Chris Carella

Posted on Dec 11, 2021Read on Mirror.xyz

Gary Payton

“First time we met, we’re playing in Seattle,” Hall of Fame point guard Isiah Thomas once recalled in a TV discussion involving Payton himself. “I catch the basketball, and all I hear is, ‘(inaudible sound).’ I can’t repeat what he was saying. And I’m holding the basketball, and I’m looking at him. And then I had to turn around, and I was like, ‘Is he really talking to me?’ He was talking so much trash.”

“Hey, I had to do it,” Payton interjected. “I had to.”

“I didn’t know him though!” Thomas said.

“He didn’t even know who I was,” Payton explained.

“I stopped for about five seconds,” Thomas continued. “Game was going on, I was dribbling the ball, and he was talking. I picked up the ball just to, like, look at him.”

That was Payton’s second career game during his rookie season. Thomas and the Detroit Pistons, fresh off back-to-back championships, went into Seattle to play an up-and-coming Sonics team. Shawn Kemp wasn’t even starting at that point; he was coming off the bench. That’s how green the Sonics were as they were putting together their core for the future. It didn’t matter that Payton didn’t even have his feet wet in the NBA. It didn’t matter that Thomas and the Pistons were two-time defending NBA champions. Payton was there to talk. He was there to defend. And he was there to compete.

The Athletic NBA 75: At No. 48, Gary Payton backed up his intense and vociferous trash talk with historic defensive play