RealGM 2020 Top 100 Project: #13 (Jerry West)

[DQuinn1575]

And I have to leave with one last thing:

Remember that West had a more successful team career than Oscar did in general. That doesn't say West > Oscar, but it does mean we need to be careful about penalizing West for lack of success. West had more team success, and thus from an impact success we would expect Oscar to have to make up the difference in impact.

That's not necessarily a super high bar to rise above depending on how you see things, but my point is that it's a different bar one built with the perspective there's something negative about West's team success that should hold him back next to Oscar.

Simple average SRS - 14 years - West 3.18, Oscar 2.91 - with Oscar playing 108 games more than West. And West had Baylor for most of that, and Wilt for more years than Oscar had Kareem. Really hard to say West had more team success than Oscar.

You're literally doing what I warned people not to do.

By your chosen metric, West had more team success 3.18 to 2.91. The end.

Now obviously I'm not holding you to that as if it's really your end-all be-all, but when we talk about how much team success a player had, we don't then factor in who the guys teammates were. That factors into the player evaluation certainly, but the team success is the success of the team the player happens to be on. Either it means that or it means nothing at all.

Okay, Oscar played in 627 regular season wins in his career, West 595 , let's use that measure instead, as it also incorporates the fact that West missed many more games than Oscar.

[Dutchball97]

Simple average SRS - 14 years - West 3.18, Oscar 2.91 - with Oscar playing 108 games more than West. And West had Baylor for most of that, and Wilt for more years than Oscar had Kareem. Really hard to say West had more team success than Oscar.

West played nearly twice the play-off games Oscar did. They're not even on the same level in terms of team success and that's not going to flip on it's head because "West had old Wilt for a tad longer than Oscar had prime Kareem".

West only beat a team with a better record than his once, the year Wilt only played 12 games in the regular season. West's playoff success was largely a function of not having to play the Celtics (or Wilt) until the finals, while Oscar didn't have that luxury. Keep the Lakers in Minneapolis and move the Royals to Sacramento early and Oscar loses 5 finals or whatever, and West doesnt make one until 1972.

Oscar lost to lower ranked teams in 1962 and 1965 and missed the play-offs entirely in 61, 68, 69 and 70. It's not just the Celtics and 76ers with Wilt blocking their path.

[Dutchball97]

Simple average SRS - 14 years - West 3.18, Oscar 2.91 - with Oscar playing 108 games more than West. And West had Baylor for most of that, and Wilt for more years than Oscar had Kareem. Really hard to say West had more team success than Oscar.

You're literally doing what I warned people not to do.

By your chosen metric, West had more team success 3.18 to 2.91. The end.

Now obviously I'm not holding you to that as if it's really your end-all be-all, but when we talk about how much team success a player had, we don't then factor in who the guys teammates were. That factors into the player evaluation certainly, but the team success is the success of the team the player happens to be on. Either it means that or it means nothing at all.

Okay, Oscar played in 627 regular season wins in his career, West 595 , let's use that measure instead, as it also incorporates the fact that West missed many more games than Oscar.

So you're just going ignore West playing nearly twice the play-off games than Oscar?

[TrueLAfan]

1. Jerry West
2. Julius Erving
3. Oscar Robertson

Still thinking about switching off my Oscar vote to Malone or Dirk. I’m reading the support of Oscar’s “winning” with moderate interest, but not a whole lot of belief. And I personally think the “team makeup” favors Oscar over West. Oscar didn’t just have decent teams behind him; they were relatively well-balanced teams. He almost always had an effective frontcourt player (Lucas/Embry), another good to very good perimeter player (Twyman/Van Arsdale), an adequate SG (Bucky Bockhorn/Adrian Smith), and some good defensive role players, often in the frontcourt to complement Embry/Lucas (Boozer/Hairston/Hawkins). I just don’t how see how teams like that with a superstar player stay around .500 every year.

