Gary Payton II was brought onto the Warriors' roster for his defensive prowess, which has been felt during the first nine games of the season.
The veteran guard who has bounced around the league has impressed his Hall of Fame father this season, and is ready for the challenge of guarding Trae Young when the Warriors face the Atlanta Hawks on Monday night at Chase Center. But if you followed the NBA G League or Payton's short stints in the NBA the last few years, you'd know Payton also has another element to his game.
He has hops, major hops.
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Payton won't anoint himself the Warriors' best dunker quite yet.
"We got a lot of guys that can do some things," Payton said Sunday after the Warriors' 120-107 win over the Houston Rockets. "Whenever [Andrew Wiggins] decides he wants to get over the rim -- I made him go get one today, so tried to get him going because he used to ... Wiggs, he's still young.
"I know he can still jump out the gym."
In the third quarter of the Warriors' win against the Rockets, Payton showed off his bunnies by getting up for a huge alley-oop from Draymond Green. Even Payton admitted that the lob looked out of reach at first.
That begs the question, would the 28-year-old Payton compete in the NBA Dunk Contest?
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Golden State Warriors
"I don't have too many tricks like the young guys have these days," Payton said. "They got some things -- I'm an in-game dunker. Worst comes to worst, I'll just put it on somebody's head. I think I'm just gonna stick with putting it on heads, get two points, get back and play defense."
The Warriors will be just fine with him sticking to that winning formula, too.