Jerry West.....what was he really aa a player?

[falcolombardi]

From what little i have watched he seems to be the more face up oriented counter part to oscar as a isolationist

Whereas oscar will be mark jackson or barkley esque in how long he spends backing down (effectively) his rival until he gains good position for a jumper or take advantage of extra attention to pass

West will instead play a bit more in face-up angles where he can do thriple threat play between drive-pass-shot. His game looks a bit closer to modern guards in that regard

Oscar used his size/strenght a bit more and west used quickness. Both used fakes a lot but west seemingly more so due to being more often face up to the rival. Both seemed to have good jumpshooting form, west release seems fairly high/vertical while oscar uses his body more to generate space

[Doctor MJ]

While West was the best passer on his teams, he wasn't generally seen as a candidate for best passer (Oscar was the obvious choice). On the other hand, he was the best scorer in the world in his prime (better than Oscar, or Wilt, or certainly Baylor).

I don't see how this is relevant. If West wasn't a point guard because Oscar was a better passer, does that mean there can only be one point guard in the entire league in any season? Was Isiah Thomas not a point guard because he wasn't generally seen as a candidate for best passer over Magic? West has a case as best scorer of his era but it's by no means definitive. Oscar had more than double the number of seasons where he was top 5 in both scoring volume and efficiency, and if we look at something like TS Add, Oscar's 9th best season was better than West's 3rd best. Even with West being a better scorer than passer, I don't see how that excludes him from being a point guard.

As for the thread, I personally think it is merely a question of definition. We know for a fact West was the primary playmaker and ball handler on his team for most of his career - that's not really up for debate. The real question is whether every player who fits that description is a point guard. Is Harden a point guard? How about Pippen? At the end of the day, if positions serve no real purpose on the court and are only relevant as widely agreed upon labels, does it matter what position a player is? West being either a PG or a SG or a combo guard doesn't change who he actually was as a player.

To the stuff I bolded, when someone is the primary on-ball guard on his team, and he's most known for scoring rather than passing, that's what the term "lead guard" is for rather than the point vs shooting dichotomy because the player in question is clearly BOTH the point AND the shooter of the back court.

But look I'm not trying to be pedantically prescriptive here. I don't really care what labels we place on a player, because those labels are based on rigid paradigms that imply things about those they label that a player like West cannot be captured by.

Re: Harden a point guard? Yes, thought as with West, he's more of a lead guard. Only thing that drives me nuts here is when Harden gets classified as a shooting guard as if pairing him with a "point guard" makes sense. West was considerably more flexible and could be amazing on and off the ball, while Harden's off-ball game is just about resting.

Re: Pippen a point guard. He's a point something. If the basketball world had been consistent after Magic, anyone in Magic's mold would have been called a "point guard", but there's good argument to be made that players like this should never be called "guard", because they aren't going to be one of the two smallest guys on their team.

[Ol Roy]

Positional distinctions can really be frivolous.

-West, Curry, and Harden are combo guards
-Jordan and Kobe are scoring guards
-Oscar was a high-scoring point guard
-Magic was a point guard who escaped point forward designation

Regarding West, I'm becoming more convinced that he might be the second-best guard after Jordan. I really like his skill and athletic portability across eras, his playoff rising, his prolific two-way play, and his killer mindset.

[penbeast0]

While West was the best passer on his teams, he wasn't generally seen as a candidate for best passer (Oscar was the obvious choice). On the other hand, he was the best scorer in the world in his prime (better than Oscar, or Wilt, or certainly Baylor).

I don't see how this is relevant. If West wasn't a point guard because Oscar was a better passer, does that mean there can only be one point guard in the entire league in any season? Was Isiah Thomas not a point guard because he wasn't generally seen as a candidate for best passer over Magic? West has a case as best scorer of his era but it's by no means definitive. Oscar had more than double the number of seasons where he was top 5 in both scoring volume and efficiency, and if we look at something like TS Add, Oscar's 9th best season was better than West's 3rd best. Even with West being a better scorer than passer, I don't see how that excludes him from being a point guard.

As for the thread, I personally think it is merely a question of definition. We know for a fact West was the primary playmaker and ball handler on his team for most of his career - that's not really up for debate. The real question is whether every player who fits that description is a point guard. Is Harden a point guard? How about Pippen? At the end of the day, if positions serve no real purpose on the court and are only relevant as widely agreed upon labels, does it matter what position a player is? West being either a PG or a SG or a combo guard doesn't change who he actually was as a player.

