Most hated players in the NBA, ranked
There’s a lot of NBA players that some fans don’t like — LeBron, Kevin Durant, the usual suspects. We know who they are. The NBA can’t seem to go a week without being unnecessarily dramatic, and some fans are turned off to that. I wanted to take the question one step further: Which NBA player is hated by other NBA players the most?
Dwight Howard is someone who immediately comes to mind. For the majority of his career he’s been widely regarded as immature. When things boiled over in Orlando with him and Stan Van Gundy, that was only the start. Howard has had on-court beefs with Udonis Haslem, Kevin Garnett, Jimmy Butler, Montrezl Harrell, Al Horford and Paul Millsap — and long standing feuds with Marcus Smart, Giannis, and Kobe Bryant.
The way Dwight plays is definitely annoying, and I understand why he was always having some sort of altercation. He’s really strong, and he’s always going to react to any sort of physical knock or bump. It was a shock that the Lakers welcomed him in, but LeBron does tend to get the best out of his teammates.
Russell Westbrook is definitely one of the most hated amongst NBA players. He has one of the shortest fuses in the league — it doesn’t really take much to piss him off. Russ has gotten into it with Curry, Dame, De’Aaron Fox, John Wall, Jamal Murray, Embiid and Rondo on the court. His most notable in-game altercations have come against Kevin Durant, his former partner in crime.
None of these battles compare to the feud between Westbrook and Patrick Beverley, who’s also among the most hated players in the league. These two have been going at it for years. Pat Bev dove at Westbrook’s knees in 2013, prompting him to tear his meniscus and light their beef on fire. Beverley did it again in 2018. Russ famously told the press that Beverley tricks everyone into thinking he’s a good defender, when in fact he’s just out there running around.
Pat Bev is one of the most irritable dudes in the league. If there’s one guy in the league who plays like he’s wearing black Forces, it’s him. What Westbrook said was true — Pat Bev really is out there running around, bumping and knocking players with his chest and clapping in their face. He’s one of the easiest dudes to dislike, and he sure is hard to watch.
He’s gotten into it with KD, Blake, Harden, LeBron, Wade, Luka, CJ McCollum, Embiid, and most recently, Chris Paul, who he randomly shoved as the Clippers were on the brink of being eliminated by the Suns.
One of Westbrook’s favorite targets is Joel Embiid, who is also among the most hated amongst NBA players. Westbrook and Embiid have done it all: staredowns, waving goodbye, dunking on each other, hard fouling, scuffles. They’re two of the most stubborn and unforgiving players in the league. Speaking of unforgiving, we can’t forget how Embiid has gotten into it with Andre Drummond and Karl-Anthony Towns. First, he’s had several shoving matches with Drummond — and promptly taunting him so bad one time it caused Dre to get ejected. His feud with Towns was bubbling for a while before they actually wrestled each other, making for one of the rare actual fights in recent NBA memory.
Embiid’s also beefed with Beverley, Westbrook — obviously two other guys on this list — along with John Collins, James Harden, Marcus Smart, Lonzo Ball, Jared Dudley, Danilo Gallinari, Eric Bledsoe, DeMarcus Cousins, Marcus Morris, Aron Baynes, and of course… Ben Simmons.
There were lots of players in contention for the top spot on this list: Marcus Smart, Trae Young, CP3, Boogie, Hassan Whiteside, Rajon Rondo, but I’ve come to a solid conclusion on who the most hated guy in the NBA is:
Blake Griffin.
Blake is as passive aggressive as they come — he doesn’t really talk shit randomly, he just bumps and shoves and yanks at people enough to piss them off. He shoved Giannis to the ground, all-out wrestled with Zach Randolph, dodged punches from PJ Tucker, and threw Thomas Bryant to the floor and laughed in his face. He’s pissed off Jimmy Butler, Serge Ibaka, Tobias Harris, Avery Bradley and Andrew Bogut with a flurry of hard fouls and insults.
Watching him play on the Pistons and get into these beefs, NBA players’ hate for Blake was fully confirmed when he played against Detroit, right after he got to Brooklyn. He made it a point to dunk on his former teammates (something he hadn’t done in over a year), he got into shoving matches with Isaiah Stewart (who elbowed him in the head). The ever-quiet Saddiq Bey, who Blake mentored, got in his face and gave him an earful. Even Hamidou Diallo, who hadn’t been in Detroit more than a month, gave Griffin a nice shove on a fastbreak.
It’s one thing to piss other players off, but if your former teammates are still sick of you even after you’re gone? That’s evidence that Blake Griffin is the guy that most NBA players hate.