Charles Barkley on John Stockton: “I was trying to separate his shoulder or break a rib” (1997)

"that's why we lift weights everyday 🤷🏾‍♂️" that's big 90's reaction to a player talking about bodying your star PG. These dudes wasn't sensitive at all, such a great era of basketball

Ernie watching chuck on the podium thinking.. "Good God would I love to have him as a co-host..."

"You wanna bang, let's bang." Greatest pick-up line, EVER!😂🤣

Charles Barkley, though the emotions got the best out of him at times and I agree sometimes John Stockton was setting illegal picks, he had great respect for him. After the series in 1997 were over between the jazz and rockets, Barkley himself said that John Stockton "is one out of 5 best players he has played against".

"If you wanna bang, we bang.. That's why we lift weights everyday" Now that's what basketball needs is more toughness like this.

This is NBA at its best fantastic. Real quality hardcore defense with tough fouls. People who grew up in the late 80s/90s had a wonderful child year.

Stockton got up like it was nothin… imagine how much that pissed of Barkley…

Stockton so strong for his size, statistically Stockton is the greatest point guard of all time

So many legends on the court. Love Stockton's ability to frustrate the crap out of guys twice his size.

Tough, no talking, just got the job done. Arguably the most underrated player ever. Still the all time leader in assists and steals.

Stockton was as tough as they came. Little dude, but tough as nails.

Barkley was saying it the entire game and they finally called it. Barkley worked for that call

Imagine being a 6'1 pg in an era dominated by bigs and being the guy targeted by the best player on each team just to maybe injure you to get the upper hand... Stockton was one of the best point guards of all time. Toughest player ever. Unbreakable records till this day, this guy was the exact opposite of MJ. You dont have to be flashy to be the greatest. One of the best point guards of all times.

Stockton absorbed that impact from that behemoth Charles like a professional stuntman. I would pick somebody else to do that to

No one's going to bring up how crazy it is to see a young Ernie with hair???

Stockton was a beast

OMG - Stockton just as savvy a player as the NBA has ever seen.

Little things like this like this are what make Stockton the greatest point guard ever. It is much easier to draw an illegal screen or charging foul when you're one of the smallest on the court and so many little guys in the league today don't take advantage of that fact because they can't or are unwilling to put their body on the line the way Stockton did. This is honestly understandable since with the amount of injuries seen in todays NBA, a players body/physical well-being is oftentimes the most important thing to them as well as their team and it simply isn't worth the injury risk. That's probably true and seems to be a collective way of thinking in the modern basketball era but is also why we most likely won't see another player like John Stockton ever again. Don't get me wrong we will see and arguably have seen better passers than Stockton. I believe that is up for discussion but as far as the best pure point guard ever John Stockton embodies the definition. Built like a science teacher at a modest 6'1 and 170 pounds he was able to play with the physicality demonstrated in this video for over 1500 games while remaining practically injury free. That is what sets him apart from every other point guard that has ever played the game

The coolest part about this is Stockton wouldn't have even been offended by this. Now think about if it happened today.

Stockton was one of the toughest mo fo's on the court.