#28 - John Stockton is James Ford aka Sawyer

I’m right. I’m fucking right! There’s gonna be a lot of pushback on this one and it’s because most people are wrong and don’t know what they’re talking about. Ok. Just saying. But like most absolutely brilliant breakthrough moments of human history, the light of truth is so blinding that people are squinting or having closed their eyes at first and once their stupid fucking retinas’ rods and cones just accept the light and reality then it all comes into focus and they can fucking see that THE greatest assistman and stealsman and, easily, one of the greatest to ever play the poszish of point guardsman - John motherfucking Stockton - is THE island’s favorite thief, con artist, nickname machine, old popcultural referencer, avid book reader, and, generally forgiven racist Republican blowhard (REDUNDANT MUCH!) James Ford aka Sawyer. 

Absolutely, no fucking one will break either of the longest time Utah Jazzman’s assist or steals records. No fucking one. Seriously, there are some professional records that will never be broken and he owns two of them. Records are made to be broken? Nope. Not these. Just like no one, no fucking one, will break Rickey Henderson’s stolen base record or Jerry Rice’s yarddage record. IT AIN’T HAPPENING. Motherfucking DREAM TEAM-er John Stockton has 15,806 assists TO HIS MOTHERFUCKING NAME. FIFTEEN THOUSAND. Jason Kidd is #2 on the list of all-time assists and he’s got just shy of THREE THOUSAND and EIGHT HUNDRED less assists. No one is going to break that record. It’s impossible. And steals? AND STEALS? Same story with Jason Kidd at #2 and J. Kidd’s got 2,684 steals. Meanwhile, Stockton just has 3,265 steals. What the FUCK?! He’s got just shy of SIX HUNDRED more steals. No one is breaking that. NO ONE. It’s really wild too that Stockton was able to do all that AND still nab a good 19,711 points as he was averaging over 2 steals a game and just FEEDING Karl Malone a cool 10 assists a game. Stockton as a top notch defender is one thing unto himself and the proof is in the pudding, but on the offensive end he was a part of a brutal scoring tandem of him FEEDING Karl Malone who would go on to amass some number of points that equaled over THIRTY SIX THOUSAND POINTS. Fuck. FEEDING him those fucking points. Karl is averaging at least 25 ppg for YEARS with Stockton FEEDING him and it’s gotta be the fondest shit to ever look back on. Like 25 for a few years, 27 for another few years, 28 and 29 for some years, 30 even- points per game being fed to one of the purest scorers the sport will ever know. Just an outright monster of a finisher getting the ball how he wants it each and every time down the fucking court for a decade, easy. Insane. What a tandem. 

Sidenote: I mean everyone saw ‘The Last Dance’ and they talked about Isiah getting left off THE DREAM TEAM (all caps) and, yeah, he did get left off of it because Michael - I believe that. Sure. But no one better come at me or anyone else and say that Isiah should’ve been there instead of Stockton. First, you’re out of your fucking mind. Second, Laettner could have stayed home and, beyond that to infinity, Chris Mullin did not have to be there. I know those guys didn’t play PG, but you’re out of your mind and those two could’ve stayed home and the OG IT could’ve been there. 

SAWYER! What can be said? Well, let’s just get into it! STEALS and CONS. Of course, it’s the obvious right there. If you’ve been reading what I’ve been writing, thieving and stealing are crystal clear companions and assists and conning are also pretty much the same thing too. I know that’s more of a stretch, but as mentioned the assist is the con job of the offense. You pass the ball so quick to someone else and they score and you get credit for it? THAT’S A CON! So, the best thief/con is the best steal/assist. ONE to ONE. What’s next? Stockton was a tandem, Stockton operated like a surgeon as part of one of THE best tandems the sport has known. Sawyer is always searching for a tandem. As much as Sawyer plays this whole thing up about being on his own, legit the whole point of his part of the show is showing how he really is searching for someone- the conman who caused his parents’ deaths, a best friend, and a partner. He does find the conman who turns out to be Anthony Cooper aka Locke’s dad and Sawyer makes him read the murderous manifesto that’s he’s been carrying around his whole life and then he chokes him to death with some chains. He does find his best friends aka biffles in Jack and Kate. He does find his love of his life in Juliet. Now, yes, he ‘loves’ Kate and all that and they do have sex and it’s complicated, but they’re just two hot friends who had to just try it out once, right? They owed it to each other to be hot friends inside each other just once. Plus, they’re both super prone to make the worst mistakes, so ANYWAY. Is Dr. Juliet Burke gonna be ‘The Mailman’ Karl Malone?! I DON’T KNOW, BUT I DO LIKE IT. 