West’s Laker teams were always imbalanced. Always. Rudy LaRusso was okay—not as good as his numbers (not a good defender and a poor percentage shooter), but he tried hard and was a good drinker, so we’ll give him that. After that, the Lakers were horrible in the frontcourt. Jim Krebs. Ray Felix. Darrall Imhoff. Gene Wiley. Tom Hawkins played out of position at PF because he was a good player, but he wasn’t a real frontcourt guy (and he played almost as much with the Royals as with the Lakers.) In a league of dominant big men and with the rules advantaging those players, the Lakers were small ball. And when West on the court, they won (a lot) more—pre-Wilt, the Lakers won 60 percent of the games that West played in. Oscar’s teams exceeded that twice in his Royals career.

J won all the time. All. The. Time. Enough of a floor raiser to put him just behind West, for me.

[Doctor MJ]

Simple average SRS - 14 years - West 3.18, Oscar 2.91 - with Oscar playing 108 games more than West. And West had Baylor for most of that, and Wilt for more years than Oscar had Kareem. Really hard to say West had more team success than Oscar.

You're literally doing what I warned people not to do.

By your chosen metric, West had more team success 3.18 to 2.91. The end.

Now obviously I'm not holding you to that as if it's really your end-all be-all, but when we talk about how much team success a player had, we don't then factor in who the guys teammates were. That factors into the player evaluation certainly, but the team success is the success of the team the player happens to be on. Either it means that or it means nothing at all.

Okay, Oscar played in 627 regular season wins in his career, West 595 , let's use that measure instead, as it also incorporates the fact that West missed many more games than Oscar.

Once again you're just trying to win an argument for the guy you rank higher. My point here is not to say that everyone has to think West > Oscar, but to emphasize that in general West was on a teams that reached higher levels than Oscar did and thus penalizing West for "worse team success" as if Oscar was literally leading better teams is wrong. Completely fine to be more impressed with Oscar "doing more with less", but that's an extra layer of meaning beyond team success.

What you're doing here is adding yet another variable into play - longevity/durability - which again, is fine for the final player analysis, but not the point here.

Please stop trying to argue against me until you understand the point I'm making. You trying to turn each thing against West using whatever you can think of defeats the purpose of this particular exercise.

[Doctor MJ]

Simple average SRS - 14 years - West 3.18, Oscar 2.91 - with Oscar playing 108 games more than West. And West had Baylor for most of that, and Wilt for more years than Oscar had Kareem. Really hard to say West had more team success than Oscar.

West played nearly twice the play-off games Oscar did. They're not even on the same level in terms of team success and that's not going to flip on it's head because "West had old Wilt for a tad longer than Oscar had prime Kareem".

West only beat a team with a better record than his once, the year Wilt only played 12 games in the regular season. West's playoff success was largely a function of not having to play the Celtics (or Wilt) until the finals, while Oscar didn't have that luxury. Keep the Lakers in Minneapolis and move the Royals to Sacramento early and Oscar loses 5 finals or whatever, and West doesnt make one until 1972.

I mean, a lot of us here have done the exercise of literally going through all the years and asking in the absence of the Celtics, who would be most likely to win that title based on regular season performance, etc. When we do so, we always end up with the Lakers having more success than the Royals. Have you actually done this detailed analysis and reached other conclusions, or are you just chipping away at what's in front of you?

Once again this just feels like you trying to find a way to tear apart any point coming from the other side rather than listening and then responding "I understand what you're saying about X, but Y & Z make me conclude in favor of Oscar on the whole."

West in general being on better teams doesn't win him the argument, but it's something in general we ought to be able to agree about so we can move on to the actual nuances. Fight back on that and you're likely to end up, as you've already just experienced in the other post I just responded to, looking weak because you're moving goal posts unnecessarily.

[eminence]

West played nearly twice the play-off games Oscar did. They're not even on the same level in terms of team success and that's not going to flip on it's head because "West had old Wilt for a tad longer than Oscar had prime Kareem".

West only beat a team with a better record than his once, the year Wilt only played 12 games in the regular season. West's playoff success was largely a function of not having to play the Celtics (or Wilt) until the finals, while Oscar didn't have that luxury. Keep the Lakers in Minneapolis and move the Royals to Sacramento early and Oscar loses 5 finals or whatever, and West doesnt make one until 1972.

