Kevin Durant and Gary Payton crossed paths on Friday and they didn’t disappoint. The Phoenix Suns star was seen getting into it with the Seattle Supersonics Hall of Famer during the Suns’ 130-105 win over the Golden State Warriors, who started Payton’s son Gary Payton II.
Even with the words drowned out by arena noise, it was entertaining.
A day later, video emerged on social media showing exactly what the two were saying:
Durant: “You up here, I’m at the ceiling.”
Payton: “I’m on the roof.”
Durant: “By the time you was my age, you was the eighth man on the bench.”
On Durant’s last point, he remains an All-Star in his age-36 season, while Payton spent his age-36 season with the Boston Celtics. Durant is incorrect about Payton being the eighth man on the bench, though, as Payton started all 77 games he played for the Celtics and averaged 33.0 minutes per game.
The exchange was apparently a friendly one, though. Payton told ESPN the pair were “just talking junk,” while Durant had this to say:
“It’s always good rapport with the older generation,” Durant said. “They respect me. I respect what they’ve done. But there’s some players that still got that competitive edge and wish they were still out there and still keep that with them everywhere they go. That’s GP, and I respect that about him. So any time, any chance I get to see him, man, we going to talk this trash until we die. It’s all love.
“G’s a great sport about it — one of my favorite players, somebody I look up to, got major respect for. I think we started in the summer with Team USA. We were all in the same room with Team USA, and the first thing I said to him was that he couldn’t guard me. ‘You’re too small. Them dudes that played back in the day wasn’t close to me.’ I was just talking crazy to him, so I guess we picked it up from there.”
Durant finished the game with 19 points on 6-of-13 shooting with six rebounds and three assists. Devin Booker, who is not an All-Star, led all scorers with 31 points.
