My man John Stockton made it to the Hall of Fame last night in the first year he was eligible - no real surprise.

Well, he isn't exactly "my" man - Nada might take exception to that - but he is my all-time favorite NBA player of any era. Oh, I appreciated Dr. J, Larry, Kareem, Air Jordan and many of the other greats I've had the chance to watch.

But Stockton was one of a kind. He was the best pure point guard the league has ever seen - sorry, Magic Johnson was a showboating forward masquerading as a point guard, by comparison - and the game is such these days that I highly doubt it will ever produce another one.

I admit I have a predisposition to point guards - since that was the position I played back in the Stone Age - and it's also a critical spot on any team. After all, Kobe Bryant and LeBron James don't get 40-something points in a game unless somebody gets them the ball.

But there was so much more to Stockton than that. Besides being a terrific passer, he was also a thief of the first order, as both his records attest. It's possible that they will be broken someday, I suppose, but nobody's even close right now.

One of the reasons why is because Stockton lasted so long. He played until he was 41, when the average good point guard retires around 34 because that position takes such a steep toll on the body. And he missed all of 22 games in 19 years.

Got that, Carlos Boozer?

At 47, he still looks like he could step out on the court right now and compete. And that was another thing about him - he always competed.

Other players often complained that he was dirty - mainly the guys he made look silly by picking their pockets or altering their shots - but no one ever disputed that he played hard. He really had no choice - at 6-foot-1 in his shoes in a game of giants, he had to make up for the deficit somehow.

And he did - by working longer and tougher than anyone else. He and Jerry Sloan were a match made in heaven - a pair of lunch-pail, no-nonsense guys who just looked to get the job done any way they could. They understood each other and that's why they had so much success together.

All John ever wanted to do was play the game he loved. He shunned the limelight, never hired an agent, played his entire career with one franchise even though he could have gotten more money elsewhere. Show me any of the game's young stars today that you'll ever be able to say that about.

The other thing that was truly impressive about Stockton is that he understood his own limits. He shot when it made sense for him to shoot, but he never tried to do too much. He carried the team on his back when they needed him, but was content to dish the ball and the glory to others when they didn't.

I was sad he never got a ring because if anyone in the game deserved it, it was him. But he could have chosen to pursue that and still didn't, and the lack of it doesn't diminish his extraordinary accomplishments in my eyes.

In the end, I guess it just came down to him being a pleasure to watch. His execution was extraordinary. He had a game face like no other, but his passion for the sport showed in everything he did and his desire to win was unimpeachable.

I feel very, very fortunate to have been close by during nearly all of his career.