But to be fair, if you take players from my era to now, the game has changed and the players have many more shots. They use them differently than we did. The speed of the game has changed.
As a kid, I mostly played as a No 10. When I was really young, I played as a striker. But I grew a lot when I was older, and when I was 15, 16, I had a big growth, and so I changed a little bit and became slower.
CB4 is never coming back. A few years later, I think I'm a much better player. It's funny, even all the way over here in Africa, people are telling me, 'We need CB4 back.' I can't be that. That's impossible.
I used to be a wait-at-the-rim big, more of a Rudy Gobert-type of player.
Just seeing the progression, the evolution of the NBA game, I feel like you have a lot of big men shooting 3s.
I don't believe a player is ever a finished product.
I like to play wide, but as a youth, I played more in the middle as a 10.
I have dealt with three generations of players, each one of them was different.
I don't like to compare years, honestly. I think every year is a different experience, a different challenge. You grow. You evolve as a person and as a player.
The Messi of the early years was a phenomenon, but he always wanted to finish off the move. Now he goes past one, two, or three players and is happy to give an assist to a team-mate - it makes him more dangerous and more difficult to stop than ever before.
I had to play a certain style to get in the league, but now I want to be a player that stays in the league a long time, and you have to change your game and adapt.
Gary Payton is evolving, but GP is in the Hall of Fame.
