Nate Robinson Makes SLAM on Streetball's Cover

SLAM says they don't like Nate Robinson as a basketball player ("he shoots too much, he doesn’t pass enough, he shouldn’t have won the dunk contest") but they do think his attitude is streetball-in-the-NBA. Says SLAM executive editor Lang Whitaker:

As we worked to set up the cover shoot, I got to know Nate pretty well, and once you spend time with him you’ll see he’s pretty hard not to like. The way he plays is the way he talks, the way he carries himself, always bubbling and shining. I grew up in Atlanta during the Spud Webb era, and even though Spud could famously dunk, he never played with the flair that Nate can’t seem to control. Which made Nate the perfect guy to front SLAM presents Streetball.

Whitaker's post set off the predictable does-Robinson-belong-in-the-NBA debate in the comments. The magazine came out this weekend--in advance of that, Whitaker presented his favorite quote from the interview with Robinson, who he says is "probably the best talker I’ve ever heard."

“When I’m playing basketball, it’s like I got a little devil on one shoulder and a little angel on one shoulder, and the Devil’s like, ‘Go ahead and bounce it and throw it off the glass!’ And the angel’s like, ‘Now Nate, you know if you do this…’ That’s how it is sometimes. Like Kobe said, It’s like Babe Ruth: You swing big. You might miss, but if you hit it it’s going to be a home run. So you can’t hold back, man. Anything can happen.”

We like that Nate Robinson's personal motto is the same motto the Mariners had the year he was born.