Oscar lost to lower ranked teams in 1962 and 1965 and missed the play-offs entirely in 61, 68, 69 and 70. It's not just the Celtics and 76ers with Wilt blocking their path.

Just a note, as it doesn't flow from your post - but in 1965 Oscar did lose to the Wilt Sixers, who had traded for him midseason.

[Baski]

1. Jerry West- A lot of team and individual success. Argument for best offensive player of his era. Top tier BBIQ. Elite scorer and great playmaker. Way ahead of his time. Very good, possibly elite defensively.

2. Oscar Robertson- Arguable with West for best offensive player of their era. Not as good as a scorer or defensively, but a better playmaker.

3. Karl Malone-Sneakily adaptable player which, along with his work ethic and durability, is why he was so good for so long. One of the best scorers of all time. Trex skills breakdown was excellent.

[Dutchball97]

West only beat a team with a better record than his once, the year Wilt only played 12 games in the regular season. West's playoff success was largely a function of not having to play the Celtics (or Wilt) until the finals, while Oscar didn't have that luxury. Keep the Lakers in Minneapolis and move the Royals to Sacramento early and Oscar loses 5 finals or whatever, and West doesnt make one until 1972.

Oscar lost to lower ranked teams in 1962 and 1965 and missed the play-offs entirely in 61, 68, 69 and 70. It's not just the Celtics and 76ers with Wilt blocking their path.

Just a note, as it doesn't flow from your post - but in 1965 Oscar did lose to the Wilt Sixers, who had traded for him midseason.

Thanks, that is an oversight by me. That does make treating 62 and 65 the same kind of unreasonable. Just as a side note I'm not trying to paint Oscar as a bad play-off performer here. The only argument I'm trying to make is that even with West generally having somewhat better teams and playing in a weaker conference, I'm still more impressed by what West did in the play-offs compared to Oscar.

[70sFan]

Rudy LaRusso was okay—not as good as his numbers (not a good defender and a poor percentage shooter), but he tried hard and was a good drinker, so we’ll give him that.

Wait, hold on. Rudy LaRusso was very good defender with high reputation and he was efficient shooter in all but 2 Lakera seasons. In 1962-66 period, LaRusso averaged healthy 14 ppg on 52 TS% and 76 FT%. He also drew a lot of fouls and added spacing effect (good shooter from outside backed up by trex studies).

He wasn't superstar or anything, but I'd argue that someone like him suited Lakers far more than Jerry Lucas would. He was simply far better defensive player.

[Dr Positivity]

1. Dirk Nowitzki
2. Jerry West
3. Karl Malone

Dirk to me has the best combination of elite impact (spacing, better scoring numbers than his PPG due to pace, efficiency), longevity, intangibles, elite level peak.

West likewise could easily have a few more rings, amazing offensive player for his time, great defender, good intangibles

I have issues with Malone's scoring game but I am swayed that he doesn't need for it to be perfect based on good defense and passing impact and obvious longevity. Still, I think he's stronger in the regular season than the postseason like the Jazz as a whole.

[Joao Saraiva]

DQuinn you really defend Oscar well. But reading the counters on West's success I gotta say he still seems like well ahead of Oscar to me. Specially the non effective front court of the Lakers and West's defense analysis. I don't agree West was a much better scorer, but I beleive his scoring translated better against great defenses than Oscar's did. I'd like someone to elaborate on this last part, if it's correct of if I'm wrong. Thanks.

[DQuinn1575]

West played nearly twice the play-off games Oscar did. They're not even on the same level in terms of team success and that's not going to flip on it's head because "West had old Wilt for a tad longer than Oscar had prime Kareem".

West only beat a team with a better record than his once, the year Wilt only played 12 games in the regular season. West's playoff success was largely a function of not having to play the Celtics (or Wilt) until the finals, while Oscar didn't have that luxury. Keep the Lakers in Minneapolis and move the Royals to Sacramento early and Oscar loses 5 finals or whatever, and West doesnt make one until 1972.

