15 Biggest Instigators in NBA History
Make no mistake about it, basketball is a physical sport. As a result, instigators and dirty players fill the annals of the sport's lengthy and complicated history.
But despite the fact that the list of instigators could go on forever, these 15 players stand out above the rest.
We're not looking for one-time offenders like Kermit Washington here. Sure, Washington may have thrown the most famous punch in NBA history when he almost killed Rudy Tomjanovich, but he wasn't a dirty player and this was a one-time offense.
We're also not looking for guys like Manu Ginobili, who flop excessively, but do so more to draw fouls than to aggravate opponents.
Instead, we're searching for the men who liked to push buttons, get away with excessive physicality and generally be more hated by the opposition than anything else. It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if a few of the players you'll soon read about would let a brief smug grin creep across their faces when they learned about their inclusion.
Read on for the 15 biggest instigators in NBA history.
15. Karl Malone
1 of 16Karl Malone won't be the only member of the greatest era in Utah Jazz basketball that you'll find in these rankings. But don't let that make you think for even a second that the massive-shouldered basketball behemoth wasn't an instigator.
Malone's arms were huge and he didn't hesitate to use part of them even a tiny bit. That part I'm referring to is the elbow.
The Mailman really enjoyed driving the pointed part of his arm into another player's chest, ribs or even face. If you were going to contest him for a rebound, you had to be prepared to take the physical punishment.
Malone recently starred in Shaquille O'Neal's list of the five players he'd most like to fight, and for good reason.
14. Rasheed Wallace
2 of 16Here's a quick math lesson for the less numbers-inclined of you readers.
The transitive property states that if A = B and B = C, then A = C. In layman's terms, here's an English example: If all basketball players are tall and John is a basketball player, then John is tall.
Now I'm going to use the transitive property to prove that Rasheed Wallace is an instigator.
See, technical fouls are generally given to players because of unsportsmanlike conduct and nothing gets under other players' skin quite like unsportsmanlike conduct. As the all-time leader in technical fouls, Wallace is clearly pretty decent at racking up the techs.
Well, if Wallace gets technical fouls, then he constantly engages in unsportsmanlike conduct and thus, constantly gets under players' skin.
13. Ron Artest
3 of 16Not only can Ron Artest instigate fights on the basketball court, but he can also get them going in the stands.
The Malice in the Palace was the worst fight in basketball history and no player was at the center of it more than Artest.
Another lockdown defender, the current member of the Los Angeles Lakers is absolutely insane. He's thanked his psychiatrist during an interview, he's dyed his hair like Rodman before him and he's admitted to drinking Hennessy in the locker room during halftime of games.
Although "crazy" is probably a better word to describe Artest than "instigator," he makes this list nonetheless.
12. Xavier McDaniel
4 of 16""Off the court I'm nice, but a different animal starts to come out of me when I step on the court. I remembered one time Dennis Rodman punched me upside the head and then he punched my [groin]. I already told the ref and they didn't do anything, so I whopped his butt. They wouldn't let me out of the locker room after the game because I was going to get him.
I'd punch him in the face. I owe him one anyway."
"
Those were the words that Xavier McDaniel himself blessed us with during a 2007 interview with the Seattle Times.
When looking at the entirety of the X-Man's career, those words still manage to ring very true. McDaniel constantly found himself creating trouble. The most notable time though was when he and Charles Oakley managed to wind up fighting each other in the stands.
With his grueling, physical style of play, McDaniel made quite a few enemies during his 14-year NBA career.
11. Reggie Miller
5 of 16Between the constant wayward elbows and the incessant trash-talking, Reggie Miller could have earned a spot on this list with ease. Throw in his feud with Spike Lee and the New York Knicks, and he's a complete and utter lock.
Miller went from great player to unquestioned superstar during Game 5 of the 1994 Eastern Conference finals against the Knicks. Playing at Madison Square Garden, the all-time runner-up in the three-point shooting department dropped 39 points, including 25 in the fourth quarter. Although the Indiana Pacers would go on to lose the series, Miller's performance will go down in NBA lore as one of the greatest ever.
But even more notable was the constant banter between the shooting phenom and Lee, who was on the sideline as always. Running up and down the court, Miller would engage in lengthy discussions with Lee, ones that infuriated the Knicks to no end.
Worst of all was the now-infamous choke sign that he directed at the world's most famous Knicks fan, one that will never be forgotten.