Yeah, Sawyer needs a buddy all the time. He goes rogue every so often, but really he’s a two-some. He’s got to con someone and he usually has a con partner like he ropes the sexy married woman into roping her husband into conning her husband and he’s really conning them both AND he did have a conning buddy who I guess scouted the married women who are looking to cuck and then con their husbands. Sawyer’s always getting into shenanigans with Jack, Kate, Hurley seriously he’s tied to the hip with Hurley at points, Sayid he’s super duper frenemies with, Juliet, Miles oh man him and Miles are tied at the hip too, Jin(!), Locke, really the list goes ON. He’s a team guy (Jack, Kate, Sawyer, Sayid, Hurley, Locke- getting to sound like a Dream Team to me), he’d hate to admit it, but he really is about assists and teamwork. He’s bossy. That’s for sure. He wants to orchestrate the play and tell people where to go and all that and wants the ball in his hands to move the pieces and that’s a fucking point guard and that’s John Stockton to a T. Defense? Uhhh, who is more ‘defensive’ than Sawyer?! Got some walls, bud?! Got some walls up like having a fake ass name like Sawyer, but really your name is James? Got a problem getting real and being nice? Yeah, Sawyer is a First Team Defensive dude. And yeah they like flashing the gun around a lot and they do pull the trigger too. Scrappers? You know who likes to scrap- Sawyer and Stockton. And they’re not straight-up the best fist fighters- they’re at their best fighting dirty. Seriously, if you’re even remotely plugged into Stockton’s career, you know he famously was grabbing dude’s dicks and dangles and nuts and nards. That’s how you play the game to get 2+ steals a game on average across a fucking forever career. Sawyer would grab some nuts in a fight and squeeze them til he got the upperhand. Truth. 

In the end, they’re kind of both just plain ole’ throwbacks. Stockton’s an all-timer and an archetype of a PG to the utmost degree. He’s also played for the whitest franchise and he’s white. All Sawyer stuff. Just a Republican voter with a western outlaw fetish and has a chip on his shoulder. All pro athletes are maniacs and Stockton looks like a suburban dad and he is in some sense, but he’s a maniac. And same goes for Sawyer as he plays house with Juliet with the Dharma Initiative when they travel back in time, but seriously they’re both multiple time murderers. They’re legit maniacs. I’m sure Sawyer and Stockton could make each other chuckle. 

Fuck styles? This is what I’m going to say about Sawyer’s fucking, ‘You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.’ So, Sawyer definitely is all sorts of bluster and machismo and he does get rapey when he makes Kate kiss him in the first season as part of a blackmail to get medicine for someone I think, but beyond that- he’s kind of seen as a guy who is putting it out there and then these women just come and get it. Kate escapes her polar bear cage to go into his polar bear cage to fuck him, which is a surprise to him, Juliet drinks in the sight of Sawyer coming out of the ocean when she’s got half a bottle of rum in her and let me just say, ‘mama was hungry’ or horny I don’t know, Analucia jumps Sawyer’s bones and that’s a surprise to him as she’s just using his penis pistol to get to his metal bullets shooting pistol, he bangs Charlotte who is real into him until he gets weird, all the wives are ready to cheat on their husbands FOR SURE when he strolls in, and yeah I don’t know who else he banged, but they show him banging a bunch and it always is him kind of throwing it out there and then Karl Malone taking that pass like this gorgeous stallion striding right into a fucking dunk. Is that Stockton too? Yeah, why not. John and Nada have been married for about as long as I’ve been sucking air and I just saw a google result when looking up what Stockton’s wife’s name was and it said that on their first date that Stockton took Nada out to a restaurant with a 2-for-1 coupon. So, let’s be clear, John is just putting it out there and he didn’t woo nobody and it was all up to Nada to make it work.

P.S. let’s be clear that I know that most wouldn’t think of Stockton as some sex symbol while Sawyer is, but … I mean, a young Johnny Stock in the shorts- he’s a pro athlete and he could get it. Looking like Q his alive and well self right there - Johnny Kennedy Jr.