Gary Payton

1968-

American basketball player

In 1999 Seattle SuperSonics point guard Gary Payton was dubbed "the best player on the planet" by no less of a basketball authority than superstar Charles Barkley . Payton has won two Olympic gold medals and is one of only eight players in National Basketball Association (NBA) history to compile a career total of over 15,000 points, 6,000 assists, and 1,000 steals. Despite this, Payton, who has spent his entire career with the SuperSonics, has yet to win an NBA championship ring.

One Tough Player

Payton grew up playing street basketball in Oakland, California. From a young age, the other young men he played with there taught him how to be tough. "You learned that you can be friends before the game and after the game. But once the game starts, it's all about business. No jive," he told Sports Illustrated contributor L. Jon Wertheim in 1999. "[T]hat's one reason I love it and go back to visit every summer." Then, when he was in high school, Payton's school played in a league where it often took several carloads of police to get the opposing team out of the building safely after games. What those experiences did not teach him, his father, Al Payton, a man who drove a car with the vanity plate "MR MEAN," did. Even today, the elder Payton will call his son after watching his NBA games on the television to critique his performance.

Only rarely does Al Payton have reason to criticize his son, who leads the NBA in technical fouls, for not being tough enough. Gary Payton's on-court persona is legendary. His "conversational tone in the heat of battle is as soft as a loan shark's," Dave D'Alessandro wrote in the Sporting News. Even when playing against the Chinese team in the 2000 Olympics, Payton trash-talked the entire time, despite the fact that the most of the Chinese players did not understand a word of his insults. "I'm always gonna be talkin'," Payton told Wertheim. "It's nothing personal, but it's at the point where if I change, people will say, 'Oh, he's soft now.' That ain't never gonna happen like that."

Playing in the NBA

After he was graduated from Oregon State University, where he was the best college basketball player in the country according to Sports Illustrated, Payton was drafted by the Seattle SuperSonics. The Sonics then had their star in power forward Shawn Kemp , but Payton quickly established himself as a key member of the team as well. Behind Kemp and Payton, the Sonics emerged as one of the powerhouse teams of the Western Conference during their regular seasons in the early and mid-1990s. They won at least 55 games per season for six years in a row, something that only two other teams have achieved in the history of the NBA. But somehow the Sonics always fell apart during the playoffs. They made a good run in 1993, coming within 13 points of making it to the championships, but Barkley and the Phoenix Suns defeated them in game seven to win the Western Conference Finals. Only once, in 1996, did the Sonics make it the whole way to the NBA Finals, where they lost to the Chicago Bulls in six games.

Olympic Victories

Only months after losing to Chicago, Payton helped win a different championship: the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. He was a late addition to "Dream Team III," replacing Glenn Robinson after an injury forced him to withdraw. Payton contributed to Team USA's drubbings of all eight of its opponents by leading the United States in assists.

When Payton returned to the Olympics in 2000, he proved to be a stand-out player for one important reason that had nothing to do with ball-handling skills: He was the team's moral leader. Not only did he make sure that all of the other players were fired up for games in which the outcome was never really in question, he also required that all of his teammates be good representatives of their country by not skipping the Opening Ceremonies. Once again Team USA easily defeated all of the other teams they played, even winning two games by margins of close to 50 points.

Rocky Relations

Payton and the SuperSonics seemed destined to part ways after the 2001 season. Despite having plenty of good players, the team never seemed to be able to jell into a championship-winning organization, and Payton was getting frustrated. With a limited number of years left to play, he wanted the Sonics to either get serious about winning or trade him to a team that was. The Sonics would have been happy to trade him, but between the NBA's salary cap and Payton's impending free agency (his contract was set to expire at the end of the 2002-03 season), no deals could be reached and Payton was forced to return to a weak Sonics team.

Career Statistics

Chronology

Awards and Accomplishments

When the Sonics started to struggle in the middle of the 2002-03 season, rumors about impending trades began to circulate again, and it seemed highly unlikely that Payton would be playing in a Sonics uniform in the 2003-04 season. Payton's contract would be expired, and the Sonics seemed unwilling to re-sign him even if Payton wanted to remain. Sonics general manager Rick Sund told Seattle Times reporter Percy Allen that the team was focusing on "rebuilding." He explained, "We try to use the word transition, but we recognize that we've really emphasized the youth (movement) the last two years."

"You've Got to Learn the Game First"

Payton still remembers the first time he played against his idol, Magic Johnson . It was 1990, Payton's rookie season, and the Los Angeles Lakers creamed the Sonics. As Payton recalled to the Denver Post 's Adam Schefter, Johnson told him: "You're going to be good. But you've got to learn the game first." Payton certainly did prove to be "good," even great, as his seven selections to the NBA All-Star team and his eight consecutive years on the NBA All-Defensive First Team show. Even if Payton were to retire without an NBA championship ring, he would still be remembered as one of the best point guards of all time.

CONTACT INFORMATION

Address: c/o Seattle SuperSonics, 351 Elliott Ave. W., Suite 500, Seattle, WA 98119.

SELECTED WRITINGS BY PAYTON:

(With Greg Brown) Confidence Counts. Dallas, TX: Taylor, 1999.

FURTHER INFORMATION

Periodicals

Allen, Percy. "Sonics Listen as Record Plunges: Most Trade Talk Involves Payton." Seattle Times (January 14, 2003): D1.

D'Alessandro, Dave. "Payton Has Molded Sonics in His Bickering Image." Sporting News (December 4, 2000): 57.

——. "Sonics, Even with Payton, Don't Scare the Competition." Sporting News (April 5, 1999): 27.

Deveney, Sean. "Payton's Flight from Seattle Is Delayed." Sporting News (July 30, 2001): 56.

Kelley, Steve. "Sonics Lack Big Man, Have Large Problems." Seattle Times (January 15, 2003): D1.

——. "Sonics, Payton Need to Part Ways." Seattle Times (January 10, 2003): D1.

Kirkpatrick, Curry. "'Gary Talks It, Gary Walks It.'" Sports Illustrated (March 5, 1990): 30-33.

"Payton Named to Dream Team after Robinson Goes down with Injury." Jet (July 15, 1996): 53.

Schefter, Adam. "Know Him from Adam." Denver Post (January 5, 2003): C-04.

Smith, Sam. "Payton's New Place: Try the Indiana Pacers." Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service (January 12, 2003): K0436.

Taylor, Phil. "Still Dreaming: The Other Dominant U.S. Team Had Nothing to Kick About." Sports Illustrated (September 25, 2000): 58.

——. "Talk Show." Sports Illustrated (May 13, 1996): 38-41.

Wertheim, L. Jon. "The Hustler." Sports Illustrated (December 20, 1999): 92+.

Other

"Gary Payton." NBA.com. http://www.nba.com/playerfile/gary_payton/ (January 7, 2003).

The Gary Payton Foundation. http://www.gpfoundation.org (January 7, 2003).

"Gary Payton Statistics." ESPN.com. http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/players/statistics?statsID=259 (January 7, 2003).

"Seattle SuperSonics History." NBA.com. http://www.nba.com/sonics/history/sonics_history.html (January 20, 2003).

Sketch by Julia Bauder