Gary Payton

“To let somebody get 30 points on you, and you feel good because you got 35 on them, that's not good for me, you know what I'm saying? If I get 35, I want him to get 12 or 14 because that means I've done something. I've done my job. I went out there and played hard and did what I had to do.”

“You've got to be on all-league teams before you can say that you are going to be a great basketball player.”

“Coming from Oakland, Calif., I never thought I'd be a Hall of Famer. I wasn't thinking about basketball like that.”

“Coaching is something I really would do. A lot of people don't think I'm serious about it. I like working with the kids. When you work with the guys one-on-one and get them to understand it's a little bit better. That's the way I was taught by Tim Grgurich. That's how he taught us.”

“My dad was known as a mean guy. He never smiled, and he had 'Mr. Mean' put on his license plate. But he was one of the neighborhood dads who looked out for everyone. He would take kids in and help them out.”

“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.”

“The Glove is in the Hall of Fame with the greats.”

“There was a lot of temptation to do lots of bad things in my neighborhood.”

“If Seattle could put my jersey on top of the Space Needle, they would.”

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

“The trash-talking, I think I would like to take that back. I really didn't want to get known as that, but that was just the way I was, the way I grew up back in Oakland, Calif., back on the playgrounds.”

“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.”

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

“I will not go to Oklahoma and retire my jersey there.”

“The NBA tries to be about flash. But real fans recognize the guy who makes things happen.”

“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.”

“I've loved my days at Oregon State.”

“You don't just come in and say, 'Bam, I'm mature; I'm the leader.' It took time for me to grow into this and learn how to talk to certain players and how to handle certain situations.”

“With Westbrook and myself, I can see the dog that he has in him. He's got that fire that he won't back down from anybody. His game is a little different than mine because he's a fast, get to the bucket type of player, finishing above the rim and things like that.”

“If he's averaging 25 points and I can contain him to 17, then I've won the battle. If he averages 12 assists and I kept him to seven, I'm winning the game.”