SEATTLE -- They say it in hushed tones, almost the way you speak about a dead man, even if he was a flaming geyser of stomach bile.

After all, no need to kick a man when he no longer affects your life, but the previous effect was so absolutely negative that to completely ignore it is too obvious.

And so they dance around the issue of Vin Baker not being in Seattle any longer, but the current Seattle SuperSonics, at least the ones who know, don't really skirt it altogether.

They don't say his name, but you know who they are talking about when they are asked the difference in this year's version of the team without Baker, who was traded to Boston in the offseason, with the ones of the past five seasons, when Baker lollygagged his way toward $86 million all to the not-so-preternatural chagrin of his steaming teammates.

"I just think we have a lot of good guys," Brent Barry said. "I think we are really going to just play team basketball this year. I think we had a stretch last year when we won 15 of 19 games, and we were really sharing the ball, moving it around, playing at a good tempo. Guys are able to make mistakes and we are able to police each other without somebody taking it too sensitively, or getting too upset. I just think we have a lot of good guys who are willing to put it out on the floor. We are going to make teams beat us."

Oh, by the way, that 15-of-19 game stretch to which Barry refers? That was when Baker was injured and out with three dislocated toes.

"Things have been very smooth in training camp," Sonics coach Nate McMillan said. "These guys are working hard. Everybody is coming in and getting right to business. It just seems smoother. It just seems easier to put in your schemes and your sets."

What that means is that McMillan no longer has to worry about how many touches Baker gets on the offensive end before he decides to play defense or rebound. And there is no more worry about what an $86 million contract means out on the court.

"It makes it easier to come to work, let's put it that way," Barry said. "It makes it easier to come to the locker room every day and know that when we step out on the practice floor we are going to get guys who are going to work. That is as simple as I can put it."

As Forrest Gump said, that's all we have to say about that.

So now, without Baker and the negative energy that he brought, the Sonics must figure out whether they are a better team. They made an unexpected run to the postseason last year, primarily because Gary Payton was once again great and Barry, Desmond Mason, Rashard Lewis, Vladimir Radmanovic and, to a lesser degree, Jerome James played well above what anybody anticipated.

The question becomes: Will each of those players build on the years they had last season, or were those simply one-season aberrations?

	“	It almost feels like a new beginning. And I say that because in a sense it is. It is a new beginning for all of us. Since I have been in the coaching position, we have rode Gary and Vin's back the entire time. ”
		— Nate McMillan

"It almost feels like a new beginning," McMillan said. "And I say that because in a sense it is. It is a new beginning for all of us. Since I have been in the coaching position, we have rode Gary and Vin's back the entire time.

"Now, we will still ride Gary, but we have to find or allow someone else to emerge, and we don't know. Everybody assumes it is going to be Rashard, but I hope it is Mase, Brent, Rashard and Radmanovic.

"I think that is the exciting part, but it could be a roller coaster ride for a while because they have never been in the role of carrying a team, or being depended upon every night."

So far in training camp, Mason, married in the offseason, looks unbelievably good. So much so, in fact, that McMillan is suddenly forced to make a decision about whether to start Mason or Barry, even though Barry has started three consecutive seasons and is coming off the best season of his career.

"Brent has done a good job," McMillan said. "He did a good job last season and played well. Mase wants an opportunity and he is working hard. So that is a decision that I have to look at. If Mase is playing well enough to move into that spot, then that is definitely something we have to consider. That is a part of me making the decision and the players respecting that decision and making it work."

With Baker gone, it seems Radmanovic, the second-year Yugoslavian, is going to be the starting power forward, which gives this team a tremendous lack of size. They took advantage of it last season, running bigger teams, outshooting them on the perimeter and playing the smooth, pretty team basketball to which Barry referred earlier. But it also highlights a dearth of rebounding that the Sonics seemingly have had since Jack Sikma retired in the early '80s.

There are other issues with this team, and they need to be answered before it is determined if Seattle can make another push for a playoff spot in a Western Conference that got much more difficult because of the additions of Yao Ming, Andre Miller and Drew Gooden.

Frank Hughes, who covers the NBA for the The News Tribune (Tacoma, Wash.), is a regular contributor to ESPN.com.