Jazz -fans give John Stockton the ultimate sign of lack of respect

There is a good argument that John Stockton is the best player ever holding a Utah Jazz uniform. The only other player you could claim was that it was better the teammate with whom he spent most of his career, Karl Malone. Yet jazz fans don’t see him somehow as a top 2 jazzman of all time.

The X Account Jazz Lead held a poll where they asked fans to vote about who is the second best jazz man of all time. While Malone was understandably the mood at number 1, fans voted Lauri Markkanen as number 2.

The biggest head is not that Markkans received number 2, and you can read more about why that is wrong here, but rather that it didn’t go to Stockton. The same point guard who played at an All-Star level from start to finish for two decades and who have reached several milestones that may never be reached again should definitely be in the top two players in jazz history.

It is not surprising that we live in an era that forgets the past. Even the NBA itself is guilty of this. Do you remember that Dwight Howard did not make the 75 of the NBA, although it was quite clear that he was more than earned a place? So it is not entirely out of the left field that fans have forgotten how good Stockton was, but that is not apologized.

We have also reached the point in the low season where nothing really happens in the NBA, so maybe fans take some holiday time and they were not aware of the poll. Yet this was an easy fact to give Stockton those number 2 among jazz all-timers. It doesn’t matter who was picked for him, it is a travesty that his match days are not as remembered as before.

Stockton is the all-timer players who have to model themselves

People talk about how impressive it is that LeBron James has stayed as well as he has reached when he has reached 40. Not only have few NBA players who have still played in the competition, but hardly any of them still plays at an All-Star level. Stockton, however, was the one who in principle helped when setting that standard before James did.

Admittedly, James is now a better player than Stockton at 40, but the point is that Stockton provided the template for how a player can maintain long. He was not the same player in 2003 that he was in 1993, but Stockton was never a liability and his basketball IQ kept him at a star level and the jazz in the playoff yacht until he retired.

That is a fairly rare copy that the NBA has only seen a handful of players doing, but Stockton was one of the first to do it (note: the first player to do was Kareem Abdul-Jabbar). What is even more important, unlike Abdul-Jabbar or James, Stockton was not a physical freak. He was as good as he was because he knew the game.

Not that the two were not smart basketball players (because they were certain), but physical benefits played a role why they were so good for so long. Stockton did not have that luxury. Although the jazz -legend has certainly been in controversy since his NBA career ended, that should not deny the inheritance he left and fans should certainly not prevent fans from turning him the best of the best jazzs.