Over the course of the past few weeks, I’ve covered each of the following:
- Jerry Sloan’s fierce competitiveness — both as a player and coach.
- Karl Malone turning opponents’ faces into jigsaw puzzles with his elbows.
As I researched these topics, I found source after source claiming the same thing: John Stockton was a dirty player. I didn’t seriously start watching Stockton until the 1996-1997 NBA season. I was six at the time, so the more subtle aspects of the game passed me by, but I remember Dennis Rodman swiftly crushing a cameraman’s gonads in Minnesota with his size-13 sneaker.