Neither will Miller when it comes to players with the innate ability to instigate.
10. Kevin Garnett
6 of 16If you've ever watched Kevin Garnett play basketball, you've seen the trademark intensity that has caused him to both smash his forehead into the padded space underneath the rim to pump himself up and aggravate opponents incessantly.
Between the low blow on Channing Frye, the skirmishes with Zaza Pachulia, the slap of Tim Duncan, the barking at Jerryd Bayless and the calling Charlie Villanueva "a cancer patient" (if that's indeed what he said), Garnett's career has been filled with controversial moments.
It's just the way he plays.
While that style of combat has caused Garnett to become one of the greatest power forwards of all time, it's also caused him to instigate quite a few skirmishes between the lines.
9. Rick Mahorn
7 of 16Can you imagine an NBA player in today's game screaming at a referee like this without immediately being sent to the showers?
Such was life though for players back in Rick Mahorn's day. No player on the Detroit Pistons' Bad Boys in the late 1980s embodied the bad moniker more so than Mahorn, a piece of information that you might be able to glean from the picture alone.
Much like Zach Randolph today, Mahorn was devoid of any talent in the jumping department, so he had to instead rely on physical play to do his dirty work down in the low post. Mahorn lived for contact, whether it was in the form of a legal boxout (rare), shove, elbow or quick jersey-grab (much more common).
Mahorn was the type of player that was willing to repeatedly stomp on Kevin McHale's broken foot during the 1987 season, trying to do anything possible to get under the more talented forward's skin and create a mental advantage.
8. John Stockton
8 of 16Because of John Stockton's brilliance with the basketball, he somehow managed to avoid the instigator label in the mind of most NBA fans.
But make no mistake about it, the league's all-time leader in assists knew how to play dirty and frustrate his opponents. Stockton may have been as good at setting illegal screens as he was finding open teammates for two points. In fact, his screen-setting, unfair as it may have been, was one of the reasons he was able to find players with no one even in their general vicinity.
On top of that, the former Gonzaga Bulldog loved to elbow and shove defenders off the ball. He was fantastic at escaping the notice of referees, but not defenders.
7. Rick Barry
9 of 16One of the biggest jerks in the history of the NBA, Rick Barry not only instigated opponents, but also his own teammates. Notoriously racist, Barry was the epitome of perfection in his own mind and wasn't afraid to hold everyone else to that same unreachable standard.
During his tenure in the Association, the man who wore a wig throughout the 1976 season managed to rub nearly everyone involved with basketball the wrong way. If you search for quotes about this incredible passing forward who managed to average over 30 points a game multiple times, you'll be overwhelmed by the amount of negative feedback you see.
Barry's teammates disliked him to the extent that they didn't even fight on his behalf during his famous brawl with Ricky Sobers in Game 7 of the 1976 Western Conference finals. As a response, Barry refused to shoot in the second half and then blamed Clifford Ray for the loss years later.
He may have been a great player, but his mouth and mind combined to form an even greater instigator.
6. Larry Bird
10 of 16It's one thing to be an incredible trash talker; it's another thing to be an incredible trash talker who can back up absolutely everything that you say.
I recently wrote the following about Bird:
""Throughout his time in the Association, Bird was always one of the most prolific trash talkers.
For example, one Christmas Day, Bird told Chuck Person before the game that he had a present waiting for him. Sure enough, while Person was on the bench, Bird spotted up right in front of him, launched a three-pointer, turned while the ball was in the air to say "Merry f-----g Christmas" and then watched as the ball fell perfectly through for three points. It may be true that Bird was just as skilled at humiliating opponents with his mouth as he was with the ball.
"The rest of the 1986 All-Star Weekend three-point shooting contestants can attest to this, as Bird supposedly walked into the locker room, surveyed the other people in it and then explained that he was trying to figure out who would finish second. Needless to say, he won."
"
The best story I didn't tell in that article was when Bird told Xavier McDaniel that he was going to make a game-winning shot from a certain spot on the court and then drilled the jumper right in front of McDaniel.
No one likes getting told they're going to get beat and then losing.
Bird made a habit out of giving opposing players that feeling.
