His infamous verbal confrontation with former teammate Kevin Durant demonstrated the phonetic perfection of a trash talking virtuoso. On the court he’s shown he can jaw with the best of them, taking on all comers-the young, the old, the strong, the weak, the fans and hell even the hopeless Knicks. Russell Westbrook is not only one of the best players in the Association but one of its finest orators in the art of shit talking. The 2016-2017 MVP has converted many a pagan worshipper to the Church of Russ where parishioners testify their faith to triple doubles, one man fast breaks, vicious dunks, all out effort and giving Andre Roberson this look whenever he tees up a three. I trust you’ll note that three of the five players listed are All Stars, proving that talk isn’t always cheap. It gets the competitive juices flowing and is as much a pep talk for the talker, as it a way to psych the opponent out.Īs a celebration of this NBA tradition, we have listed the best trash talkers in the league by position. Confidence is the key for any player to succeed and one of the surest ways for a player to maintain faith in their own game is for them to engage in trash talk. Trash talk is as old as the sport itself, with many of the game’s most acclaimed players noted equally for their verbal prowess as their athletic ability. A distinctly meritocratic environment devoid of the polite “thank you’s” and apt “excuse me’s” of the outside world, replaced with eff bombs, aggressive commands and a decidedly diminished filter when it comes to telling someone how you feel. Then there is the language of the gym, learned later in life but its speakers fluent all the same. There is of course the language of the outside world, the native tongue, where politeness and courtesy are valued, a place where most people are given the benefit of the doubt, and direct conflict avoided as much as possible. “I’m just looking around to see who’s going to finish second.” – Larry BirdĮvery basketball player on the planet is bilingual, whether they know it or not. So in honor of the Hall of Famer who would never shut up while shutting down his opponent (and sometimes hurting their feelings - like Jamie Feick, who was hurt when GP told him, “You won’t even be in the league next year.”), here’s a collection of videos about the NBA Champ, his best trash-talking stories and the art of trash talking.“If you don’t have anything nice to say then don’t say anything at all” -Mothers everywhere If you wanna fight me after I say sorry then we can deal with that later on.'” – Gary Payton on trash talking. I’m going to say sorry to you and say it was just part of the game, so don’t worry about it. And then after the game, the would be like, ‘Ah, we’re going to fight after the game.’ I’d be like, ‘Listen here man, you really don’t want to fight me. At that time, them guys are very sensitive about that, so they would go at it. It might be cruel to some people, but I would go at it. If he had just got a drunk driving charge, I would go at the situation. “If I knew something about a person’s mother, I knew something about his sister. Gary Payton’s trash-talking is like an actor’s dream monologue followed by the opportunity to do a bunch of improv takes. Jordan was more of a 1-on-1 trash talker and Bird’s trash-talking was often a short question (Where do you want me to hit this game-winner?) followed by a shot (the game-winner) and a couple of words (Merry Christmas MF!). MJ and Larry Bird often get the title of “greatest trash talker of all-time” but the reason why GP is my favorite is because he lets everyone in the arena know when he is talking shit. During that same conversation, we also roasted Jason Kidd’s rapping skills and discussed other trash-talking legends like Kevin Garnett and Michael Jordan. GP said Sonics’ coach George Karl and the Western Conference players didn’t organize a “shutdown” on the young superstar center but I can’t tell you the last time I saw a player get triple-teamed and constantly hacked in an All-Star game. While working with the NBA3x tour a couple of years ago, I got to cross off an item high on my bucket list: get into an argument with Gary Payton, who is now a coach in The BIG3 league. Our “argument” was over the 1994 “ Shaq Shutdown” at All-Star weekend and Shaq’s revenge on Payton’s Sonics a few days later.
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