Every summer we discuss and try to anticipate who will be the revelation team, the most improved player and the one who comes off a great campaign and aspires to his first All-Star, but… what about the player you are not expecting at all? That category, the WDYCF (Where the hell Did You Come From?) is an unofficial award and not yet recognized by the NBA, but one that Adam Silver should seriously consider including.
Because Gary Payton II was neither there nor, of course, he was expected. And that his greatest virtue, his field of influence and his most psychic side on a basketball court has always been clear from day one. The defense. But not just any defense, but the one that the crowd chants in capital letters from the stands and he seems gifted to absorb the force of all the voices and burn with it the rival object of his marking. The Android # 19 of the parquet.
During his four years of college (as he graduated as senior after going through two different universities, pursuing his studies in Communication Sciences and HDFS on human and family development), he was growing and growing in this facet, until he was included for two consecutive years as a member of the All-Pac-12 and – much more important in a niche specimen like him – the Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Year.
And of course. Then, as if this weren’t enough, there is the genetic component and the social narrative to continue feeding the monster. From ‘The Glove’ a ‘The Mitten’. From glove to mitten. Two NCAA decades contemplate them.
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