Every NBA team’s greatest enforcer of all time

Los Angeles Clippers — Patrick Beverley

Exhibit B, Your Honor, is one Patrick Beverley. A nonstop irritant who plays with the heart and mindset of a bulldog. Fiercely loyal. Always barking. Stubborn as hell. And ALL up in your grill with an innate propensity to get under your skin.

Pat Bev was the heart and soul for the 2018-19 Clippers — the pre-Kawhi, pre-Paul George Clippers — who overachieved greatly with an underdog mentality. (Never forget that those scrappy Clippers pushed the KD Warriors to six games in the first round!) That Clippers team was supposed to stink, but the culture that Pat Bev put in place set the tone. It has even been said that upon his arrival to Minnesota this season, Beverley is the reason for D’Angelo Russell’s transformation to a better defender, lighting a fire under D-Lo and showing him the way. Speaking of Pat Bev on the T-Wolves, he just recently got called for a technical foul before tip-off.

Beverley has had his fair share of dirty plays, too. Oh yes. There was undercutting Russell Westbrook in the 2013 playoffs (Westbrook tore his meniscus on the play), slapping Tony Parker in the face twice on the same play, and shoving Chris Paul in the back in last year’s West Finals (Beverley later said it wasn’t meant for him). Repulsed by so many, the life of an NBA enforcer is not a pretty one. The uglier and grimier, the higher the level.