NBA History: Ranking the 15 greatest point guards of all time
15 greatest point guards in NBA History — No. 6: John Stockton
Ben Taylor of Thinking Basketball fame likes to evaluate players throughout NBA history by way of “peaks,” which are the very best stretches of a player’s career. Virtually every player on this Top 10 list had a higher peak than John Stockton, who never reached out to touch an MVP-type season.
What Stockton did was ascend to All-NBA level and plant himself there for a dozen years. Over the course of his career, he played in 1,504 games and missed just 20 games total, playing every available game 17 times. That level of availability is incredibly valuable as the Jazz rarely had to worry about point guard depth; they could just rely on Stockton to show up each and every game.
As such, Stockton’s counting stats are through the roof. He is the all-time NBA leader in assists with 15,806; Jason Kidd in second place is over 3,700 assists behind, closer to Andre Miller in 12th than to Stockton. He’s likewise first in career steals at 3,265, and once again in front by a mile; Kidd’s second-place total is closer to (yep, once again) 12th where the underrated Alvin Robinson sits.
Stockton wasn’t just a product of playing a lot of minutes and a lot of games; his advanced metrics are very strong too. The Jazz also won a ton of games over the course of his career; he ranks fifth in career games and 17th in career playoff games with 182. Stockton was an 11-time All-NBA player who helped lead the Jazz to the NBA Finals twice, memorably losing to Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls. His peak as a player was never quite MVP-level, but he held the next step down for an insanely long period of time, slotting him at sixth on our list.