Gary Payton is an NBA Legend

[Lebron23]

He's one of my favorite players in the 1990's. The Glove was a great defender during his prime. It's nice to see the 1996 Sonics putting up a great fight against the 72-10 Chicago Bulls.

Payton played a very good defense on Michael Jordan in the 1996 NBA Finals.

Payton is a top 5 back court general in NBA History.

[SourPatchKids]

Why would a basketball player be called " the ball"?

[Toni]

Why would a basketball player be called " the ball"?

He was called The Glove

[SourPatchKids]

He was called The Glove

holy **** lolz i fail but i meant the glove.

[Toni]

holy **** lolz i fail but i meant the glove.

Hahaha no problem

[tstmusic]

I have a lot of old sonics articles and pictures, especially of GP that I have collected over the years. Any BIG Sonics fans out there interested give me a shout and ill send you some pics of all I got.

tshawntrent@yahoo.com

[DMV2]

Payton was actually my favorite player in the 90's.

[Al Thornton]

glove 4 president. secrete and reare

[Mr. I'm So Rad]

glove 4 president. secrete and reare

This

[Killbot]

I also love his loyalty to the Sonics franchise. It's a shame Sonics couldn't stay and put his jersey into the rafters.

[c3z4r]

i was his biggest fan while growing up, even tried to model my game after his, trying to shut people down on D, but i was honestly disgusted by his ring chasing act. He kinda lost me as a fan when he hopped from team to team at the end of his career.

[Killbot]

i was his biggest fan while growing up, even tried to model my game after his, trying to shut people down on D, but i was honestly disgusted by his ring chasing act. He kinda lost me as a fan when he hopped from team to team at the end of his career.

I don't blame him.

Some players strive for a ring. In his situation, he was traded away by the Supersonics to the Milwaukee Bucks. Yes, he could have came back to the Sonics, but lets not forget that he doesn't particularly have a great relationship between him, Schultz, and Walker.

[c3z4r]

btw killbot how did you cope with the departure of the sonics? I personally kinda lost my passion for watching basketball and stopped watching the nba as much as i used to do before for a while. I actually made my first account here in 07 but i deleted it when the whole sonics relocating drama was over and the thunder was the new team.

[Killbot]

btw killbot how did you cope with the departure of the sonics? I personally kinda lost my passion for watching basketball and stopped watching the nba as much as i used to do before for a while. I actually made my first account here in 07 but i deleted it when the whole sonics relocating drama was over and the thunder was the new team.

It was tough for me to cope with the Sonics leaving. Franchise has been here for 40-41 years and I enjoyed the little I-5 rivalry with the Trailblazers. Plus, Sonics just had a great star in Durant at the time with multiple picks and hired a former Spurs employee in Sam Presti; they find great talent. I tried to watch Sonics videos from the past and any mixes including the ones that created a tribute to the Sonics. That didn't help me much as I got depressed. I start reading forums like this one and Realgm by lurking and seeing what people think about their departure. A lot of posters, especially those from fans of other teams, were displeased by the news. They also defended the people of Seattle and tried to show ignorant posters that they were wrong. I thoroughly enjoyed reading those kind of posts. In a way, it brought me a little back to the NBA.

Along with that, Gary Payton expresses that he doesn't want his jersey retired by OKC and wants his jersey retired in the city of Seattle. His loyalty made me joyous. I went back to watching highlights of the good ol' Sonic days that included Payton in the highlights. Felt good for me this time as it made me excited about basketball again. Then, something hit me (mentally). Although the Sonics are gone, former Sonic players still exist.

Eventually, I decided to move on, knowing that they won't come back. What works best for me is to root for a current team other than OKC Thunder by picking a former Sonic player that brought momentary success to the Sonics. That player was Ray Allen. I chose the team he was in and rooted for him and the team. Seeing a former Sonic player succeeded in his goals and still remain a force was a temporary antidote in forgetting the Thunder. Like you, I became the fan of a player and then became a fan of the team.

Nowadays, it's getting much harder and harder to ignore the Thunder since they're doing so well. Their success still pains me. I keep thinking of "what could have been" scenarios. They made it into the past two postseasons and are projected into going to the NBA finals. Hurts me a lot. All I can do is root hard for the Celtics and hope the Thunder don't succeed, yet at the same time, root for Durant's success; he was picked by the Sonic players afterall.

[JellyBean]

GP was the real deal. I just like the fact that he backed up all of his talk with great play. Nowaday players do a lot of talking and don't really back up what they are saying. GP backed up his talk.