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Elfrid Payton Rumors
All NBA Players
Position: G
Born: 02/22/94
Height: 6-3 / 1.91
Weight:190 lbs. / 86.2 kg.
Salary: $3,000,000
Born: 02/22/94
Height: 6-3 / 1.91
Weight:190 lbs. / 86.2 kg.
Salary: $3,000,000
Elfrid Payton entered the NBA in 2014 with a reputation as an excellent backcourt defender, one reason he was a rare lottery pick from a mid-major, having played his college ball in the Sun Belt Conference. During Media Day this week, however, the 24-year-old fielded several probing questions about his defensive performance in the league, at one point even responding, “I know people think that I lost it or something like that, but I’m excited to show that I still can defend at a high level, especially being around (teammates) who take defense very seriously.”
Payton probably would’ve benefited from having Jrue Holiday join him at the press-conference podium, because New Orleans’ NBA 2018-19 First-Team All-Defense shooting guard describes Payton as a formidable presence at that end of the floor. Holiday knows from first-hand experience, matching up with Payton often in past games vs. Orlando, as well as workouts this summer. “He’s just hard to get by or go around,” Holiday said of the rangy 6-foot-4 New Orleans native, who had 83 steals and 22 blocks in 63 games last season. “He has great hands, is really quick and has long arms. He’s strong. You think that you might have him beat, but you never know. He might meet you at the rim or get a hand on the ball (while an offensive player is trying to drive). Off the ball, he gets steals and plays the passing lanes well.”
The Advocate: How do you incorporate Randle and Elfrid Payton into the defense? Is it as simple as saying they’ll replicate what Cousins and Rondo did? Darren Erman: Elfrid has more size, so he’ll switch more. And Julius is a good switch player, so he’ll switch a bit more. I think that’ll change us a little bit to become more of a switching team, at times. I mean, we didn’t switch hardly at all last year. So, now we can do it more with those guys on the floor and switch it between 1-through-4. But we’re also going to be game-plan based. You don’t want to switch all of the time. But maybe it can be more of a base package than it was last year.
10 Aug
