Forget all the assists, all the steals, all the game-winning plays.

Forget even his game-winning basket in Houston that sent the Jazz to their first of consecutive appearances in the NBA Finals.
     
None of that could possibly have been as difficult for John Stockton as was Saturday night, when ? after receiving a key to the city, having several blocks of a Salt Lake street named after him, and even after having a congratulatory letter from the president of the United States read to him ? the league's decidedly private all-time leader in assists and steals faced his public.
     
Ad libbing from a prepared retirement speech, Stockton took a very un-Stocktonesque 11 minutes to say goodbye.