NBA: Gary Payton makes bold claim about Michael Jordan; believes season's Finals could go the distance
Fformer Seattle Supersonics and LA Lakers star Gary Payton speaks at an event in Mumbai.
Mumbai:
Gary Payton can talk about defense all day, understandably so. So good were his defensive skills back in the day, they called him 'The Glove'. So much importance he attached to the defensive side of basketball, he drilled it into his son Gary Payton II.
He still does. And it's why the Naismith Basketball Hall of Famer, considered one of the best point guards of all time, believes the 2025 NBA Finals featuring Oklahoma City Thunder and the Indiana Pacers is set to be a 'great series'.
'I think this is going to be a great series. I like it because they both play defense. With both teams, you got five guys on the floor at all times who can go at each other,' Payton, a 2006 NBA champion with Miami Heat, told reporters here on Thursday.
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On his maiden visit to India, the former Seattle Supersonics and LA Lakers star, who is in town for the BudX NBA House this weekend, stressed that there was more to the two finalists than just their star point guards, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander of Oklahoma and Indiana's Tyrese Haliburton. 'Well, it's not just these two, they lead it. But you have to understand with these two teams, they have other basketball players who are very dominant.
And right now it's a different type of style of basketball than I played,' Payton said, adding: 'When I played, I could put my hands on them, I could control them and things, but you can't do that now. But what I would do with either one of the guards, I would try to trap them and make other people win the basketball game.
'With the two superstars, especially MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, you have to get the ball out of his hands.
Make other people beat you. Even with Haliburton, when he has a great game, the Indiana Pacers go.'
Along their path to the Finals, the Pacers were never taken to a seventh game by any of their rivals. That could be about to change as they battle the Thunder for the famed Larry O'Brien Trophy.
'I really do think it can go to seven games. The first one who loses on their home court is probably going to be the loser,' Payton said. 'They're the best two teams right now in the NBA.
Oklahoma has been the best team all year winning as many games they did, 60-plus. Let's see what Indiana got for them.'
Asked how he viewed the way NBA basketball has evolved and the direction it was heading in, the 56-year-old made his preference clear. 'I would rather see a lot more defense. Right now, it's a lot of offense.
'I don't want to go to a game and see somebody score 130 points. For what? And somebody has 50 points, another player has 55, that's not a watch for me.
That's crazy. I think I want to see somebody stop somebody. I want to see somebody take accountability of taking a person out of the game who's very valuable to their team. That's what I want to see, and that's what I dictate to my son all the time. That's why he's got the old school basketball game to him right now, because he guards everybody from one to five and I love that.
'
For his gritty display during the second half of the 1996 NBA Finals where he was tasked with guarding Michael Jordan, Payton would go on to be regarded as one of the best defensive opponents of the legendary Chicago Bulls guard. Is that how he would like to be described to basketball fans who tuned in after he was gone?
'I don't care about being the best defender of Michael Jordan.
That doesn't mean anything, I was the best defender of everybody,' he shot back. 'I guarded everybody. (Michael) wasn't just a focal point for me. Everybody in the NBA was a focal point for me. I would want to be remembered as the first two-way basketball player to play on both ends of the floor. I started that.
'I really didn't care about scoring, I cared about stopping the opponent, their best player. Because if I stop them that means I stop their basketball team, because they can't function without him. My legacy started because of defense. People say that. That's great, I love it. But really, my legacy started off with me being just a complete basketball player. Both ends of the floor, complete.'
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