SOURCE: USA Basketball

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John Stockton

Position: Guard	Olympic #: 12
Born: 3/26/62 (Spokane, Wash.)	College: Gonzaga Univ.
Height: 6’1”	Weight: 175 lbs.

John Stockton is perhaps the best passer in NBA history and one of the league’s top point guards. A gritty, durable player who sees the floor as well as anyone who ever played the game, he holds virtually every assists record possible, including the all-time mark for career assists (10,394), which he achieved during the 1994-95 season. Stockton’s other records include most assists in a season (1,164), highest assists average for a season (14.5 apg), highest assists average for a career (11.6 apg), a tie for most assists in a playoff game (24), a tie for the most consecutive seasons leading the league in assists (8) and total seasons leading the league (8), and a tie for third for most assists in a game (28). In addition, he will likely break the career steals mark in 1995-96.

Stockton is an annual All-Star and All-NBA selection, has made the NBA All-Defensive Team three times, and was a member of the 1992 U.S. Olympic Dream Team. Through the 1994-95 campaign Stockton had missed only four games in 11 seasons.

His career accomplishments are even more impressive considering his modest basketball beginnings. Stockton played college ball at little-known Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington, where he averaged 20.9 points and 7.2 assists as a senior and finished as the first player in school history to register more than 1,000 points and 500 assists.

The Utah Jazz selected Stockton with the 16th overall pick in the 1984 NBA Draft, one year before the Jazz drafted Karl Malone. Over the next decade Stockton and Malone would become the NBA’s most consistently productive guard-forward combination. They have powered the Jazz to a winning record and into the playoffs in each of the seasons they have played together, and they shared MVP honors at the 1993 All-Star Game at Salt Lake City.

Stockton posted his best numbers from 1988-89 through 1990-91, a period in which his combined scoring average was just better than 17 points and his assists average ranged from 13.6 to 14.5 per game. He has shown no sign of slowing down. In 1993-94 and 1994-95 he recorded the highest field-goal percentages among NBA guards. He was selected to the All-NBA First Team for the first time in 1994 and again in 1995. Through 1994-95 he had led the NBA in assists for eight consecutive seasons, a feat matched only by Bob Cousy.