On a cool, overcast Texas evening, three Sonics drove off away from the team hotel and departed on what turned out to be a treasure hunt.

"Come with me," Antonio Daniels told the other two. "I got something to show you."

With Daniels leading the way, they ventured to his newly purchased seven-bedroom, 12,000-square-foot estate, set atop a hill on 2 ½ acres in the gated community of Dominion, about 20 miles outside downtown San Antonio.

"Just a little farther," Daniels insisted before leading them to the garage and revealing the whereabouts of a safe where he keeps his most precious valuables.

"You wanna see it?" he asked, and Reggie Evans and Damien Wilkins shot back puzzled looks.

Daniels punched the keypad, opened the heavy door and pulled out the NBA championship ring he won during the 1998-99 season as a member of the San Antonio Spurs.

Even in Daniels' dimly lit garage, the gold- and diamond-encrusted ring glowed.

"That's nice, man," Evans said.

"That thing is gorgeous," Wilkins added.

They took turns slipping it on their fingers, surveying the weight and imagining what it must be like to earn such a prize and to be able to call yourself world champions.

"We all make enough money where we can buy jewelry and some that's 10 times nicer than that," Daniels said. "But you can't buy a championship ring. You earn it.

"That's what we play for, and that's why I took them there. For motivation. If that doesn't motivate you, nothing will."

Among the active Sonics who begin the first round of the best-of-seven Western Conference playoffs tomorrow night against the Sacramento Kings at KeyArena, only Daniels has won an NBA championship.

Other than assistant coach Jack Sikma, who won a title with the Sonics in 1979, and team president and CEO Wally Walker, who won with Portland in 1977 and Seattle in '79, Daniels is the only one inside the Sonics organization with an NBA championship ring.

He's the only current player to have played in an NBA Finals, and one of five Sonics with playoff experience.

"I think our (playoff) inexperience could work to our advantage because you don't know any better and be like, well hell, I'm just going to go out and do the same things I've been doing all year," Daniels said. "I'm just going to play.

"Or it could be looked at as you're in a much different situation than you've been in before, and you have to adjust accordingly. It could be viewed two different ways."

The same might be said of the Sonics and their chances of advancing in the playoffs.

Realistically, No. 3 seeds with little playoff experience have no business thinking about the NBA Finals, but coach Nate McMillan has his team dreaming of the impossible.

He pushed all the right motivational buttons during the regular season and guided the Sonics to an improbable 52-30 record and the Northwest Division title when many believed they were the worst team in the conference when the season began.

McMillan, who doesn't have a contract after the season and once described this season as "the last ride," used his lame-duck status to strike a common bond with the team's eight soon-to-be free agents.

McMillan, 40, wasn't supposed to survive past Christmas and certainly not coach the Sonics deep into April, but he managed to convince his team that their fates were intertwined and sold them on a familiar us-against-the-world theme.

"The fact that people are still writing us off should be motivating enough," he said. "I tell them, you've earned your way here. You had 82 games to prepare for this, so you should know what it takes to win.

"I want them to go out there loose and play aggressive basketball and not be afraid of making a mistake. When you go there (the playoffs), you can be tight. But I think this team has been somewhat of a loose team all season. So we'll take that same approach and, hopefully, we'll be ready for whatever comes our way."

And that's really the question ... Are they ready?

Certainly this phase of the five-year plan that principal owner Howard Schultz once talked about is a year ahead of projections. The Sonics began the season believing they'd compete for the No. 8 or No. 7 seed, but in hindsight those expectations seem shortsighted.

Seattle finished with the sixth-best record in the league and the third-best record on the road.

And to think that last season the Sonics were 37-45 and that they spent the past two seasons mining the draft lottery. Their last playoff visit had been a 3-2 dismissal by San Antonio in the first round in 2002.

Their roster, coaching staff and front office are filled with people holding some slight they can't or won't forget. Everyone has been told at some point in their NBA careers that they're not fast enough, tall enough, too young, too old, too fat, too thin, too soft or too much of a thug to play in this league.

