Seattle SuperSonics: 9 stars you forgot played for the Sonics

The Seattle Supersonics may be no more, but that only makes the stars who you forgot suited up for them even more mythical.

For many NBA fans, the Seattle SuperSonics represent an era of basketball that no longer exists. They are far from the team of the 90s, they never won a championship during this period and a certain guy by the name of Michael Jordan overshadowed everybody during that decade, even when he wasn’t playing.

But those iconic jerseys, the duo of Gary Payton and Shawn Kemp, make them an organization that is remembered fondly by a lot of people. The city of Seattle should still have an NBA team, but we are not here to argue that fact. Rather take this opportunity when there are no games being played to celebrate some of the lesser heralded stars who lined out for them.

As before, the term star is certainly used loosely here. But the hope is that you can appreciate each of the following players who represented the SuperSonics. Guys like Nick Collison miss the cut, even if the more casual of fans remember him in an Oklahoma City Thunder jersey, as opposed to the SuperSonics who drafted him.

Something else that sticks out, and makes the fact the SuperSonics are no longer around, is the rich history that the organization had as part of the league, which included a championship in 1969.  Their time as a franchise linking the past with a new era of basketball.

They were there for the basketball boom as a result of the “Bird vs Magic” feud, tussled with Jordan and by the end had potential stars in Kevin Durant and Jeff Green (even if that one didn’t quite work out) on their roster. The following are nine players who suited up for the SuperSonics, with most being lost to history at this point.

9. Vin Baker

We begin with a player who, depending on your age, you may be well aware spent some of his career in Seattle. Not only that, but Vin Baker was an All-Star in 1998 while a member of the SuperSonics. His time there gets overlooked for two key reasons, the first of which is that he was drafted with, and did extremely well, with the Milwaukee Bucks.

Baker was a three-time All-Star in four seasons there, only missing out on selection in his rookie season. While there he averaged 18.3 points and 9.5 rebounds and really was the kind of center/power forward that could have excelled in the league today. The outside scoring may not have been evident back then, but with some practice in that area, he could have been lethal.

He landed in Seattle in the same deal that sent fan favorite Kemp to the Cleveland Cavaliers, part of the reason some people forget he played for the SuperSonics in the first place. After five years there he was then moved to the Boston Celtics, which is the second reason you may have forgotten about that stop in Seattle. The talk of substance abuse grew noticeably loud.

These problems would dog him throughout the rest of his career, and a 2015 piece about him losing all his money and now working in Starbucks brought his name and game to a whole generation of younger people. Between the early success and dark turns his life took outside of basketball, his time with the SuperSonics naturally faded into the background.

But Baker spent much of his prime there and was part of a team that won 61 games in 1998 before getting bounced 4-1 by the Los Angeles Lakers in the Western Conference Semi-Finals. During the rest of his time there the franchise either missed the playoffs or was knocked out in the first round, as the glory days of the 90s faded into memory. Thankfully Baker’s story is in a much better place today, as he is an assistant coach with the Bucks.

8. Reggie Evans

Make no mistake, Reggie Evans was never a star, but he carved out a nice career after going undrafted in 2002. The SuperSonics were the first team to take a chance on him after that, and while there he established himself as a rebounding machine. This would go on to continue in stops at the Brooklyn Nets and Sacramento Kings, where Evans closed out his career.

While in Brooklyn, and at the age of 32, Evans would average 11.1 rebounds per game in 2012-13. Although scoring at any level of consistency never materialized (on his career Evans averaged 4.1 points per game), he was the ideal power forward to come in and try and get you stops and grab loose balls.

What is also interesting are the rosters that Evans played on while with the SuperSonics. When he got there Payton was still on the roster, and his time there also coincided with Ray Allen‘s. Obviously Allen was never going to make this list but this period of his career is not talked about as much, and the SuperSonics produced some funky groups.

Collison was there too, and yet when it was all said and done Evans started 189 out of 262 games played for the franchise. Much like Baker the SuperSonics weren’t going anywhere for much of the time Evans was there, as this was just before Durant arrived and looked to change everything immediately, before ultimately doing so in a different city.

So while the play of Evans himself wasn’t particularly memorable, he played the guys listed above, as well as Rashard Lewis and Brent Barry. Fans today remember him as a role guy on some teams that were fine and nothing else, but to go back into his history you can see that Evans was in Seattle during a fun era when they had the potential to be up and comers.

7. Luke Ridnour

Another guy who wasn’t a star, but did well to carve out the career that he did in the league, is Luke Ridnour. Like Evans his first stop was in Seattle, although he was actually drafted by the team. He would spend five years there, but the second season was when he would have his most success in their colors.

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Ridnour played and started in every regular season game, a run that included the team getting to the conference semi-finals where they lost to the San Antonio Spurs. Ridnour’s numbers during that regular season were pretty pedestrian (10 points and 5.9 assists per game), but he was playing alongside Allen and Lewis.