5. John Starks
11 of 16In his autobiography, John Starks: My Life, Starks, one of the most hated men in Chicago history, had the following to say about himself at the start of chapter 13:
""Right after 'The Dunk' and Game 7 Houston, my head-butt of Reggie Miller is what people seem most to remember about me. Reporters and opposing fans starting calling me everything under the sun afterward: 'Villain,' 'thug,' 'dirty player,' 'Johnny Rotten,' 'Starks Raving Mad,' and one Indiana fan dubbed me 'Psycho Boy.'
I never thought of myself as a dirty player. The Knicks had an attitude that I shared: 'Win by any means.' I wanted to win at any cost, even if it meant some people hated and booed me. Getting inside of an opponent's head is part of the game. If I needed to intimidate a player, then that's what I had to do. Oak, Mase, Patrick, and I, we intimidated opposing players. If there was any softness in a player, we were going to find it and exploit it."
"
Even though Starks never thought of himself as a dirty player, he undoubtedly was one. During his prime, very few players were better instigators than the longtime New York Knick.
4. Bruce Bowen
12 of 16""They're whining because Bruce Bowen has frustrated, upset, hurt or angered them in some way.... He just plays tough, physical defense, does not play with any intent to injure, but isn't afraid to get in someone's grill."
"
No sentence describes Bowen better. The small forward was an incredible defender during his prime but he wasn't afraid to mix it up, sometimes in ways that could be construed the wrong way.
Bowen earned his label as an instigator once and for all during the 2007 playoff series against the Phoenix Suns. Amar'e Stoudemire, who has been known to call out Bowen quite often, said that Bowen kicked him during a game that series.
But even worse than that, he kneed Steve Nash in the groin just a few days removed from that.
Between the brutal takedowns of players attempting to dunk, the stomps on players and the rest of Bowen's dirty plays, he definitely earned a pretty awful reputation among both his peers and sportswriters around the country.
No one really liked him, which made his role as an instigator a pretty easy one to fulfill.
3. Dennis Rodman
13 of 16Between the ridiculously flamboyant hairstyles and his style of play, Dennis Rodman had a knack for finding his way underneath opposing players' skin. Perhaps his insanity contributed towards this or maybe it was just his over-the-top physical style of play.
The best pound-for-pound rebounder of all time, Rodman embraced his role as an instigator and thrived because of it.
Whether it was kicking a cameraman under the basket, causing numerous fights or being so proud of his reputation that he gave his autobiography the title Bad as I Wanna Be, Rodman was a true troublemaker on the court. Rodman was the perfect member of the Bad Boy Pistons in the late 1980s.
2. Charles Oakley
14 of 16As you may recall from the Xavier McDaniel slide, Charles Oakley once managed to end up in the stands while brawling with the X-Man. But that was by no means the only bit of instigating that Oakley was a part of.
Additionally, there was the 2002 game with Shaquille O'Neal, one that began with a pregame shove and didn't end until a brawl resulted from the constant stream of hard fouls coming at the hands of Oakley. There was the 2000 game that saw Oakley throw a right cross into the face of Los Angeles Clippers guard Jeff McInnis.
There was the non-stop trash-talking that Oakley loved to engage in, even if the man to whom he was talking trash was a better player than he was.
No quote sums up Oakley's reputation better than the following one from Bill Simmons' The Book of Basketball:
""We know everyone in the NBA was afraid of him, personified by the famous story of Oak slapping Barkley hard across the face during a '99 lockout players-only meeting. I once asked a relatively famous current player, 'What makes Oakley more intimidating than everyone else?' His answer: 'There's a lotta tough guys in the league, but Oak don't give a f***' Well then."
"
1. Bill Laimbeer
15 of 16Has any player been more universally hated by his peers than Bill Laimbeer?
This member of the Detroit Pistons loved nothing more than instigating fights on the basketball court thanks to his constant stream of cheap shots and low blows. But there is one story that stands out above all the rest.
Once Laimbeer clotheslined Larry Bird during Game 4 of the 1987 Eastern Conference finals, starting a massive brawl in the process, he was completely and utterly detested by the Boston Celtics. It probably wasn't good for his health that the next game in the series was at the Boston Garden.
During the final minutes of the second quarter, Laimbeer threw one too many elbows into the chest of Robert Parish and Parish sucker-punched/karate-chopped the hell out of him, drawing a pretty obvious foul in the process. For those of you that don't know, the Chief never lost his temper.
It took a truly special player to annoy Parish. When it comes to instigation, Laimbeer was truly special indeed.
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16 of 16Adam Fromal is a syndicated writer and Featured Columnist at Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter.
