Kevin Pelton, SUPERSONICS.COM | March 15, 2007
With his three-pointer early in the first quarter of Tuesday's game against Detroit, Seattle SuperSonics forward
Rashard Lewis became the all-time Sonics leader in career three-pointers. When he takes the court on Saturday, Lewis will play in his 600th game with the Sonics, and he has pushed into the top five in franchise history in minutes and points and is close to joining the top five in rebounds and games.
The other names in multiple categories are familiar - besides '90s stars Shawn Kemp and 
Gary Payton, all of them are immortalized with their jerseys hanging in the KeyArena rafters. Lewis is well on his way to joining them.
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"This summer, I'll be back in the gym working on my game to be an even better player than I was this year."
Terrence Vaccaro/NBAE/Getty
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Yet Lewis is young enough at 27, in the prime of his career, to still boast of improvements to his game. Despite missing 22 games following surgery to repair the tendon sheath on his right hand, Lewis is averaging a career-high 21.6 points per game and enjoying the best season of his career. Off-season work - along with the time he put in using his left hand while waiting to come back following surgery - has broadened Lewis' dribble-drive game, making him an even more difficult cover for opposing defenses.
A year ago, Sonics Coach Bob Hill repeatedly assessed that Lewis was using only 65% of his natural potential. Lewis still isn't maxing out his skills, but Hill believes Lewis is now up to 75% of his potential.
"He's still got two or three things," says Hill. "When he learns to embrace quick decisions, when he understands the double-teams on the isolations and the post-ups ... he can still get better. As good as he is, he can still get better. I still think if he hadn't gotten hurt, he would have been an All-Star. He was putting up All-Star numbers."
Lewis agrees with his coach.
"I have improved a lot, but at the same time I still feel like there's more room for improvement," he says. "I haven't scratched the ceiling yet. I can continue to work on my game and do a lot more things to help my team win ballgames. The injury kind of made me take a couple of steps back, but I jumped back in, got right back in the rhythm of things. At the same time, this summer, I'll be back in the gym working on my game to be an even better player than I was this year."
A handful of plays have illustrated the steps Lewis has already taken in terms of his comfort level handling the basketball. In a win over Portland last month, Lewis went behind his back in transition to hand out an assist - a play Hill later said "made the season" for him. Against Detroit, Lewis used a left-hand dribble drive to get into the paint before pulling up for a shot. Those kinds of plays weren't in his arsenal last year.
"I'm feeling more comfortable with it," Lewis says, "not as nervous as I used to be when I dribbled with my left hand and thought I would turn it over."
Lewis is also in the process of learning to play against double-teams, which he has seen more frequently as his game has grown in the post. Lewis has seen his shots decline in recent games, something he spoke out about after the Sonics lost in Boston last week. Part of the responsibility for getting him more shots lies with Lewis himself.
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"I've been here for eight, nine years, and hopefully I can continue my legacy and not stop it after this year."
D. Clarke Evans/NBAE/Getty
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"He'll get there, but it's hard," Hill explains. "That's part of your process where you're rolling along and rolling along, you're single-covered and scoring 25 points a night, then the league says 'BS. We're double-teaming him on the catch,' and all those shots are taken away."
While looking to the future, Lewis was given the opportunity to reflect on his growing body of work in Seattle by Tuesday's milestone. What he wasn't aware of, until told by a reporter, was his climb up the Sonics career leaderboard in more prominent categories, including scoring and rebounding. Lewis is also nearing an important milestone, less than 200 points away from 10,000 in his career.
"To be only 27 years old and have a lot more years to play in the NBA and be in the top five, that's good," Lewis says. "Me being my age and putting in all this work to have these numbers that I've done in the past, it lets you know that I'm doing something right, that I've arrived in the NBA and I'm leaving my mark whenever I do decide to retire.
"Just depending on whether I'm able to finish my career here, maybe I'll be number one in a lot of those categories."
Lewis' future in Seattle will be determined this summer. He has told reporters that he will opt out of the last two years of his current contract and become an unrestricted free agent, eschewing a potential two-year contract extension. Becoming a free agent doesn't necessarily mean Lewis is thinking elsewhere. He can add an additional year to his contract and more money by re-signing with the Sonics as a free agent as opposed to signing an extension.
"I'm happy with where I'm at," says Lewis. "It lets you know I've been here for a while. I got drafted here, I've been here for eight, nine years, and hopefully I can continue my legacy and not stop it after this year."
Moving Up the Charts
In addition to becoming the all-time Sonics leader in career three-pointers earlier this week, Rashard Lewis has moved into the top five or to the verge of it in four other major Sonics career leaderboards:
3-PT FGM |
| Rashard Lewis |
918 |
| Gary Payton |
917 |
| Ray Allen |
864 |
| Dale Ellis |
699 |
| Brent Barry |
669 |
| Sam Perkins |
592 |
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POINTS |
| Gary Payton |
18,207 |
| Fred Brown |
14,018 |
| Jack Sikma |
12,034 |
| Shawn Kemp |
10,148 |
| Rashard Lewis |
9,817 |
| Gus Williams |
9,676 |
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GAMES |
| Gary Payton |
999 |
| Fred Brown |
963 |
| Nate McMillan |
796 |
| Jack Sikma |
715 |
| Shawn Kemp |
625 |
| Rashard Lewis |
599 |
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MINUTES |
| Gary Payton |
36,858 |
| Jack Sikma |
24,707 |
| Fred Brown |
24,422 |
| Nate McMillan |
20,462 |
| Rashard Lewis |
20,178 |
| Shawn Kemp |
18,609 |
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REBOUNDS |
| Jack Sikma |
7,729 |
| Shawn Kemp |
5,978 |
| Gary Payton |
4,240 |
| Michael Cage |
3,975 |
| Spencer Haywood |
3,954 |
| Rashard Lewis |
3,483 |
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