It might be time to stop bringing grandpa around the kids. Well, I don’t know if John Stockton is technically a grandfather yet, he’s just spouting conspiracy theories and claiming to have evidence of things that didn’t happen — again.

A recurring character in our IDIOT OF THE MONTH segment — he made the 2021 IDIOT OF THE YEAR list, as well — the former Jazz point guard is sure to make another appearance in March’s edition. He’s nearing the point where he deserves his own Idiots spinoff House of Dragons-style.

In an interview with the Spokesman-Review, the Gonzaga alum said a number of things that will make your brain bleed. He said he just wants to mind his own business, watch the Zags, go home and talk about the games. He said he’s really impressed by Aaron Rodgers finding the courage to come out against the vaccine and “make those statements for the people that are less fortunate than him.” He said he doesn’t have a platform because he doesn’t have any social media. That’s after he said he understands he’s a public figure.

Those are the opposite of galaxy brain takes; they’re like a neighborhood take or something infinitely more myopic than “galaxy.”

And, he said this:

“I think it’s highly recorded now, there’s 150 I believe now – it’s over 100 professional athletes dead, professional athletes, the prime of their life, dropping dead that are vaccinated, right on the pitch, right on the field, right on the court.”

Holy fuck! Nearly 150 athletes drop dead in the middle of games like an episode of The Leftovers or an M Night Shyamalan movie. How that hell isn’t this a bigger story? And why am I writing about Stockton as opposed to investigating the list of dead athletes he claims to have in his unvaxed hands?

Well, first off, his claim is false, and also he’s a certified loon.

If you dive into his sources, which I did for research and comedic purposes, you quickly find that he cites a foundation that cites a research group that cites a bootleg VAERS site. VAERS is short for Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System, and the real version is an actual government site where you can report a bad reaction to any number of vaccines.

However, in the disclaimer, which people love to skip over, it says, “Most reports to VAERS are voluntary, which means they are subject to biases. This creates specific limitations on how the data can be used scientifically. Data from VAERS reports should always be interpreted with these limitations in mind.”

The source Stockton called “a wonderful site, it’s triple-checked, it’s peer-reviewed, they’re brilliant people with all the credentials both medical and nonmedical that you could ever want” was picked apart by a guy with a laptop and a knowledge of how Google works in less than 15 minutes.

Next up he’s going to tell me Tru TV’s Lizard Luck Towing is an accurate depiction of the repo game. I know the Spokesman-Review doesn’t have a lot of famous former athletes to interview until Domantas Sabonis retires to the Pacific Northwest, but fuck, maybe see what Adam Morrison is up to. (If you guessed “hosting a podcast,” congrats, you’re a genius, and Captain Obvious will contact you regarding your prize soon.)

I understand it’s an exclusive interview because Stockton has been holed up since he made an appearance on an anti-vax home video saying equally wild shit. However, just because it’s exclusive doesn’t mean it’s worth printing. It’s not quite as dangerous as Eddie Brock interviewing serial killer Cletus Kasady in the new Venom movie, but it is just as desperate. (Carnage kills people a lot quicker than COVID.)

I haven’t a clue as to what Stockton was trying to accomplish in this interview because he’s certainly not getting his season tickets back anytime soon after those quotes. If he really wants to go to Zags games that badly, I have a solution. It comes in a vial. You inject it in your arm, it protects you and those around you from a deadly disease, and it definitely isn’t killing athletes at random.