Gary Payton was one of the best trash-talker in the business during his playing days, but even he couldn’t faze Utah Jazz’s star point guard John Stockton.
By his own admission, the Seattle SuperSonics superstar said he was unsuccessful when it came to intimidating Stockton.
“I learned trash-talking from my father, growing up on the streets of Oakland, California,” Payton said in an interview with Marca. “I used it to my advantage. There was only one guy whose skin you couldn’t get under and that was John Stockton.”
And while one would expect Payton to have some bitterness about it, he was more than happy to give his competition the flowers.
“Stockton was the guy I really, really respected,” Payton said of Stockton. “I respect him to this day, and I asked him and George Gervin to induct me into the Hall-of-Fame, which they did. It was an honor for me.”
‘The Glove’ was a dual-threat where he would lock up his opponents, and give them a generous dose of trash-talk, but in Stockton, he had an opponent who would let his buckets do the talking. Regardless of their approach, it goes without saying that they were in the league of the best point guards in the game during their time in the NBA.
Gary Payton Wasn’t Afraid To Cross Lines With His Trash-Talking
As such, Gary Payton didn’t hold back when it came to dishing out the verbal treatment of his opponents. The former Defensive Player of the Year revealed that he need just one bit of information to taunt his competition.
“If I knew something about a person’s mother, I knew something about his sister. If he had just got a drunk driving charge, I would go at the situation. It might be cruel to some people, but I would go at it.”
So much for families being off-limits. But Payton knew that he could get into their heads if he could throw them off their game, and he did just that, even if it earned him a bad rap during his 17 seasons in the league. But it goes without saying that one couldn’t get past Payton easily if he was locked in.
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