Jazz coach Jerry Sloan and legendary point guard John Stockton have surprised many with who they decided to represent them as they enter the Hall of Fame.

The pair will be inducted into Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass. on Friday.

Sloan selected Charles Barkley, while Stockton tabbed Isiah Thomas.

"First of all, he set a huge standard for all little guys," Stockton told the Salt Lake Tribune of Thomas. "At the time, the NBA was going toward bigger and bigger guards. But he showed everyone that little guys could play, too."

Stockton added that Thomas changed his vision of basketball early on.

"I ran up against him once in high school and he changed my entire view of basketball," Stockton recalled. "We played in an AAU tournament and I has never seen anything like it.

"He's done some things behind the scenes that people don't know about. I'm certainly not going to talk about them now ... but he's shown a lot of class."

Sloan made the decision to select Barkley for a different reason.

"The biggest thing, I guess, is that my [late] wife Bobbye was a big fan of his," Sloan explained. "At the [1992] All-Star Game in Orlando, she saw him stand there for an hour or so and sign autographs.

That's when she became a fan. Other than John and Karl [Malone], he was her favorite player."