Lewis is looking to take another step forward in his development. Jeff Reinking/NBAE/Getty

Where does Rashard Lewis go from here?

At age 24, Lewis is making the transition from youngster to veteran. He has increased his scoring average every year of his five-year career, and is young enough to have room to improve. The Sonics had a similar player about a decade ago, when Shawn Kemp increased his scoring average an NBA record seven straight years. How well Lewis progresses this season, and how well he continues to develop his ability to score in the post, will go a long ways towards determining the Sonics record. If he can become a consistent 20-point scorer, as he was down the stretch last season, the Sonics could be thinking playoffs.

Can Brent Barry hold down the point for 80 games?

In a 30-game trial at the point last season following the Ray Allen trade, Barry performed like he’d been playing the position his whole life. To some extent, he had. Barry has always been a strong ballhandler, and the Miami Heat tried to make him into a point guard in 1998, the plan only ending because Barry signed with Chicago instead of staying in Miami. As well, Allen’s ballhandling ability kept Barry from having to shoulder sole responsibility for handling the ball. Still, it’s only fair to ask whether Barry can continue to play as well this season. Injuries are a big reason why. Barry missed just seven games, but was hampered by patella tendinitis in even more. Fortunately for the Sonics, they have Antonio Daniels ready to step into the starting lineup (where he had eight assists against just one turnover in Friday’s exhibition game) should Barry be injured, with Luke Ridnour and Ronald Murray looking for more playing time off the bench.

Can the Sonics get scoring from the bench?

The season-ending shoulder injury suffered by Nick Collison was really most devastating to the Sonics for its chain reaction effect on the bench. With Vladimir Radmanovic currently in the starting lineup, the Sonics are left with a group of reserves –Daniels, Murray, Ansu Sesay, Reggie Evans and Calvin Booth – that averaged a combined 13.8 points per game last season. That’s about what the Sonics got from Desmond Mason alone when he was the team’s sixth man last fall. Obviously, that overstates any concern about the Sonics bench. For one thing, players like Daniels and Murray should see far more action this year than they did a year ago. For another, offense isn’t everything. Daniels, Sesay and Evans are three of the Sonics top five defenders, while Evans is a force on the boards. Lastly, not having scoring punch off the bench could be a good thing if it means Radmanovic is strengthening the starting lineup. Still, the fact remains that the Sonics need one member of their bench group to step up and solidify the unit.

Daniels should be the Sonics leading scorer off the bench. Jeff Reinking/NBAE/Getty

Will the young guards contribute?

In a related question to the previous one, the short-term status of Murray and first-round pick Ridnour remains in the air. Murray played himself into an opportunity for more minutes during the summer league, while Ridnour is the team’s point guard of the future, even if his current role is small. If Barry or Daniels is injured, one of the players will have to contribute, and they might be valuable in limited roles as changes of pace (Murray for his scoring ability, Ridnour to push the ball) anyway.

Will one of the centers break out from the pack?

The key word in the departure of the Sonics starting center last season, Predrag Drobnjak, was opportunity. His trade to the L.A. Clippers gave the three returning centers, Jerome James, Booth and Vitaly Potapenko, an opportunity to seize a larger role than they played last season. So far, none of the three players has really stepped up and filled that void. Tuesday’s preseason game with Portland, however, was encouraging. Booth started, grabbing nine rebounds and blocking two shots in 29 minutes. James, coming off the bench, scored 10 points on 4-for-6 shooting and added five rebounds. More importantly, neither player was bothered much by foul trouble. James still has the inside track at starting because of his ability to mesh with Radmanovic, but both he and Booth will see heavy action and have a chance to take advantage of their opportunity.

Can the Sonics maintain their home-court advantage?

One of the more remarkable aspects of last season was the enormous in-season swing in performance at KeyArena. Through the Allen trade, the Sonics were a poor home team, going just 11-12 at the Key. Thereafter, they owned their home court, winning 14 of 18 games. In percentage terms, the Sonics home-court advantage went from just .099 to .445 after the trade. In part, the improvement stemmed from an annual late-season upswing in attendance. The excitement created by Allen’s arrival also helped. What’s important for the Sonics in answering this question is whether they can get off to a strong start. If so, the fans will make sure the Key is rocking, and the Sonics can feed off of them.

Vladimir Radmanovic is hoping a starting role translates into a breakout year. Jeff Reinking/NBAE/Getty

Is this Vladimir Radmanovic’s breakout season?

ESPN.com’s Chad Ford seems to think so. He picked Radmanovic as one of his 13 breakout players, and raved about his potential in an article that was part of ESPN.com’s Sonics preview. Radmanovic has the talent, no doubt about it, but can he make good on it? There are a couple of promising signs. One is that Radmanovic’s overall statistics last season were colored by his poor play in March and April, when he was bothered by tendinitis in his elbow. (He shot 39.7% in March, 27.1% in April.) The other good sign is how well Radmanovic played as a starter last season. In 16 starts, he averaged 13.4 points, 6.2 rebounds and shot 42.5% from three-point range. Radmanovic seems to have claimed the starting job, so his chances for breaking out look good.

How about Antonio Daniels? Can he break out?

Compared to last year, Daniels certainly will have a better season. Stuck in the position of battling Jeff McInnis, Damon Stoudamire and Scottie Pippen for minutes at the point, Daniels got lost and barely played. This year, he seems penciled in for 25-30 minutes a game. In that consistent time, he should be able to put up numbers similar to what he did in San Antonio. At age 27, Daniels certainly isn’t too old to make the kind of leap some have been expecting since he was the fourth pick in the 1997 Draft out of Bowling Green.

Is Reggie Evans’ offensive improvement for real?

In terms of rebounding and defense, Evans compares favorably to the NBA’s best power forwards. His rebound rate was amongst the best in the league, while he capably defended stars like Kevin Garnett down the stretch last season. However, Evans’ limited offense – he averaged just 3.2 points in over 20 minutes per game – kept him from seeing the floor more. The coaching staff has always maintained that Evans is a “sneaky” offensive player who can score, and fans got a bit of a taste of that down the stretch last season, when Evans averaged nearly five points per game during April. Not Allen, but not bad either. Evans has done more of the same during preseason play, averaging 8.8 points per game while shooting 50% from the field and, even more impressively, 70% from the line. Evans was a 15-point-per-game scorer in college and shot a good percentage last year, so an offensive breakout is not out of the question.

How will the new, up-tempo offense work?

For years, Sonics Head Coach Nate McMillan has talked about running, but always with the qualifier that the Sonics need a “controlled” fast break. The result has been a team that actually has played one of the slowest paces in the NBA. McMillan has said throughout camp that things would be different, and they’ve looked that way during preseason. While McMillan still doesn’t want Barry passing the ball between his legs on a fast break, the team has more freedom, and it has responded during preseason by scoring an average of 98.3 points during the first four preseason games. Barry has always thrived in transition, and the shooting ability possessed by the starting guards and forwards makes them difficult to defend in a fast-break situation. If McMillan sticks with his plan, there’s little reason to believe it won’t be successful.