A biography for Gary Paytonhasn’t been written yet.
“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.”
“I got suspended from school once, and my dad came to the school and whooped me in front of everyone. I didn't want that to happen again, didn't want to be embarrassed like that. The guys that I ran with, they respected that and respected my dad too.”
“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.”
“Basketball has turned into an offensive-minded situation. They don't play on both ends. They don't play defense.”
“As people know in coaching, you can get fired and hired just like that.”
“Prove to them people that you should have gotten picked earlier, and then you make your money. The privilege is just getting drafted, and once you get picked, prove to them that you were supposed to be drafted.”
“My father and my brother are chefs.”
“When I made it to the pros I wanted to be a guy who could stay in the league, be OK, do whatever I had to do to make some money and do what I do. As the years started coming, I started getting better.”
“You don't hear about me being at parties, going out and gettin' drunk.”
“I did a lot of things I regret.”
“Guys like Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, Kevin Garnett, they'll take bad criticism in a good way.”
“I hope they'll say I was one of the hardest-working basketball players on both ends of the floor.”
“I'm not a practice player.”
“I've already gotten the big paychecks. I'll be fine.”
“I don't give a damn about MVP.”
“I want to finish my career in Seattle but it's rocky.”
“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?”
“Patrick Beverley is one of my favorites. What he does is he brings a lot of energy.”
“No one superstar can win a championship by himself. You've got to have help.”
“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.”