Dr J or West or Oscar

[TrueLAfan]

I don't know if it's quite that simple, penbeast. Oscar pretty clearly was the better player until about 1964. After that, West was usually considered better when he played a full season (or at least 70 games). In 1967 and 1968, West missed about 45 games, but his statistics (particularly per minute) didn't drop appreciably. And that's leaving out West's superior postseason play and overall team play. 1968 is a good example. Oscar had a very good team—Jerry Lucas, and a combo of Happy Hairston and Bob Love at SF. Connie Dierking was a good journeyman PF/C. Adrian Smith, a good SG, had one of his best years. The bench had players like Tom Van Arsdale, Guy Rodgers and Walt Wesley. That is a solid team on both ends of the floor, with good balance between big and small. They went 39-43 and missed the playoffs.

In 1968, West missed 31 games. But he averaged 26-6-6 when he played, shot over 51% from the field, and led the league in TS%. The Lakers were not a good team...they had Elgin, of course, but the were backcourt heavy and had little D other than West at the G position...Archie Clark and Gail Goodrich were poor on that end. The frontcourt was a committee of Darrel Imhoff, Mel Counts, Jim Barnes and Erwin Mueller. In short, the Lakers had a of shooting, little balance, a crappy frontcourt, a mediocre bench, and poor D. They won 52 games, won the WC, and took Boston to 6 games in the finals, with West averaging 31-5.5-5.5 on 53% shooting in the playoffs. I have the feeling that if West had missed fewer games and/or the voting had been done after the playoffs, West would have at least been the equal of Oscar. And I think that's generally true in 1967 and and 1969 as well...Oscar's durability made him more attractive than West to MVP and All-NBA voters. But I'm not sure it necessarily made him a better player, especially given his relative lack of team success and West's playoff play.