CAN RENEWED SONICS KEEP CURRENT BOOM?

Byline: JIM CLEAMONS 

Another powerhouse team might have emerged in the Western Conference. If the Seattle SuperSonics can play the way they did in wins against us Thursday and Portland a few nights earlier, then obviously they'll be a team to reckon with.

The key for Seattle is to maintain the surge of energy that developed after management decided to change coaches and replace Paul Westphal with Nate McMillan. In the two games since McMillan took over, the Sonics are riding a wave of enthusiasm and playing as a team.

The question is, can they keep it up?

It's a valid question. There's a psychology term for this type of situation; it's called the Hawthorne Effect and it deals with the immediate impact a change in leadership has on work personnel.

In most cases, when a new boss takes over in the workplace, there's a surge of adrenaline, a sense of renewed vitality and commitment, and workers perform at, and sometimes above, their peak ability.

Usually it's not anything longstanding, and in a week or two the workers settle back into who they really are, and their typical work habits and abilities return to form.

That's why teams that change coaches at midstream sometimes get on a roll immediately after the change. Sooner or later, though, those teams revert to their original pattern.

That's why it'll be interesting to monitor what happens with the Sonics. Are they the team that beat us and Portland or the one that was struggling to start the season? Maybe they're somewhere in between. In any event, we'll find out soon enough.

Remember, Seattle started strongly last season, too. I can remember going up there to play them and getting beaten much like we lost Thursday. But somewhere along the line, something happened and they couldn't sustain it.

I wasn't privy to what happened. Maybe they lost their enthusiasm or internal problems developed. Whatever the case, by the end of the year they were an average, .500 team.

Their challenge now is to avoid that same trap.

It's tough to say why things happened the way they did under Paul Westphal and why the Sonics weren't responding. Again, I wasn't on the inside and it could have been a number of things.

Sometimes players, out of boredom or frustration with their situation, simply tune out a coach after a certain point. It's a lack of responsibility on the players' behalf, because many times whatever problems exist are the result of their own effort or lack thereof.

But once things start going bad, the fingers start pointing, guys start complaining about their roles and their shots and playing time - and these are things you don't hear about when things are going good - and pretty soon you've got a big problem on your hands and that's when guys start tuning a coach out.

If you're a coach who doesn't have the full backing of management, you're in trouble. When you have backing, you can sit guys down, discipline them by cutting their minutes. You'd be amazed how quickly guys' attitudes change when they're sitting over there watching from the bench.

But if you as a coach don't have the support you need, or you're not one of those high-profile-type guys who have the power to sit guys down, then it's difficult for bench players. And since that is your only recourse, you'll have problems when guys aren't listening anymore.