I think it’s almost unanimous that Steph is the greatest shooter of all time and Magic is the greatest passer of all time. My question is, who has a wider gap between them and #2 + the rest of the pack?
Also, stats are important, but not the end all be all here. For instance, Klay might actually be a slightly better catch-and-shoot 3pt maker than Steph, but Steph is so far and away better at creating his own shot it’s why he is clearly the best shooter of all time. And Magic may not hold the assist record, but you would be hard-pressed by most fans and players if you said Stockton had a similar passing ability to Magic.
Stockton is not competing for “greatest passer of all time”. He was a floor general, game manager passer and was arguably the best at that, but didn’t consistently make the difficult passes the other players above him did/do. That wasn’t his game, but if you don’t so it, you don’t get a bonus for it from me.
When people talk about best passers, they usually try to conflate it with “person that gets the most assists” when that isn’t what it means. Also AST/TO ratio doesn’t always mean someone was a more efficient passer than someone else without looking at usage rate and how they get those turnovers, if someone else, like Chris Paul, has way more dribbling and driving responsibilities and has tougher reads to make when passing the ball.
The ability to pass the ball, i.e. fitting it through tight windows, across the court, over defenders, under defenders, moving them around with fakes, alley-oop passes, flashy passes, etc. These all are what I really look at when trying to decide how good of a passer someone is. And Stockton does not fit enough of these for me, to be in the conversation for “best passer of all time”.