton08@hotmail.com. All opinions expressed in this column are solely the views of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of other columnists or the SonicsCentral.com staff.

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