Utah Jazz: John Stockton and the ‘short shorts’ saga

John Stockton did more than enough during his 19-year career with the Utah Jazz to merit his Hall of Fame induction, but nothing will be as memorable as those tauntingly short shorts.

There was always something a bit different about Utah Jazz point guard John Stockton, wasn’t there?

Of course, his raw basketball talent and on-court IQ were the stuff of legends. I mean, the little guy was a 10-time NBA All-Star, two-time Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inductee and to this day, maintains a death grip on the NBA’s all-time assists record with 15,806 dishes.

But getting beyond his production out on the hardwood, Stockton carried himself with the kind of swagger you’d expect from a baby-toting dad armed with a Nautica polo, grass-stained New Balance sneakers and a seasoned Costco card — of the Gold Star Executive variety, mind you.

What stood at the center of that unique look of his, you ask?

Simple: those pesky “short shorts.”

After four years at Gonzaga under coach Dan Fitzgerald, Stockton entered the league as the 16th overall pick in the 1984 NBA draft to the Utah Jazz. At the time, fashion-wise, things considered popular by the American people differed ever so slightly from where they sit today:

• Leggings
• Mini skirts
• Jean jackets
• Parachute pants
• Giant shoulder pads

Oh! And one more thing …

For both men and women, feel free to add defiantly short shorts to the list, as well.

This was Stockton’s reality; he wholeheartedly embraced it. Time would pass, though, and while Stockton was happy to reveal as much upper thigh as allowed him by David Stern, iconic, Bryon Russell-pushing players like Michael Jordan would soon take things in a more modest direction.

After winning an NCAA championship with the North Carolina Tar Heels in 1982, legend has it that Jordan was convinced his baby blue practice shorts were lucky. Upon making the jump to the NBA alongside Stockton in 1984, he continued to wear them under his Chicago Bulls shorts. As the years wore on, Jordan’s shorts progressively become longer and longer to cover them up.

And as Jordan (and his shorts) went, so too did the rest of the league.

For better …

Or for worse.

As is the case with any good saga, however, Stockton would’t be deterred by what the masses considered the status quo. Just as Luke Skywalker, Han Solo and Princess Leia cut the Rebel Alliance down to size with fancy flashlights, all by his lonesome, Stockton did his part (and then some) to make tight, bum-hugging athletic shorts a permanent fixture amongst basketball’s elite.

And you know what?

Though his NBA career would come to a close well before booty shorts would catch back on, his message was powerful enough to resonate with a younger, up-and-coming generation of hoopers.

In what many biblical scholars feel was likely his final epistle before death, it was Paul who once famously wrote, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”

An uphill battle, the same can certainly be said of Stockton and his classic short shorts.