Magic was a more skillful passer than anyone but Maravich, who was a gym fiend. That includes Stockton, who meat and potatoes. The volume of fantastic passes he converted in ONE game and the fact that Earvin ran the team puts Bron out of his league. Bron is a mimicker in my eyes. He makes one or two slick passes in a game, Magic did it nearly all game long.
Magic was above any of his contemporaries save for Bird in terms of correcting a broken play with a instant recognition of the next open man. Example, he sets a guy up, the ball goes loose and if Magic gets it back, boom, into the next guy's hands. Magic was the best I've ever seen at improvising on breaks when someone snuck up on him for a steal (think the behind-the-back pass to Scott vs Phx that is on all of his highlight reels). Magic's head was so into a game that he would direct his players on a nightly basis where to position themselves on the opening tap. At times, a teammate would zone out and not recognize that he had a good look or a mismatch and Magic would yell "shoot it" at them. Bron is not closer to Bird than Magic. Magic and Bird were one and the same.
I guarantee you if Magic was playing today, he'd be winning annual MVPs. This would be his league. The recency effect has made his career a little more hazy w/ each passing year.
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