Sonics assistant here to teach "playing grimy"

New Sonics assistant coach Mark Bryant laughs when it's suggested he might be the toughest forward on the team.

He denies the assumption, but minutes later says: "Thank you for remembering my game."

Who could forget? Bryant spent 15 years in the NBA with 10 teams because he did the things few others wanted to do. It's called dirty work, and it's painful and nonrewarding.

It's also a dying art, said Bryant, who is trying to impart his knowledge on the Sonics, who allowed an average of 102 points last season, ranking 21st in the NBA.

"I call it playing grimy," he said. "Defense wins games. We all know that. Offense doesn't win games, defense does. So you want to let whoever you play know that it's going to be a grimy, knock-'em-down and drag-it-out affair."

Bryant, 42, had been an assistant coach in Orlando last season before new Sonics coach P.J. Carlesimo offered him a job this summer. They have a long relationship dating back to Seton Hall, where Bryant led the Carlesimo-coached Pirates to the school's first NCAA tournament appearance.

Carlesimo entrusted the development of Seattle's trio of young 7-footers and forwards Nick Collison and Chris Wilcox to Bryant, who aspires to become a head coach.

"I have no problems with a guy that's giving his all," he said. "But a guy that's half-stepping, I have a problem with that because I know it was hard for me the last 15 years to half-step.

"I know if you work hard, even against a guy who is better than you, most of the time you'll win. So we'll start there with the effort, and if I can get that on a consistent basis, then I'm happy."

Exhibition format

As Tuesday's exhibition opener in Sacramento approaches, Carlesimo said he'll likely enter each game with a 10- or 11-man rotation and sit out four or five players. So rather than play traffic cop and shuffle players in and out of the games, he's going to use the early exhibition games to experiment and evaluate.

"We may take five guys and tell them that they're not going to play in [Sacramento] or three [players]," Carlesimo said. "I don't know what the number will be. I would think we'd probably lean to playing the veteran guys more than the young guys. Particularly the first five exhibition games, it's going to be a lot of playing different people and looking at different combinations and not trying to juggle.

"Maybe as we get to that last trio where we play a home game and then we go to Portland and then we go to Phoenix, you've got to start narrowing a little bit. But I would think that at least in the first five, everybody will get a chance to play and see what happens."

Wilks still waiting

Mike Wilks flirted with the Sonics this summer, but his hopes of returning to Seattle were dashed when the team acquired point guard Delonte West in the Ray Allen trade. Wilks also drew interest from Sacramento, but for now, he's bouncing back and forth from his home outside Huntsville, Ala., to Sacramento, where he trains and waits for an NBA team to call.

"I met with [general manager] Geoff Petrie in Sacramento," he said. "They were interested in me and I was definitely in the running for one of the spots on the team, but they went with Orien Greene."

Wilks, a five-year veteran, appeared in 47 games with the Sonics last season. In the last five games, he averaged 15.6 points and 7.2 assists and had four starts.

"I thought after the last five games maybe somebody would see what I did and say, 'This guy can play,' " Wilks said. "Maybe somebody would say, 'He's been in the league, he has experience and he's been a part of good teams.' ... But for whatever reason it hasn't broke for me yet. Maybe it's not my time."

The Sonics acquired Wilks in the Feb. 23, 2006, trade with Cleveland for Ronald Murray.

Notes

• West suffered a sprained right ankle in Wednesday's practice and is day to day.

• The Sonics concluded a 2 ½-hour morning workout with a 5-on-5 scrimmage in which the White team (Kevin Durant, Luke Ridnour, Wally Szczerbiak, Wilcox, Collison, Kurt Thomas and Mickael Gelabale) squared off against the Green team (Earl Watson, Damien Wilkins, Jermaine Jackson, Johan Petro, Robert Swift, Jeff Green and Mouhamed Sene).

Percy Allen: 206-464-2278 or pallen@seattletimes.com