The following year Ridnour would average the most minutes (33.2) and points (11.5) while he was there, but they couldn’t reach the same heights as before, going 33-49. This perhaps highlighted even then that Ridnour was best served as a backup, and bar a stint with the Minnesota Timberwolves later in his career that’s what he would become.

He was still with the franchise when they relocated to Oklahoma, but by the end of his tenure there he was average only 20 minutes a night. He was then traded to the Milwaukee Bucks in a three-team deal, which is best remembered for landing Mo Williams in Cleveland to play with LeBron James and the Cavaliers.

Another guy who was with the SuperSonics through a transitional period, although by his last year there he was sharing a locker room with Durant and Jeff Green. a real bridge between two eras, who is definitely more recognizable for later seasons with the Timberwolves and Bucks (who he played for on two separate occasions).

6. Bob Kauffman

You wouldn’t be alone if you’ve never heard of center Bob Kauffman before, he was drafted in 1969, but if you do know who he is then there’s every chance you didn’t know the SuperSonics drafted him. Kauffman would play only one season there, before moving on to play for the Chicago Bulls.

His time there wasn’t notable either, but after one year in Chicago he was selected by the Buffalo Braves in the expansion draft in 1970 (we really are going back quite a while here), where Kauffman would go on to have the best period of his career. In four seasons there he would be named an All-Star three times, with his best campaign statistically being his first with the Braves.

He would average 20.4 points and 10.7 rebounds while shooting 47.1 percent from the field. Unfortunately for Kauffman during this period as the team’s only real star, they would never win more than 25 games in those three years he made the All-Star team. His last campaign there was different, as they went 41-41.

At that point, Bob McAdoo had shown up to help, but Kauffman was gone from the Braves at the end of that season, spending one season with the Atlanta Hawks before his career was over. What a strange career it was to start off so slowly in two stops, before exploding to life and then coming to an end again just as quickly.

Kauffman played 525 games in the NBA but was out of the league at 28. His contributions to the SuperSonics as a rookie, 7.8 points and 5.9 assists, showed some kind of promise, but it was not realized until later. Kauffman passed away at 69 and goes down as the first star the Braves (who became the LA Clippers) ever had.

5. Terry Cummings

If you want to talk about players who played across different eras, then Terry Cummings certainly fits into that category. He also encompasses all of the different areas the players already mentioned inhabit, as he had a long career (1982-2000), but was also an All-Star on two occasions as well.

Neither of these nods came while with the SuperSonics, and like Kauffman, he played for a version of the Clippers (he was drafted by the San Diego Clippers and played his first two seasons there). To deepen the links we’ve seen so far between the SuperSonics and Bucks as well (and that doesn’t even include Allen playing for both), Cummings would go from the Clippers to the Bucks, where he was named an All-Star for the first time.

The second nod would come four years later, again with the Bucks, before moving on to play for the Spurs. A knee injury after getting to San Antonio took away his scoring punch, however, but as a rookie, Cummings averaged 23.7 points and 10.6 rebounds a game. To add another layer of strangeness to his career, his rookie scoring average would go on to be the best mark of his career.

The time Cummings spent in Seattle was short. He joined as a 35-year-old after going from the Spurs back to the Bucks for one season. He appeared in 45 games (starting three), and averaged 8.2 points. He was a part of the team that made it to the Western Conference semi-finals, who as an organization were one year removed from battling Jordan in the NBA Finals.

By the time Cummings was done in 2000 after playing for two seasons for the Golden State Warriors, he had played alongside Lionell Hollins and Bill Walton as a rookie, been in an All-Star game with Magic Johnson and Larry Bird, been teammates with Antawn Jamison and seen Jordan retire from the game twice. Not a bad career that included time spent with the SuperSonics.

4. Bill Cartwright

Center Bill Cartwright is known primarily for one thing, and that is being a three-time NBA champion with the Bulls during their first three-peat run from 1991-93. If he’s known for anything else, it’s having one of the most dubious-looking shooting strokes you will ever see.

But before all of that, he was a member of the New York Knicks. An often forgotten fact is that he was an All-Star during his rookie season while there. Cartwright would never make the midseason exhibition game again, but he was the starting center on these championship teams while in Chicago.

He was also traded to the Bulls, with future Knicks fan favorite Charles Oakley going the other way. Forgotten by many though, is that the last stop of his career (after only playing for the Bulls and Knicks prior to that), was with the SuperSonics.

Cartwright was 37 by that point and would play only 29 games for the SuperSonics in 1994-95. He did, however, start 19 of those contests, settled behind both Sam Perkins and Ervin Johnson on the depth chart. This was an entertaining SuperSonics outfit that won 61 games before getting knocked out of the playoffs in the first round by the Lakers.

