Jazz at 35: Stockton's quiet brilliance a suprise for the coach

That John Stockton became one of the best point guards ever to play surprised even Frank Layden, the Jazz head coach and general manager who drafted Stockton out of Gonzaga in 1984 with the team's 16th pick.
    "We didn't know what we had," Layden recalled. "Then one day, Rickey Green came up to me and told me John had been tearing it up in pickup games. He said, 'Coach, this kid can play. He's really good.' Rickey was one of the most honest people out there. If he said somebody was good, he was good."
    Stockton would go on to become the all-time assists leader, an incomparable player on many levels and one-half the Stockton-Malone pick-and-roll duo. But he was a relative unknown coming out of the small Spokane, Wash., school in 1984.
    Stockton was no frills. His game had no flash. He didn't take three dribbles to do what he could accomplish in one. And in an era that featured the flash of Magic Johnson, his style of play was unique.
    "He was who he was," Layden said. "He didn't try to be what he wasn't. He never went behind the back, never went between the legs. Everything was simple."
    - Tony Jones