Their stance for vaccination has two of basketball’s all-time greats, John Stockton and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar going against each other once again, decades after their on-court matchups.
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John Stockton’s legacy is second to none, neither in NBA nor in college basketball. The NBA’s all-time assists and steals leader, and one of only two players who’s had his jersey retired by Gonzaga, recently found himself in a rather different situation with the university.
Former Utah Jazz point guard confirmed the university’s decision to suspend his season tickets for failing to comply with the mask mandate.
“Basically, it came down to, they were asking me to wear a mask to the games and being a public figure, someone a little bit more visible, I stuck out in the crowd a little bit,” Stockton told The Spokesman-Review.
“And therefore they received complaints and felt like from whatever the higher-ups – those weren’t discussed, but from whatever it was higher up – they were going to have to either ask me to wear a mask or they were going to suspend my tickets.”
The 10-time All-Star then went on to talk about the deaths of professional athletes since the COVID-19 outbreak. He believes it’s the side effects of the vaccine.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar rips John Stockton apart for his comments on vaccination
One of the greatest basketball players of all time, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar has had various on-court battles with Stockton’s Jazz. Mostly coming victorious in those battles, Kareem won his last title in 1988 eliminating John’s team in the Conference Semi-finals. Even now, the 6-time champion wants to go off on his rival.
The 19-time All-Star always likes to give put his opinion forward. Since his retirement, the Lakers‘ legend has been a big voice in basketball as well as on social subjects.
A big advocate for vaccination, he has called out Kyrie Irving and all the other players who are against or have spoken against vaccines. He came up big time for the NBA when they were searching for a face for the vaccination campaign.
The 6-time MVP even criticized the current Lakers’ leader LeBron James for not taking the charge to promote the campaign for the country, being probably the best and most renowned athlete in the country.
As far as Kareem’s criticism of Stockton goes, he is right on point. And the former point guard isn’t helping himself at all by going against both, vaccination and wearing a mask.
