Gary Payton is one of the names on the NBA’s 75th-anniversary team, one of the best guards to ever play the game. GP was a machine when he was in his prime, his ability to impact every aspect of the game made him one of the 90s’ premier stars. He made it to the NBA Finals with the Seattle Supersonics in 1996 but fell short to Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls, something that happened to most of that generation’s stars.
But Gary Payton made his mark on the game as very few others have, he won Defensive Player of the Year as a guard in a time when the award was dominated by big men. Payton was a pest on the defensive end, making life impossible for opposition guards and locking up some of the league’s best scorers. This earned him the nickname ‘The Glove,’ and he recently revealed the exact story behind it.
Gary Payton On The Origin Of His Iconic Nickname
Gary Payton was all over opposing guards, which kind of made him like the glove as if they were the hand. But the actual story of how he got it is a bit different. Speaking to Kevin Garnett on KG: Certified, Payton revealed exactly when he got that nickname.
(starts at 21:25 minutes)
“My cousin. My cousin. 1993, KG, we’re playing the Phoenix Suns in the Western Conference Finals. At that time, Kevin Johnson was a premier point guard. He was averaging 27, he had just gotten All-NBA… Chuck is Chuck, you know what I’m saying. We playing against them, he just won the MVP. So I’m killing K Johnson right now, I’m holding him to like 14, 12 points. So we go and win Game 6, and force Game 7.
“My cousin called me after the game, I had like 24, 10, or about 5. Kevin Johnson had about, 12, 6, and 4. And I’m eating him up, and the TV talking about it. And my cousin called me up like, ‘Glove, Glove, Glove.’ I’m like, ‘Man, what is this man,’ I hung up on him. He called me back like, ‘Yo, don’t hang up the phone man, it’s yo cousin Glen.’ I’m like, ‘What’s up man, why you calling me Glove?’
“He was like, ‘Me and my frat brothers sitting here and they said you got Kevin Johnson like a baseball in a glove, so tight around him he can’t even move.’ I said, that’s how my D really is, cuz I do get on people, and ever since then we ran with it. We started putting out gear… And then the NBA took off with the nickname.”
That is an incredible origin story, considering that some friend of Payton’s cousin probably didn’t even realize what a huge moment that was to make that analogy. Nonetheless, as GP put it, it fit perfectly and he has become a part of the league’s history known simply by his moniker, ‘The Glove.’
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