JIM BATES / THE SEATTLE TIMES The Sonics hope Rashard Lewis' recent return from injury can help reverse their late-season slump.

Five-time All-Star guard Ray Allen was traded by Milwaukee two years ago. All-Star forward Rashard Lewis cried on draft day after slipping into the second round.

Even All-American Nick Collison underwent two shoulder surgeries during his first NBA season and Luke Ridnour, the other 2003 first-round pick, was considered too tender for the NBA game.

Their coach, the one they call Mr. Sonic, entered the season on the hot seat and ended it as a coach-of-the-year candidate.

After four years, their general manager, Rick Sund, still is an obscure figure in Seattle, someone who can walk into any downtown sports tavern and go unrecognized.

And Walker, at times much maligned as the Sonics' president, never seems to get credit for resurrecting the franchise and resisting the temptation of starting a third reconstruction last summer.

"I think what you have is a complete team that this city can be proud of," Allen said. "Guys here, everyone inside this locker room has a story to tell. No one has had it easy, and at some point in our lives, we've all struggled.

"No matter what, this has been a special season that years from now we'll look back on and remember fondly. We've shown the people here good basketball, an entertaining style of basketball."

Not much has been expected of the Sonics since their mid-1990s heyday. Back then, they were winning 60-plus games each season and advanced to the 1996 NBA Finals.

ROD MAR / THE SEATTLE TIMES Antonio Daniels won an NBA title with the San Antonio Spurs in 1999.

"Those teams were special and had a unique quality about them," said Denver coach George Karl, who guided the Sonics from 1991 through 1998. "Nate knows his team and has put together an outstanding group. He is playing to their strength, which is shooting.

"Seattle is an amazing offensive talent, no question. With them and us and so many other teams, you wonder if they have enough defense. We've seen an offensive revolution during the regular season, but now how much of that will carry over into the playoffs?"

So is the NBA ready for the Sonics?

Seattle is one of 10 teams to average at least 99 points, and only Phoenix attempted more three-pointers.

The traditionalist says offensive-oriented teams can't win the championship, casting a pall over the chances of teams such as the Sonics, Phoenix, Dallas and Denver.

"My gut says, I think that's overanalysis because in basketball, you can win a lot of ways," Karl said. "It's proven in junior-college basketball, NCAA basketball. Syracuse wins playing a zone. People said for years you could never win with a zone.

"Nowadays you're supposed to say the outrageous, and the truth about the game of basketball is not outrageous. It's little subtle things that win and lose. ... Now if you said to me that [the Sonics] might not be able to win because they're not good enough defensively, then that makes more sense to me than to say the way they play.

"For me the soul of the game starts at the defensive end, and there are very few teams that have ever won championships being totally offensive-minded."

"All year long, I've been a big fan of Seattle's," said Hubie Brown, basketball analyst and former coach. "We played them twice in the 12 games I did. And I know they have problems right now. (Danny) Fortson is the first problem.

"But the bigger problem is (injured Vladimir) Radmanovic. He's such a key as their third-leading scorer. But they've still been able to hang in there, and their road record is outstanding — in that win at Memphis, they absolutely killed them on the boards.

"They can rebound, they run, they shoot with anybody, and I'm telling you right now, you do not want to play them. They're not only a team that beats San Antonio, they hammer them. I [spoke with Spurs coach Gregg Popovich and] he said it's one team we really have trouble with. They have the whole package."

So are the Sonics ready for the playoffs and is the NBA ready for a team like the Sonics to win a championship? That remains to be seen.

What's certain is that the Sonics believe that all they've been through this season will help them over the next few weeks.

"All year I kept saying that the different ways that we won this year will help us in the playoffs," Daniels said. "But the game does change. The moment you walk into the gym, you know it's a playoff game. You know it's not a regular-season game, and you know everything is different."

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