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Gary Payton Is The Greatest Trash Talker In NBA History

David 25676 July 21, 2018

Gary Payton aka The Glove aka The Greatest Trash Talker of All-Time is still at it!

While working with the NBA3x tour a couple of years ago, I got to cross off an item high on my bucket list: get into an argument with Gary Payton, who is now a coach in The BIG3 league. Our "argument" was over the 1994 "Shaq Shutdown" at All-Star weekend and Shaq's revenge on Payton's Sonics a few days later. GP said Sonics' coach George Karl and the Western Conference players didn't organize a "shutdown" on the young superstar center but I can't tell you the last time I saw a player get triple-teamed and constantly hacked in an All-Star game. During that same conversation, we also roasted Jason Kidd's rapping skills and discussed other trash-talking legends like Kevin Garnett and Michael Jordan.

MJ and Larry Bird often get the title of "greatest trash talker of all-time" but the reason why GP is my favorite is because he lets everyone in the arena know when he is talking shit. Jordan was more of a 1-on-1 trash talker and Bird's trash-talking was often a short question (Where do you want me to hit this game-winner?) followed by a shot (the game-winner) and a couple of words (Merry Christmas MF!). Gary Payton's trash-talking is like an actor's dream monologue followed by the opportunity to do a bunch of improv takes.

"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. At that time, them guys are very sensitive about that, so they would go at it. They would react to it. And then after the game, the would be like, 'Ah, we're going to fight after the game.' I'd be like, 'Listen here man, you really don't want to fight me. I'm going to say sorry to you and say it was just part of the game, so don't worry about it. If you wanna fight me after I say sorry then we can deal with that later on.'" - Gary Payton on trash talking.

So in honor of the Hall of Famer who would never shut up while shutting down his opponent (and sometimes hurting their feelings -- like Jamie Feick, who was hurt when GP told him, "You won't even be in the league next year."), here's a collection of videos about the NBA Champ, his best trash-talking stories and the art of trash talking.

NICK SMITH: 7 GREAT GP STORIES

SHAQ ON GP

MIKE KORZEMBA ON GP

ART OF THE TRASH TALK WITH GP & DRAYMOND GREEN

GP ON KG AREA 21

HALL OF FAME SPEECH

"I'M A HALL OF FAMER BASTARD!"