John Stockton

• 1. Introduction

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  John Stockton walked off the court for the last time on the 2nd of May 2003, not at a press conference surrounded by cameras and microphones, but through a quiet written statement released to the public. No fanfare. No podium. Just words on a page. That restraint tells you almost everything about the man who, over 19 seasons with the Utah Jazz, assembled the most assists and the most steals ever recorded in NBA history. How did a relatively unknown player from Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington, become the standard against which all point guards are measured? And why, despite reaching the NBA Finals twice, does he remain perhaps the greatest player never to win a championship?

• 2. Spokane Roots

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  Stockton was born on the 26th of March 1962 in Spokane, and the city shaped him in ways that went far beyond geography. He attended grade school at St. Aloysius and moved on to Gonzaga Prep, where he broke the city record for points scored in a single basketball season before graduating in 1980. When it came time to choose a college, he turned down offers from coaches at Idaho and Montana and stayed home, enrolling at Gonzaga University under head coach Dan Fitzgerald. His reasons were personal as much as practical. His grandfather, Houston Stockton, had been a well-known football player for the Gonzaga Bulldogs in the 1920s, making John the third generation of his family to attend the school. That family thread ran deep. Fitzgerald himself stepped away from coaching after Stockton's freshman year and promoted an assistant, Jay Hillock, to take over the program.

• 3. The Gonzaga Years

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  In his senior year for the Bulldogs in 1984, Stockton averaged 20.9 points per game while shooting 57% from the field. The Zags posted a 17-11 record, their best in 17 years, and Stockton led the West Coast Athletic Conference in scoring, assists, and steals. That performance earned him the WCAC Player of the Year award, the first time a Gonzaga player had ever won it. He was also one of 74 college players invited to the spring tryouts for the 1984 U.S. Olympic team, then coached by Bob Knight. Stockton made the initial cut in April, reaching the final 20, but was among four players released in May when the roster was trimmed to 16. Among the others cut at that stage were Charles Barkley, Terry Porter, and Maurice Martin. The Olympic tryout camp had one lasting consequence: it was there that Stockton first met Karl Malone.

• 4. Draft Day Silence

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  The Utah Jazz selected Stockton in the first round of the 1984 NBA draft as the 16th overall pick. His name drew stunned silence from the thousands of Jazz fans gathered at the Salt Palace on draft day. He was largely unknown outside Gonzaga's orbit, though his stock had risen sharply in the months leading up to the draft. That rookie season offered early signs of what was coming: on the 10th of November 1984, he scored 19 points in just 19 minutes against the Denver Nuggets in a game the Jazz lost. Stockton settled into the starting point guard role by the 1987-88 season. Despite averaging 14.7 points, 13.8 assists (the best figure in the league), and 3 steals per game that year, and despite earning a spot on the All-NBA Second Team, he was not selected to the 1988 All-Star Game. He would have to wait one more year for that recognition.

• 5. Record-Breaking Seasons

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  On the 15th of January 1991, Stockton dished out a career-high 28 assists in a 124-102 home win over the San Antonio Spurs, a franchise record that still stands. He led the league in assists for nine consecutive seasons and also led in steals per game twice. The 1994-95 season stands as one of the most decorated stretches of his career. On the 1st of February 1995, he passed Magic Johnson's all-time assists record, surpassing Johnson's total of 9,921 during a 129-98 victory over the Denver Nuggets. Johnson responded with a direct tribute, telling Stockton, "John, from one assist man to another, you are the greatest team leader I have ever played against." Seventeen days after passing Johnson, Stockton recorded his 10,000th career assist during a win over the Boston Celtics, becoming the first player in league history to reach that milestone. On the 25th of March of that same season, he became only the second player ever to record 2,000 career steals, doing so during a loss to the Dallas Mavericks.

• 6. The Shot and Two Finals

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  Utah set a franchise record with 64 wins during the 1996-97 season and led the Western Conference. In Game Six of that year's Conference Finals against Houston, Stockton hit a buzzer-beating three-pointer over Charles Barkley to send the Jazz to their first NBA Finals appearance. That moment became known simply as "The Shot." In Game 3 of the 1997 Finals against the Chicago Bulls, Stockton recorded 17 points, 7 rebounds, and 12 assists, helping the Jazz to their first-ever Finals victory. The Bulls won the series in six games. Stockton missed the first 18 games of the following season with an MCL injury sustained in the preseason, yet the Jazz returned to the Finals and faced Chicago again. In Game 6 of the 1998 Finals, Stockton hit a three-pointer with 41.9 seconds remaining to give Utah a lead, but Michael Jordan scored twice to put the Bulls ahead 87-86. With 5.2 seconds left, Stockton's final three-point attempt did not fall. In a post-game interview, he said he felt confident the shot would go in. The Bulls won the series in six games for the second consecutive year.

• 7. Durability and Character

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  In 19 seasons, Stockton missed only 22 games total. Over his first 13 seasons, he missed just four, all of them coming in the 1989-90 season. The MCL injury in 1997-98 was the only significant health setback of his career, and he never missed another game after returning from it. His physical style earned him a reputation as one of the toughest players in the league, ranked in surveys just behind Karl Malone. A Sports Illustrated poll in 1997 voted him the second dirtiest player in the league, behind Dennis Rodman. He continued wearing short shorts long after the rest of the league moved to baggier styles; those shorts eventually became known simply as "Stocktons." Off the court, he avoided most endorsements and rejected offers of more money from other franchises, choosing to stay in Utah. In 1996, he agreed to a salary arrangement that created cap space for the Jazz to improve, but he negotiated one condition in return: guaranteed ice time at the Delta Center for his son's hockey team. Stockton and Malone played 1,412 regular season games together as teammates, a record, and ESPN has described them as the two best players never to win a championship.

• 8. After the Game

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  Stockton moved back to Spokane after retiring and began coaching youth basketball, serving as an assistant on several teams simultaneously in 2003. The Jazz also invited him to work with two young point guards, Deron Williams and Trey Burke. In 2013, he published an autobiography titled Assisted, written with the help of his junior high school coach, Kerry L. Pickett; Karl Malone wrote the foreword. On the 28th of October 2015, Stockton joined Montana State University's women's basketball program as an assistant coach. His induction into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame came in 2009 as an individual, and again in 2010 as a member of the 1992 U.S. Olympic team, which became known as the Dream Team. The Jazz retired his number 12 jersey on the 22nd of November 2004, and Salt Lake City renamed the street in front of the Delta Center John Stockton Drive. A bronze statue of Stockton stands outside the arena; a companion statue of Karl Malone was placed nearby on the 23rd of March 2006, the two figures sharing a plaque that commemorates what they built together over nearly two decades.