Who Has The Most Steals In NBA History?
Who has the most steals in NBA history? That would be John Stockton, who racked up 3,265 steals during his illustrious career.
Introduction
In basketball, a steal occurs when a player successfully takes the ball away from an opponent who is in control of it. Steals are an important part of the game, as they can help swing the momentum in a team’s favor and lead to easy baskets.
While steals have been tracked officially by the NBA since the 1973-74 season, there is still debate about who the true leader is. This is because steals were not tracked consistently before 1973-74, and there are no official records for steals prior to that season. As a result, some players’ careers are harder to evaluate than others.
With that said, here are the five players who are generally considered to be the leaders in career steals in NBA history:
Methodology
In order to determine who has the most steals in NBA history, we looked at the top 50 players in the league by steals per game. We then took into account their career total steals and divided that by the number of games they played. This gave us a list of the most efficient players when it comes to steals.
Results
The player with the most steals in NBA history is John Stockton, who played for the Utah Jazz from 1984 to 2003. Stockton is the all-time leader in both total steals (3,265) and steals per game (2.7), and he is one of only two players (along with Jason Kidd) to average at least 2.5 steals per game over the course of their careers.
Conclusion
It is safe to say that there are a lot of great players in the NBA. But when it comes to who has the most steals in NBA history, there is only one clear winner. That player is none other than Michael Jordan. He is the only player in NBA history to average more than 3 steals per game, and he did it for his entire career. In fact, his career average of 3.16 steals per game is the highest of all time.