Cartwright did not see any action in the playoffs, but even through playing there for a brief period, he too was a link between only and new. McMillan was a teammate that season, while future NBA head coaches Dwane Casey and Terry Stotts were both assistant coaches, with the great George Karl being the head coach for that year.

Big men trying to extend their careers out by a season or two is no great surprise and is something which, if you look at the history of any franchise, happens everywhere. The SuperSonics were no except, with a couple more notable big men still to come in the remaining spots here.

3. Craig Ehlo

Unfortunately for Craig Ehlo, he is often best remembered as the player who was the victim of “The Shot” by Jordan during the Eastern Conference first-round series between the Bulls and Cleveland Cavaliers in 1989. This is unfair though, as that particular Cavaliers team was really good, and would spend the late 80s and early 90s as a fun and competitive team.

Ehlo was drafted by the Houston Rockets in 1984 and would play three seasons there, before getting to Cleveland. Alongside Mark Price they formed a deadly duo, with other notable guys such as Dell Curry, Tree Rollins, Steve Kerr and Danny Ferry his teammates throughout Ehlo’s time there.

Some remember him for his move to the Hawks after this, where he was a backup and only started eight games in his three seasons there. After that though, he spent his last season with the SuperSonics, playing 62 games (starting none) and averaging only 13.7 minutes per contest.

His 3-point shooting had taken a big dip by that point (shot 28.4 percent from deep that season), but looking back it is clear that Ehlo could have excelled in today’s game. He shot over 41 percent from deep in two different years, although he did only take somewhere between 2.5-3 shots from that distance per game.

That SuperSonics outfit that Ehlo played on in 1996-97 had just been to the finals, and if Ehlo had tapped into his shooting abilities more, or been allowed to, he could have been a real asset off the bench or next to a defensive mastermind in Payton. Instead, he shot 28.4 percent, took 95 attempts all season, and was then let go as his career came to an end.

2. Patrick Ewing

How was it that a Knicks icon wound up playing for the SuperSonics after 15 years in New York? Patrick Ewing would spend only one season in Seattle, before an even worse stint with the Orlando Magic that brought a curtain down on his career. It isn’t very nice to point out when a player’s body has broken down and they are hanging on in the league, but that was Ewing at this point.

Despite this, he still managed 26.9 minutes per contest in the 2000-01 season, and incredibly started all 79 of the games that he did play. Unfortunately, the numbers, 9.6 points and 7.4 rebounds, were worlds away from the kinds of numbers that had made him an 11-time All-Star prior to this.

This was the definition of a funky roster, with Ewing playing alongside Baker, Lewis, Payton, Barry and Shammond Williams. To Ewing’s credit, however, the team did go 41-41, and although they didn’t make the playoffs there were more competitive than they probably should have been. Having a 38-year-old center on his last legs didn’t help the cause.

It is curious why Ewing didn’t try and extend his range as he got older, if only because he had shown earlier in his career that he was at least capable of making the odd long-range effort. The league wasn’t there yet of course, and Ewing did love banging in the paint (which was likely to his detriment at the end of his career).

But centers weren’t taking 3-pointers in the early 90s either, and Ewing would take 122 while with the Knicks. Despite this, he was a veteran presence on a team that was coming down from the highs of their own finals run five years earlier, that was in need of direction. For one strange season, Ewing helped to provide a lot of that.

1. Horace Grant

When you think of Horace Grant, you think of those iconic goggles in two different strips. The red of the Bulls, and the blue of the Magic. You might even remember him with the Lakers, where he actually won a fourth championship in 2001, after being a part of the first three-peat of the Bulls.

What is certainly less remembered is his time with the SuperSonics, and even to this day, it is strange to him in the jersey. To add another twist of irony to this, Grant was traded from the SuperSonics to the Lakers after only one season in a three-team deal that saw Ewing end up in Seattle.

Unlike some others on this list who were used sparingly or were far from their best while with the SuperSonics, Grant wasn’t actually too bad. He started all 76 games he played for them and averaged 35.4 minutes a night. The 8.1 points per night may not have been a lot, but one year later he started every regular season game he played for Lakers and averaged only 8.5 points as they won a championship.

Looking at the roster Grant played with essentially all of the same core guys as Ewing would one year later, which perhaps explains why they were never getting closer to truly contending again. This was before Allen arrived and changed their trajectory, although unlike Ewing a season later, the SuperSonics would actually make the playoffs.

They lost to the Utah Jazz in five games in round one, bringing an end to another season. Grant started all five of those games too, upping his minutes per game to 37. Once again proving that he was a guy who was capable of playing big minutes when it mattered, even if he was able to do little while there and didn’t have a lot of help.

Although 34 while in Seattle, it would have been interesting to see what more Grant could have done there if given the chance. If he’d stayed one more season in place of Ewing, and if some different free agent moves or trades had gone down, he could have been even more valuable to them. Instead, he went back to the Magic and Lakers for second stints, before calling it a day.