John Stockton reacts to Kendrick Lamar name dropping him in Super Bowl halftime show’s marquee song

At the peak of the hip-hop beef between Kendrick Lamar and Drake last year, John Stockton got an unexpected shoutout when he was namedropped by Lamar in the smash hit, "Not Like Us." This meant, of course, that there was a good chance that the Hall of Fame guard would be mentioned on the biggest night in football this year.

In an appearance on "The Ultimate Assist Podcast," Stockton revealed that he and his family tuned in to Lamar's Super Bowl LIX halftime show to see if the lyrics containing his name would make the performance.

"I have young people in my life. My kids all know about this song and we frankly knew it was coming," Stockton said. "Everybody was kind of huddled around the TV to see if my name got mentioned at halftime of the Super Bowl, which it did."

In the penultimate song of his halftime performance, Lamar — who'd just won five Grammy Awards off "Not Like Us" — spit a slightly modified version of the line: "I'm finna crash on this body, I'm John Stockton"

The original lyric ("I'm finna pass on this body") contained a double entendre that played on the word "pass." On the one hand, Stockton was an extraordinary passer who set the record for most assists in an NBA career (15,806). On the other hand, Lamar is implying that he can "pass" the task of inflicting more damage on Drake's career to any one of the Canadian rapper's many adversaries.

The immense popularity of "Not Like Us" — as well as the John Stockton line — had a palpable effect on his household

"I know that my wife's phone started ringing kind of incessantly after that," added the former Utah Jazz guard.

John Stockton compares NHL player to LeBron James

Stockton himself has namedropped one of the NBA's all-time greats on multiple occasions. On Thursday, he did so again with a hint of criticism.

"Apparently 4NATIONS team USA didn’t let anybody know their Star player was playing with an injury. Swear this gives LeBron All Star game vibes," Stockton tweeted.

In his tweet, John Stockton is referring to Matthew Tkachuk, who missed a significant chunk of playing time in the NHL's 4 Nations Face-Off final between the U.S. and Canada. In Stockton's view, the lack of transparency from the U.S. regarding Tkachuk's apparent injury is similar to the surprising announcement last week that James would not be playing in the All-Star Game.

This is not the first time Stockton has thrown shade at James. Back in 2021, the NBA's all-time leader in assists criticized how LBJ has gone from team to team in order to pursue championships.