Gary Payton: So, I’m going to tell you how this went. In ’96, I made First Team All-NBA. I made First Team All-Defense. I was on the Olympic team. We won a gold medal. I got the first contract for a point guard to be the highest-paid ever—they gave me $92 million. For the first time. For the first time—92! I won Defensive Player of the Year. And then, all of a sudden, everything started rolling in at once. You know what I’m saying? I did all of that in one year. I won almost everything in basketball during that time. I was on every team, every accolade—I was on the All-Star Team, all that. I almost won MVP in the All-Star Game, but they gave it to Mitch Richmond. I lost by one vote on that. My life was on cloud 20. And I made it cloud 20 because I was in the club every night after that. Then, we went to Atlanta for the Olympics, and we were out every night—in the strip club every night—and blowing everybody out. Dream Team 2 was in Atlanta. To make that and do that—that was one of the best things ever.
Source: YouTube
Source: YouTube
What’s the buzz on Twitter?
Anthony Slater @anthonyVslater
Steph Curry will warm up and attempt to play at Knicks tonight, per Kerr.
Gary Payton II: Non-displaced fracture in nose. Out tonight, status for Thursday still TBD. – 6:02 PM
Steph Curry will warm up and attempt to play at Knicks tonight, per Kerr.
Gary Payton II: Non-displaced fracture in nose. Out tonight, status for Thursday still TBD. – 6:02 PM
Anthony Slater @anthonyVslater
Gary Payton II had a cut on his nose postgame but said he’d be fine. Hopes to play tomorrow in New York. Left tonight’s game after taking a hit from LaMelo Ball. – 10:07 PM
Gary Payton II had a cut on his nose postgame but said he’d be fine. Hopes to play tomorrow in New York. Left tonight’s game after taking a hit from LaMelo Ball. – 10:07 PM
More on this storyline
Gary Payton: What’s your take? Could Dream Team 2 have beaten Dream Team 1? Absolutely. They were older, come on, man! And then we took six of their Dream Team 1 guys and put them on our team. But y’all gotta understand—DC and them were the ones who went to the qualifying tournament and didn’t make the final Dream Team 2 roster. You remember that? Him, Shawn Kemp, and all of them—they got taken off. Because, you know, they started acting up, acting crazy. So they put us on there. -via YouTube / March 5, 2025
Gary Payton: But the main thing is, we weren’t all friends back then. We didn’t all go out together, we weren’t on banana boats, we weren’t taking trips together. We hated each other! You know, the West hated the East, and the East hated the West. We used to go at each other. We weren’t friends. We didn’t take off our jerseys, hold them up at half court, take pictures together, and swap them. I didn’t care about none of that. The only time I was dealing with someone on a different team was at the All-Star Game. “Hey, what’s up? What’s going on?” That’s it. After that, we ain’t like this no more. You feel what I’m saying? -via YouTube / March 5, 2025
Stephen Jackson: We all make mistakes but I heard you made a mistake and accidentally hit Horace Grant over the head with a dumbbell trying to hit Gary Payton. Vernon Maxwell: I was trying to get GP upside his motherf*cking head with a dumbbell and hit my boy hard, that’s my boy… Jackson: And put him out two weeks! Maxwell: Yeah it was my fault. I bruised him pretty bad. That’s my boy. GP, he jumped on my young boy, hit my young boy Shammond Williams for no reason. -via YouTube / March 3, 2025