I mean, a lot of us here have done the exercise of literally going through all the years and asking in the absence of the Celtics, who would be most likely to win that title based on regular season performance, etc. When we do so, we always end up with the Lakers having more success than the Royals. Have you actually done this detailed analysis and reached other conclusions, or are you just chipping away at what's in front of you?

Once again this just feels like you trying to find a way to tear apart any point coming from the other side rather than listening and then responding "I understand what you're saying about X, but Y & Z make me conclude in favor of Oscar on the whole."

West in general being on better teams doesn't win him the argument, but it's something in general we ought to be able to agree about so we can move on to the actual nuances. Fight back on that and you're likely to end up, as you've already just experienced in the other post I just responded to, looking weak because you're moving goal posts unnecessarily.

Nope, the Lakers had a better team than the Royals. I don't think I have said otherwise. It should be clear that I don't think the differences in the 60s isn't because of West being better than Oscar. Besides the fact that West was darned good, they had one of the 5-6 (up to then) of all-time on the roster as well, and ended the decade with a 3rd all-time great. I think people don't realize that although they played the same amount of seasons, West was hurt a lot, with him playing 17% less minutes than Oscar. Additionally, they think West is a great playmaker, so is Oscar. Oscar got 42% more assists per game than West. Oscar's scoring was very similar to West's, rebounding greater, and passing much greater. West probably holds a defensive edge. But head-to-head the results were about the same, they scored and shot about the same as each other, and Oscar outrebounded and outassisted him.

[drza]

Placeholder Vote post (in case vote counted before I finish something more in depth):

1. Oscar Robertson (Every time I line them up and do an in depth analysis, Oscar comes out ranked higher for me. They were both innovative offensive players, but while West's thumbnail non-boxscore-strengths flow from being a historic shooter and good playmaker, Oscar's flow from being a historic playmaker but strong shooter. On the whole, Oscar's strengths are stronger IMO, and in my historical analysis experience it's the elite playmakers that have the bigger impact boost than the backcourt perimeter shooters. If West were 7-0 like Dirk (or even 6-9 like Bird) then maybe I'd see it differently, but wing spacers just don't generally have nearly the offensive impact as elite floor generals.

2. Dirk Nowitzki (this spot is up for grabs among several. For now, I'll put Dirk on top with his two decades of elite regular season impact that produced a late-prime postseason impact peak as well. His offensive game was revolutionary, and he defines shooting-based-spacing impact due to his 7-foot frame (especially once he developed enough of a post-game that other teams couldn't put wings on him).

3. David Robinson (spot also up for grabs. Dr. J, Karl Malone and Jerry West also in consideration). Admiral is on the short list of GOAT-level defenders, and had an offensive game that translated to mega regular season success as a primary option without sufficient support but (perhaps more importantly) could seamlessly flow into a secondary option capable of scaling to elite offenses with the right talent blend. I feel like he could have been a Megatron Anthony Davis next to a LeBron type, and in real life was quietly almost MVP-level as an offensive subordinate/defensive captain (heh, Admiral) to rising Tim Duncan.

[Jaivl]

Oooof. No disrespect intended, but I'm just not seeing what you all seem to be seeing. Heavy mental gymnastics and intentional disregard of context are required to digest some of the arguments being made for West. "West won more" -> "Yeah, but the difference is marginal at best and you have to look at the big picture" -> "See, you're saying that he won more" -> "Okay, let's ignore context altogether and choose this arbitrary metric that shows Oscar, by definition, won more" -> "You just don't understand, stop arguing" - I mean... what?

Last time I voted (well, ultimately I don't think I voted because Kobe was a lock, but I intended to) Kobe/Oscar/Dirk. Let's change it a little bit, if we may.

1. Oscar Robertson
IMO he's the less flawed candidate remaining. In a Garnett-kind of way, any doubt anyone may have about his 2nd-only-to-Russell impact dissipated with his arrival in Milwaukee.

2. Dirk Nowitzki

3. Jerry West
Lacking longevity (or, to not piss penbeast off, lacking health), but he's probably the best player remaining. Not a bad pick by any means.

