OhayoKD wrote:The 69 Celtics were probably a more talented supporting cast than either. Them being a better "team" regardless doesn't reflect well on West here.
You probably mean Lakers, not Celtics.
Yeah, I don't agree. The Lakers were extremely shallow team in 1969. Outside of West and Wilt, they had Baylor who basically run strictly on his reputation at this point and very mediocre roleplayers. Egan, Erickson and Counts were all below average starting level players who provided little value and their 4th best player (Tommy Hawkins) played injured in the playoffs.
2015 Warriors were miles ahead of 1969 Lakers in terms of roster talent. 2022 are closer, but they were certainly a better built and deeper team.
If you attribute that to fit, despite the fact the 2nd best player on the team got a big chunk of their value in a way with basically zero diminishing returns with west's skillset, then that begs the question what similarly talented team you can build around steph which fails in a similar way because he didn't fit as well.
It's not West and Wilt fit, it's Baylor who hurt Lakers a lot in the playoffs. Curry wouldn't fit well with Baylor either, because Elgin simply played poorly in these playoffs.
Steph just offers much more value as a playmaker than west does,
Steph's playmaking value would be massively diminished by the lack of three point line, so it doesn't say much about West limitations (he was probably the best or 2nd best playmaker in the league that season), but it says more about era differences.
his scoring comes from a spot which doesn't overlap as much with other premier scorers(especially bigs),
A spot that had basically no value in the 1960s.
and the defensive defecit may not even be a notable disadvantage on a team with that level of talent barring horrific roster construction(alot worse than the 69 lakers).
What level of talent? Lakers were not talented outside of Wilt. That was the way they got Wilt in the first place - they lost their whole depth.
People are making this alot more complicated than necessary I think. If you are truly respecting era-relativity, then you have to consider that guards were just not nearly as valuable in the 60's as they are now and centers were the opposite. West has only won when paired with the other great center of the period, after the best player of his era(who in most scenarios he is going to have to beat to win a ring) retired, with the next best player's best teammate massively hampered(and they possibly lose anyway without a injury-induced home-court advantage considering they were significantly outscored in their win).
OK, but then you can say that Curry only beat the best player of his era when either he played with significantly better teams or when he aged out. I don't argue that West was more valuable than Russell, but Curry wasn't more valuable than the best player of his era either. Overall, I don't see your point.
I don't really see how you can get to prime west having as good per season championship likelihood as prime steph if we're being practical with out analysis. If steph curry got a two-way big who is a top 2 player of the era(giannis, embid, ect) no one would be saying "the team was not as good" justify not top-tier rs performance or not sealing the deal on one of the weakest scenarios the player you'd likely have to beat most if not nearly all years would be in.
I see a lot of scenarios when Curry-Giannis pairing wouldn't give you any titles, because roster construction doesn't end at top 2 players, which you seem to ignore. It's not the same, but we see now how Lillard-Giannis pairing move the Bucks nowhere and it's far from the worst possible situation. Of course Curry is much better than Lillard, but circumstances could be much worse as well.
West can play incredible and not be as valuable as Steph while playing incredible. That is why we have to also look at the results rather than handwave them because of point-totals(steph's primary advantage would be creative so...not sure what that's supposed to prove) or a statue(Steph is the more decorated player as well so again, what is the point?).
It's the first time I've ever seen someone accusing me of looking strictly at scoring performance. It's even more bizarre that I have not mentioned any scoring stats in this discussion either. I'm not sure I'll waste more of my time on such baseless discussions.
Persistently shifting the debate from steph vs west to "did jerry west play well when he lost" speaks to a pretty weak case, even respecting era-relativity.
I didn't present any case for West here, I'm pointing out how weak the argumentation provided for Curry is. I could provide many arguments that back up the view of West as Curry-peer in terms of impact, but I won't bother because you already decided in what you believe.
