Gary Payton was not only one of the best defensive players in NBA history but one of the fiercest competitors this game has seen. The Glove entered the league with one goal and was to beat everybody else to win a championship. It took a lot of time for him, but he did it.
He had to go through a lot of hard rivals and lost in the Finals a couple of times, but Payton never gave up. He was a vicious trash talker during his active days and even after retirement, he hasn’t stopped.
Payton knows very well what it takes to be an effective trash-talker in the NBA, and recently was asked to select four more players of the 90s to be on an All-Trash Talker team with him. During a recent interview on The Old Man and the Three podcast, the Glove was asked to select his All-90s Trash-Talking Team.
Via Sportscasting:
“Yeah, I mean, me,” Payton began, donning his metaphorical general manager hat. “Reggie Miller. Larry Bird, he was just good … I only played against him for two years, but he was really, really good. MJ [Michael Jordan] used to give his little things underneath his breath.”
His fifth selection to this team was kind of a surprise, but Payton was confident when he went with Chuck Person to complete this imaginary team.
“People don’t really understand Chuck Person was a cold one, too,” he continued. “He used to talk a lot of trash. The Rifleman … So, you know, us five, we’d have been something else if we’d have been teaming up together, talking a lot of trash, man. We’d have had everybody discombobulated, man. I’m telling you, man, we’d have done a good job.”
The Glove and all these players went at it during their careers. He learned and challenged each other on them on the court, mastering the art of trash-talking. He once picked Bird as the coldest of all, with LeBron James agreeing to that. Larry Legend was exactly that while trash-talking: a legend. Everybody who did the same thing credits him for all the good lines and good ways to try to get under your rival’s skin.
