Sports

Hall of Fame inductee Gary Payton hates everything about the NBA today. 

Payton is best known for his 13-year tenure with the Seattle SuperSonics, and holds Seattle franchise records in points, assists, and steals. The only point guard ever to win the NBA Defensive Player of the Year award. He is considered as one of the greatest players in his position.

 Like I’ve said, Gary Payton is sickened with the status of the NBA today. He said:

 “Basically everything. It's no defense, it's just run and gun. To me, there's only three point guards in the NBA that impress me; I got Chris Paul, Rondo, and another kid that I like a lot and I forgot his name right now. Oh, and Tony Parker. That's only three NBA players in there.” 

Gary Payton is an old school type of point guard who is recognized as a hard nosed defender and a good ball facilitator. He probably saw his type of play in Rondo, Paul and Parker that’s why he applauded them. But what about other point guards like Westbrook, Rose, Wall, Curry and Irving?

“There's too much touch fouls. Every time you touch and they stay on the free throw line. That's no way to watch basketball. When we were playing, it was rough and tough. Even superstars like me fouled out a lot. That's because they let people play, and if you do something then you call it. But nowadays it's not like that and this is the era.” Payton said.

If you know about the abolishment of the “hand-checking rule”, then you can clearly identify the huge impact that it gave to the players who loved to drive and score all of the time. They are free to do almost everything that they wanted on offense. Missed a bucket? Don’t worry, there is a high probability that you’ll get to the free throw line.

In addition he said:

“This is what kids want to see. You see these Playstations, they scoring 50 and 60 with one player, that's what they want to see on TV and I don't go with that. My era, give me one-on-one with somebody and stop him and right now you can't do that with a player because if you touch him he's going to the foul line and you're fouling out. Let him be rough. If he got an opportunity to go at you in the offensive end, let me go at him on the defensive end and rough him up. So that's the way I like basketball and I don't think it's like that."

I am also entertained whenever I play basketball video games and I score more than 30 points by just using one player. In my case, I’d like to use Stephen Curry and hit rainmakers from all over the three-point arc. If my shots aren’t falling, I will drive to the lane to invite a touch foul or just simply lay it in if there’s no one waiting there to block my shot.

That should not be the case in real life, players should be competitive enough and go against each other like a man. Nowadays, players like Kevin Durant, Carmelo Anthony and Lebron James are going to the free throw line at will and they suddenly become scoring legends. The NBA gameplay today unfortunately sucks when compared to what it was during the 90’s. I bet Payton would be a scoring champion too had he played in the league today.

The great basketball player, who hates NBA today, was known for his popular nickname “The Glove”. According to sports websites, Payton got his nickname "The Glove" when his cousin called him during the 1993 Western Conference Finals series against Phoenix and told him, "you're holding Kevin Johnson like a baseball in a glove," and the nickname was born.