Gary Payton Quotes

"Xavier McDaniel made me respect him. I thought I could do anything I wanted to. He grabbed me one time and almost choked me out. He said, 'You're going to do this. You're going to go get coffee. You're going to go get doughnuts.' It's a game of respect."

"You make sacrifices. You sacrifice yourself. Do you want to possibly win a championship? Or do you want to be the same person you were when you were 20 and get those same numbers?"

"Don't hate, just play better, and then get that money."

"You can't regret anything - it's over with."

"I became real good friends with John Stockton and Karl Malone and am still good friends with them to this day. It was always good to go see them and then play with them in the 1996 Olympics as well. I idolized John Stockton at the time, I tried to model my game after him."

"I want to be the black Dick Vitale."

"Kobe Bryant, to me, is still the best basketball player in my mind. He played with me and he was in my era. I still love him to death. He's a little brother to me."

"When you talk back to me and say something to me it made my game go to another level."

"I would never have wanted to play with Magic Johnson, I would never have wanted to play with Michael Jordan, I would never have wanted to play with Karl Malone or John Stockton in my prime. We wanted to play against the Shaqs, the Kobes."

"You don't hear about me being at parties, going out and gettin' drunk."

"I haven't gotten in any trouble off the floor."

"I've always liked Deron Williams because has the same mentality as me."

"Wilt Chamberlain, by far, is my best basketball player. Best athlete ever."

"Tim Hardaway was a guy who had his crossover and then he could shoot a jump shot and he could get to the bucket."

"I'm not a jealous guy."

"George Gervin was my childhood idol since I was little. In Oakland I had all his posters on my wall."

"I want to finish my career in Seattle but it's rocky."

"Money and all that stuff doesn't equal a ring, because you'll always be in the books as winning a championship and being on one of the best teams ever to play the game."

"I've already gotten the big paychecks. I'll be fine."

"People always talk about first-ballot Hall of Famer and all that stuff, but it doesn't really make a difference. Once you get in there, you're a Hall of Famer. It doesn't matter if you get in on the first, second or third ballot. It's the same thing."

"It's just a great honor to even be associated with the Hall of Fame and get in. If I eventually do make it, it will be a great honor, and I don't care if it's the first or second time because it's an honor for anyone to make the Hall of Fame."

"Seattle deserves a team. They got robbed of their basketball team."

"As people know in coaching, you can get fired and hired just like that."

"I'm not going to go to a team that's losing. I think that would be disrespectful to me to trade me to somebody like that."

"It's always going to have an effect when your father comes up and scolds you in front of a lot of people."

"If you see yourself in the paper every day and people keep talking about you, you will have a little breakdown in yourself, too."

"I've done did a lot of things in the NBA, made a lot of stuff, so I'm happy with what I've done."

"I think if you ask any young guy if they would want a career like Gary Payton, they would tell you yes."

"I'm not going to sit here and dwell on whether or not I am going to the Hall of Fame."

"I am going to go on with my life, and if they call me and say 'Yo, you are going to be in the Hall of Fame or you are going to be in this,' then I am going to say, 'So be it.' If I make it, I will go to the ceremony, and I'll have fun."