Over the course of covering the NBA for four decades, certain little things stick with you, and you’re not quite sure why. One of those little things came from John Stockton. Early in 2002, while I worked on a piece about his Utah Jazz coach Jerry Sloan, I asked Stockton, why, at that stage of his Hall of Fame career, he still looked over to the sidelines to get a play call.
“Why wouldn’t I?” answered Stockton.
A perfect Stockton answer. A perfect Utah Jazz answer. And the perfect illustration of the relationship between quarterback and coach, who died on Friday, and, man, it seems like an era died with him.