15,000, and Counting

BY STEVE LUHM THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE

HOUSTON -- Fifteen thousand. In annual salary, it's not much. In frequent flier miles, it's 10,000 short of a free ticket. In career assists in the NBA, it's off the charts: a number that is impossible to comprehend and probably won't be equaled.Sometime during the Jazz's five-game trip, John Stockton will record the 15,000th assist of his career. With 14,987 heading into today's game at Houston, Stockton's number already dwarfs the totals of the other great point guards in history. Magic Johnson? Second on the all-time list, Johnson handed out 10,141 assists in his career -- almost 5,000 fewer than Stockton. Oscar Robertson? Third on the all-time list, Robertson finished his career with 9,887 assists. Stockton passed him seven years ago. In all of professional sports, Joe DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak is considered the record that will never be broken. But Stockton's assist total is so staggering, it would be the equivalent of a 75-game hitting streak.

Stockton became the NBA's all-time assist leader on Feb. 1, 1995. Over the next seven years, he he has been building upon a record few believe will ever be approached, much less broken. "I honestly don't think so," teammate John Crotty said. "They say records are made to be broken. But that one right there is going to be around a long, long, long time." Longevity and health have been major factors in Stockton's ability to pile up such an unfathomable number of assists. In the final stages of his 18th season -- only a couple of weeks shy of his 40th birthday -- he has missed only 22 games in his career. In addition, Stockton has spent the last 17 years feeding Karl Malone, the NBA's No. 2 all-time scorer and one of the game's greatest finishers. Still, Stockton's stratospheric milestone is a monument to his diligence, determination and athletic ability. "He is a great athlete," Crotty said. "People don't give him enough credit for that." "When I look back at John, when he first started, the question we had to ask ourselves was, 'Can this guy hold up?' " said coach Jerry Sloan, a Jazz assistant when Stockton was a rookie. "We would talk about it a lot, Frank [Layden], Scott [Layden] and I. We really wondered whether he'd be able to or not."

One night against a long-forgotten opponent, a young Stockton answered his coaches' question. "He played 47 or 48 minutes," Sloan recalled, "and never broke a sweat. That right there gave us an idea that this kid was something just a little unusual." Against the Rockets, Stockton will go against Steve Francis, considered one of the game's best young point guards. In his first 158 games, Francis averages 6.7 assists. Not bad. But at that rate, he will have to play until 2028 to reach 15,000 That's 26 more seasons. By then, Francis will be 51 years old. "John is so committed," Crotty said. "He does everything he can to prepare for a game, physically and mentally. . . . The bottom line is he's an unselfish player who wants to win. He doesn't care about anything else." "He looks to make his teammates better, he always has," Malone said. "If he wanted to score, he'd have 20,000 points by now. Twenty-thousand points and 10,000 assists. But that's not his style."

Instead, Stockton prefers shredding defenses with a wide range of no-frills passes, which, more than once, have caught an unsuspecting teammate by surprise and bounced off his forehead. "When he's around," Malone said, "I'm always looking." Typically, Stockton "has never stopped to think about" the reasons behind all his assists. "One thing is, you've got to know your teammates," he said. "You've got to know who can catch what kind of pass and who can't. But that goes back to high school and college. I had good coaches there who taught me that. You can't throw a low bounce pass on a fast break to a guy with no hope of catching it." Smiling, Stockton mentions Malone. "You can throw Karl just about anything," he said."I've heard him say it a number of times: 'You've got to know your customer,' " Sloan said. "John throws the ball to guys who can catch it, he throws the ball to people who are open and he gets the ball to guys who can make shots." Simple.

Just like Stockton's game. "He never leaves the floor," Sloan said. "He never puts himself in an awkward situation. There are lots of guys flying through the air trying to make passes. But he gives you the ball where you like to get it -- where you can do something with it. . . . He's always been a guy who looks at the floor from a little different perspective than everyone else." A perspective that has elevated him far above everyone else.

NBA All-Time Assist Leaders

1. x-John Stockton 14,987

2. Magic Johnson 10,141

3. Oscar Robertson 9,887

4. x-Mark Jackson 9,676

5. Isiah Thomas 9,061

6. Maurice Cheeks 7,392

7. x-Rod Strickland 7,354

8. Lenny Wilkens 7,211

9. x-Terry Porter 7,128

10. Bob Cousy 6,955

x-active players