Gary Payton Rumors

Steve Francis: Four years before I was on that plane with Hakeem telling me we’re going shopping for cashmere suits together — four years before I was about to go play against Gary Payton — I was on the corner of Maple Ave in Takoma Park, Maryland, selling drugs outside the Chinese joint. My mother had passed away. My father was in a federal penitentiary. We had 18 people living in one apartment. I had dropped out of high school. No scholarships. No GED. No nothing. This is ’95! I’m watching Allen Iverson killing it for Georgetown just up the road from me, and I’m standing on the corner all day building my little drug empire, just trying not to get robbed, and then at night I’m playing pickup ball in the basement of a firehouse.