Besides proving that he's not indestructible after all, John Stockton showed that Randy Smith may be the most amazing player in NBA history.
By missing Wednesday's game against Orlando, Stockton lost his streak of 418 games played, in his sixth pro season. The astounding part is that Stockton was not even halfway to NBA record of 906, set by Smith from February 1972 to March 1983 while playing for Buffalo, San Diego, Cleveland, New York and San Diego again.Stockton would have had to play more than 11 full seasons to break Smith's record, arriving at 907 sometime in November 1995. Along the way, he would have passed Dolph Schayes (706) and Johnny Kerr (844). Stockton also could have claimed the special distinction of playing in every game of his career.
Of course, the combined ABA-NBA record is 1,041 games by Ron Boone, who played with both the Utah Stars and the Jazz and is now a Jazz broadcaster.
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SHATTERED IMAGE: Now that he's in Sacramento, Danny Ainge is destroying one of the legendary attributes of ex-teammate Larry Bird - the notion that Bird makes everybody around him better.
"I don't think Larry makes anybody better," Ainge said. "He takes pressure off of the other guys because he takes so much responsibility with the ball. I think Magic (Johnson) makes people better. He gets the other people the ball in good position and allows them to score. I don't think Michael Jordan makes people better, either. Larry's like Michael Jordan."
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TV TALK: After losing a CBS-TV appearance to Chicago vs. Golden State Saturday when their game with the Lakers was the network's other choice, the Jazz have three other chances this season. Their best shot is Feb. 4, when CBS will show Jazz-Detroit or Philadelphia-Milwaukee. There's also April 1, when the choices are Jazz-Lakers and Atlanta-Golden State and April 22, when Jazz-Houston is one of five possibilities.
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TRAVEL PLANS: No team has followed Detroit by buying an airplane, but Houston is doing the next best thing by chartering 45 of 65 flights this season. The charters increase the Rockets' travel budget by about 15 percent, but reduce wear and tear on the players by allowing them to come home immediately after road games and avoid having to get up early and sit around in airports.
"This type of travel is going to pay big dividends for us this year," said center Tim McCormick.
General manager Steve Patterson told the Houston Post, "If the charters help us get one more home playoff date, it will more than offset the additional expense."
And, of course, the move has nothing to do with reducing the road time/trouble opportunities for the Rockets' three drug-rehabilitated players.
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AT RANDOM: Dallas is trying to do without Roy Tarpley, suspended indefinitely after an alcohol-related arrest, but not banned from the league. "We know he'll be back eventually," said center James Donaldson. "We don't know when. We're not looking over our shoulders expecting it any day now. If we did know it was two years from now, that's something we could plan on. But until we know, it's as if he didn't exist in the first place." . . . Kerr once disclosed the secret for his games-played streak: "Well, the old saying says you take the ball out of bounds and hang around midcourt and hope you don't get hurt."
Best touch in an NBA arena: Clips from "Caddyshack" and "Animal House" on the Metrodome telescreen at appropriate moments in the game . . . Once CBS scrapped Saturday's Jazz-Lakers game, the Lakers asked that the game be switched from an afternoon start to allow for local TV coverage. The result was a crazy schedule: The Lakers played at home last Sunday, were off until Saturday night and have to go home to play San Antonio tonight. The Spurs are already in town, having played the Clippers Friday . . . Denver's Doug Moe has Jerome Lane shooting free throws one-handed, after going 1 of 10. "At first, it's going to be hard," Moe told Lane. "In a game, you may even shoot an air ball. But don't get discouraged. it ain't going to be worse than 1 for 10."
Moe also marvels at the way Seattle's Bernie Bickerstaff uses 11 or 12 players. Bickerstaff's advantage? "He can probably remember all 12 of his playes' names," says Moe . . . After Mel Turpin helped rescue a Washington win over Milwaukee, Coach Wes Unseld was asked how much Turpin had improved his own job security. Said Unseld, smiling, "It bought him one more day."