Payton lets guard down

Newest Celtic says he's happy camper

October 05, 2004|Globe Staff

WALTHAM -- It took a private jet chartered by the Celtics to finally bring Gary Payton from Los Angeles to Boston. A Gulfstream IV with Payton, his wife Monique, his agent Aaron Goodwin, and executive director of basketball operations Danny Ainge on board touched down at Hanscom Field at 9:25 p.m. Sunday.

According to owner Wyc Grousbeck, the special travel arrangements represented "the way a first-class organization would treat a Hall of Fame player who has to get coast to coast." Ainge said the six-hour charter flight presented a valuable opportunity to speak at length with Payton and those closest to him, noting he did not fly to LA to convince or plead with the veteran to report on time. But according to Goodwin, "There was doubt and thoughts of retiring all the way up to [Sunday]" if another situation did not present itself. Goodwin credited Ainge with reminding Payton "it was about basketball first and foremost."

After assuring fans and reporters that Payton would be present for training camp and finally gaining confirmation that he was coming, the Celtics clearly did not want to take any chances with travel arrangements. While coach Doc Rivers never doubted Payton would show and the veteran point guard claimed his reluctance to join the Celtics was misreported, Rivers and Payton sitting side by side at media day represented a quasi-coup for the organization.

Wearing No. 20, Payton officially talked for the first time as a Celtic yesterday afternoon. At the age of 36 and with 14 years in the league, he knew exactly what to say.

Asked when he made the decision to come to Boston, Payton said, "When they traded for me. There's always a lot of uncertainty when it's flipped on you like that. I had a lot of family issues that I had to deal with. A lot of things that I had to work out first. I don't know where everybody got that [I wasn't coming] from because nobody heard me say that I wasn't coming. I just had to work out things first. I'm here, so we're going to go forward from there."

Payton later alluded to his unwillingness to move his teenage daughter to a new high school and added: "The [biggest] problem was my family. I got to get that straight first. Doc knew it. Danny knew it. They just let me take my time and let me make my decision on when I was going to get here and all that stuff. This is training camp. I've got to be here, so I made it here. Now we have to focus on what we have to do to make this team better. And I'm here to do that."

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