Gary Payton
Gary Payton is a member of the professional basketball Hall of Fame. But, if there was Hall of Fame for the NBA’s greatest trash talkers, Payton would have a been a first-ballot member of that as well. “The Glove” was one of the most relentless and gifted trash-talkers of the 1990’s; former NBA player Damon Stoudamire once said that Payton’s trash talk was so intense that it could send someone to therapy. Forming Seattle’s “Sonic Boom” in the early-to-mid 1990’s (partnered with Shawn Kemp), Payton was named to an All-NBA team for nine consecutive seasons.
These days, after trying his hand as a basketball analyst for NBA TV and TNT, and when he’s not watching his son Gary Payton II play college basketball himself, he’s working to bring an NBA franchise back to the city of Seattle.