A night after surpassing Scottie Pippen on the NBA’s career steals list, Suns point guard Chris Paul passed up another Hall of Famer on Tuesday, climbing over Maurice Cheeks for fifth place.
And he does it again folks!@CP3 moves into 5th on the @NBA’s all-time steals leaderboard!
Keep climbing CP! pic.twitter.com/sKa6Fis4Aw
— Phoenix Suns (@Suns) April 14, 2021
Paul, playing for his fifth team in his 16th NBA season, had three steals in the Suns’ 106-86 victory over the Heat. That gave him 2,311 for his career, one more than Cheeks had in 15 seasons from 1978 to 1993.
Paul now sits behind Gary Payton, whose 2,445 steals are good for fourth. That’s followed by Michael Jordan’s 2,514 in third, second place Jason Kidd’s 2,684 and John Stockton’s NBA-record 3,265.
The milestone comes less than a month after Paul became the sixth player in NBA history to total 10,000 career assists.