HM - George Mikan
I think this is my third or fourth Top 100 project and I don't think I've voted for Mikan even once, and soon I'm gonna finally change that. Around an 8-year prime (1947 to 1954, don't mind b-ref) is a long time to be dominating the league. In pure basketball ability he's obviously not on the same level as any of the other players being considered, but I don't think the penalization should be as steep as to not begin to consider him when very few league-dominators-with-high-longevity are left.

Other HMs (in order): Karl Malone, David Robinson, Julius Erving

[eminence]

I don't agree West was a much better scorer, but I beleive his scoring translated better against great defenses than Oscar's did. I'd like someone to elaborate on this last part, if it's correct of if I'm wrong. Thanks.

I looked at '62-'68 RS games against the Celtics (proxy for great defense), only where the full FGA/FTA/Reb/Ast/Pt boxscore was available. Also cut out a 2 minute and an 8 minute game.

Lakers
15-27 (35.7%)
-3.0 margin

Royals
19-33 (36.5%)
-4.0 margin

West (42 games)
26.2 ppg @ 54.0 TS%, 5.4 rpg, 4.5 apg

Oscar (52 games)
31.3 ppg @54.9 TS%, 10.0 rpg, 8.9 apg

*entirely possible there's an error somewhere too, but that's what I got

Adding playoffs

Lakers
11-20 (35.5%)
-3.7 margin

Royals
6-11 (35.3%)
-6.1 margin

West (31 games)
31.9 ppg @ 54.8 TS%, 5.9 rpg, 4.3 apg

Oscar (17 games)
31.4 ppg @ 54.1 TS%, 10.2 rpg, 7.5 apg

[Doctor MJ]

West only beat a team with a better record than his once, the year Wilt only played 12 games in the regular season. West's playoff success was largely a function of not having to play the Celtics (or Wilt) until the finals, while Oscar didn't have that luxury. Keep the Lakers in Minneapolis and move the Royals to Sacramento early and Oscar loses 5 finals or whatever, and West doesnt make one until 1972.

I mean, a lot of us here have done the exercise of literally going through all the years and asking in the absence of the Celtics, who would be most likely to win that title based on regular season performance, etc. When we do so, we always end up with the Lakers having more success than the Royals. Have you actually done this detailed analysis and reached other conclusions, or are you just chipping away at what's in front of you?

Once again this just feels like you trying to find a way to tear apart any point coming from the other side rather than listening and then responding "I understand what you're saying about X, but Y & Z make me conclude in favor of Oscar on the whole."

West in general being on better teams doesn't win him the argument, but it's something in general we ought to be able to agree about so we can move on to the actual nuances. Fight back on that and you're likely to end up, as you've already just experienced in the other post I just responded to, looking weak because you're moving goal posts unnecessarily.

Nope, the Lakers had a better team than the Royals. I don't think I have said otherwise. It should be clear that I don't think the differences in the 60s isn't because of West being better than Oscar. Besides the fact that West was darned good, they had one of the 5-6 (up to then) of all-time on the roster as well, and ended the decade with a 3rd all-time great. I think people don't realize that although they played the same amount of seasons, West was hurt a lot, with him playing 17% less minutes than Oscar. Additionally, they think West is a great playmaker, so is Oscar. Oscar got 42% more assists per game than West. Oscar's scoring was very similar to West's, rebounding greater, and passing much greater. West probably holds a defensive edge. But head-to-head the results were about the same, they scored and shot about the same as each other, and Oscar outrebounded and outassisted him.

Literally you just keep making posts that my prior responses already address. I'm moving on.

[Doctor MJ]

I don't agree West was a much better scorer, but I beleive his scoring translated better against great defenses than Oscar's did. I'd like someone to elaborate on this last part, if it's correct of if I'm wrong. Thanks.

I looked at '62-'68 RS games against the Celtics (proxy for great defense), only where the full FGA/FTA/Reb/Ast/Pt boxscore was available. Also cut out a 2 minute and an 8 minute game.

