The edge he plays with, the defensive …

The edge he plays with, the defensive instincts, the aggressiveness, the work ethic, it was in him all along. But before he picked up his father’s craft in earnest, before he could embark on the winding road leading him into this season’s playoff rotation with Golden State, Payton II had to confront The Glove. Not his father, but the enormous persona hovering over his life. And his dad had to let him handle it his own way. The end result is the son being more like his father than he ever imagined. “We finally understood each other,” Payton II said. “I didn’t have what he had growing up. He didn’t have what I had. It was just, like, you gotta let me be me and figure this shit out. We grew together. We bumped heads back in the day. Just because that’s what fathers and sons do, you feel me? We matured.”