Greatest of All-Time: A Look at the 1991-92 Seattle Supersonics

The 1991-92 Sonics season, the Silver season, the 25th Anniversary of our beloved team, started off the same as the previous season: with the Celtics' championship coach K.C. Jones at the helm. While he was able to work his magic in the Boston Garden, alternating between being the Eastern Conference Champions and the NBA Finals Champions in pitched battles with the LA Lakers in the mid-'80s, K.C. was unable to get us over .500 in the '90-'91 season. The Sonics had a 41-41 record and a quick first-round playoffs exit that year. Expectations were higher at the beginning of the '91-'92 season as our core nucleus of young stars was steadily improving. Nevertheless, K.C. was let go only 36 games into the season with another lackluster record of 18-18. After interim coach Bob Kloppenburg gave us another .500 record of 2-2, we finally got the coach whose name would be mentioned alongside Wilkens as greatest Sonics coaches: George Karl, the hard-nosed, hard-edged, hard-working coach whose most recent stints were in the CBA and Europe.

The Sonics that season were led in scoring by Ricky Pierce (21.7 ppg) and Eddie Johnson (17.1 ppg). The young stars Shawn Kemp--15.5 ppg in his third year--and Gary Payton--6.2 assists and 1.8 steals per game in his sophomore season--started to become major contributors to this team and would try to lay claim to the '90s like the Lakers did to the '80s.

With Karl's style and a team that was starting to believe in itself, the Sonics finished the season 27-15. Instead of a one-and-done in the playoffs like the season before, they bested the Don Nelson-coached Warriors that featured Chris Mullin and Tim Hardaway 3 games to 1 before falling to the team that would become a familiar rival, the Utah Jazz, led by Malone and Stockton, 4 games to 1. The Silver Anniversary Season was nice, but ultimately the Sonics cared about the golden Larry O' Brien Championship Trophy, which they were unable to win.

What do you think? Vote in our poll below and let us know where you think the 1992 team ranks in the top 22 Sonics teams of all time.