Lakers
15-27 (35.7%)
-3.0 margin

Royals
19-33 (36.5%)
-4.0 margin

West (42 games)
26.2 ppg @ 54.0 TS%, 5.4 rpg, 4.5 apg

Oscar (52 games)
31.3 ppg @54.9 TS%, 10.0 rpg, 8.9 apg

*entirely possible there's an error somewhere too, but that's what I got

Just a brief thing here, if we look at playoffs only against the Russell Celtics:

West 33.0 PPG on 55.1% TS over 38 games from 1962-69.
Oscar 31.4 PPG on 54.1% TS over 17 games from 1963-66.

If we take it just from the years range where Oscar played those Celtics, which happens to be peak Celtic D:

West 32.4 PPG on 54.4% TS over 18 games, and then once again:
Oscar 31.4 PPG on 54.1% TS over 17 games.

I'll add a recent quote of mine from another thread:

Cool thread and a good data table.

Here's a link to bkref, most points scored in a series against Boston '57 to '69 (the Russell years):

https://stathead.com/tiny/F6zTV

Putting it into an order by PPG, 4 games or more.
1. '61-62 Baylor, 40.6 PPG
2. '68-69 West, 37.9 PPG
3. '65-66 West, 33.9 PPG
4. '62-63 Baylor, 33.8 PPG
5. '64-65 West, 33.8 PPG
6. '61-62 Chamberlain, 33.6 PPG
7. '62-63 Oscar, 33.4 PPG
8. '65-66 Oscar, 31.8 PPG
9. '67-68 West, 31.3 PPG
10. '61-62 West, 31.1 PPG

Others:
'56-57 Pettit, 30.1 PPG
'60-61 Hagan, 29.4 PPG
'58-59 Schayes, 28.4 PPG
'67-68 Bing, 28.2 PPG
'66-67 Reed, 27.5 PPG

EDIT:

I was looking at this list and found myself asking how often each guy played against the Celtics.

West played the Celtics 6 times. 5 of those times are on this list. In the other series ('62-63) he average 29.5 PPG. So strong always.
Baylor played the Celtics 6 times as well. So made the list 2 out of 6.
Chamberlain played the Celtics 8 times. So 1 out of 8.
Oscar played the Celtics 3 times. So 2 out of 3, and in the other series ('63-64) he average 28.2 PPG. Strong always.

Pettit & Hagan played them 4 times.
Schayes played them 3, Reed 2, Bing 1.

I look at all this, while remembering the impact of Baylor in those early years, and to me West comes across looking better than Oscar in the playoffs even before I remember West's defense. But I'll certainly concede a strong case can be made for Oscar too.

[trex_8063]

Thru post #98:

Jerry West - 9 (90sAllDecade, Baski, Doctor MJ, Dutchball97, Joao Saraiva, lebron3-14-3, Magic Is Magic, Matzer, TrueLAfan)
Oscar Robertson - 7 (DQuinn1575, drza, Hal14, Hornet Mania, Jaivl, mailmp, Odinn21)
Dirk Nowitzki - 3 (Dr Positivity, LA Bird, sansterre)
George Mikan - 2 (eminence, penbeast0)
Karl Malone - 1 (trex_8063)
Kevin Durant - 1 (2klegend)


Discussion flagging just a little (partly my fault; haven’t had time to participate as I’d like to recently). But 23 counted votes, which is really great turnout for the #13 thread.
12 required for a majority, so we’ll eliminate Durant and Malone (no!). That transfers one vote to Oscar, one to Dirk….

West - 9
Oscar - 8
Dirk - 4
Mikan - 2

Still no majority, so Mikan is eliminated, transferring one vote each to West and Oscar….

West - 10
Oscar - 9
Dirk - 4

Still no majority, so Dirk is eliminated, transferring one vote to Oscar, three to West….

West - 13
Oscar - 10

#13 is Jerry West. Will have the next up in a moment.

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[quote=”sansterre”].[/quote]

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[Odinn21]

Other than Garnett's placement, West at #13 is the only strong disagreement for me.
He jumped Robertson and Karl Malone. And I don't see a good reason for him to jump ahead of Robertson.
I already had Robertson ahead of West and I find Robertson favouring arguments far more compelling than West's.