Gary Payton was a huge star in Seattle and an even bigger jerk

Gary Payton, like several of his contemporaries, was an unabashed jerk. He took pride in that. He was nasty to opponents and maniacally hypercompetitive with teammates. All the famous anecdotes about MJ -- the trash talk, the bullying, the ludicrous bets -- they all have counterparts in the lore of Payton.

But on the court, things just broke differently for Gary. Obviously, Gary and the Sonics were not as great as MJ and the Bulls, but they weren't that far off.

In that way, Gary's time in Seattle and his eventual departure serve as kind of an alternate version of the MJ story. What if you're an extremely good player who's a dick to everyone on your very good team ... but that team DOESN'T win titles? What if you stick around after they stop even contending for titles? What if, uh, the Starbucks guy buys your team and thinks you're the team's foremost problem? And then what if that guy turns out to be a pretty big jerk himself?

This is Gary Payton's beef with the Sonics.

Directed and edited by Jeremy Ray Smolk
Written and produced by Seth Rosenthal

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