To the stuff I bolded, when someone is the primary on-ball guard on his team, and he's most known for scoring rather than passing, that's what the term "lead guard" is for rather than the point vs shooting dichotomy because the player in question is clearly BOTH the point AND the shooter of the back court.

But look I'm not trying to be pedantically prescriptive here. I don't really care what labels we place on a player, because those labels are based on rigid paradigms that imply things about those they label that a player like West cannot be captured by.

Re: Harden a point guard? Yes, thought as with West, he's more of a lead guard. Only thing that drives me nuts here is when Harden gets classified as a shooting guard as if pairing him with a "point guard" makes sense. West was considerably more flexible and could be amazing on and off the ball, while Harden's off-ball game is just about resting.

Re: Pippen a point guard. He's a point something. If the basketball world had been consistent after Magic, anyone in Magic's mold would have been called a "point guard", but there's good argument to be made that players like this should never be called "guard", because they aren't going to be one of the two smallest guys on their team.

Again, it's only because of the point guard distinction that we have this issue. If point guard were defined as all the other positions are based on defensive assignments, then guys like Magic or Oscar could be properly designated wings and West or Harden as combo guards. There is no other position where there is this confusion, only point guard, and changing the terminology to lead guard does nothing to dispel this confusing aspect. Big guard/Small guard would be better definitions for the 2/1 positions and while there would always be questions and quibbles, they would be far less a mishmash than this point guard/off guard or lead guard/off guard or point forward (or even point center for Jokic) issue.

[Doctor MJ]

I don't see how this is relevant. If West wasn't a point guard because Oscar was a better passer, does that mean there can only be one point guard in the entire league in any season? Was Isiah Thomas not a point guard because he wasn't generally seen as a candidate for best passer over Magic? West has a case as best scorer of his era but it's by no means definitive. Oscar had more than double the number of seasons where he was top 5 in both scoring volume and efficiency, and if we look at something like TS Add, Oscar's 9th best season was better than West's 3rd best. Even with West being a better scorer than passer, I don't see how that excludes him from being a point guard.

As for the thread, I personally think it is merely a question of definition. We know for a fact West was the primary playmaker and ball handler on his team for most of his career - that's not really up for debate. The real question is whether every player who fits that description is a point guard. Is Harden a point guard? How about Pippen? At the end of the day, if positions serve no real purpose on the court and are only relevant as widely agreed upon labels, does it matter what position a player is? West being either a PG or a SG or a combo guard doesn't change who he actually was as a player.

To the stuff I bolded, when someone is the primary on-ball guard on his team, and he's most known for scoring rather than passing, that's what the term "lead guard" is for rather than the point vs shooting dichotomy because the player in question is clearly BOTH the point AND the shooter of the back court.

But look I'm not trying to be pedantically prescriptive here. I don't really care what labels we place on a player, because those labels are based on rigid paradigms that imply things about those they label that a player like West cannot be captured by.

Re: Harden a point guard? Yes, thought as with West, he's more of a lead guard. Only thing that drives me nuts here is when Harden gets classified as a shooting guard as if pairing him with a "point guard" makes sense. West was considerably more flexible and could be amazing on and off the ball, while Harden's off-ball game is just about resting.

Re: Pippen a point guard. He's a point something. If the basketball world had been consistent after Magic, anyone in Magic's mold would have been called a "point guard", but there's good argument to be made that players like this should never be called "guard", because they aren't going to be one of the two smallest guys on their team.

Again, it's only because of the point guard distinction that we have this issue. If point guard were defined as all the other positions are based on defensive assignments, then guys like Magic or Oscar could be properly designated wings and West or Harden as combo guards. There is no other position where there is this confusion, only point guard, and changing the terminology to lead guard does nothing to dispel this confusing aspect. Big guard/Small guard would be better definitions for the 2/1 positions and while there would always be questions and quibbles, they would be far less a mishmash than this point guard/off guard or lead guard/off guard or point forward (or even point center for Jokic) issue.

Apologies up front, but I must have missed you saying this before.

You're entirely correct that "lead guard" does nothing relating to the problem of offense/defense you point out.

To be clear, I'm not trying to change how we call things. I'm not using terms I've made up. I'm using terms I've encountered as best they make sense to me.

[tsherkin]

To the stuff I bolded, when someone is the primary on-ball guard on his team, and he's most known for scoring rather than passing, that's what the term "lead guard" is for rather than the point vs shooting dichotomy because the player in question is clearly BOTH the point AND the shooter of the back court.

But look I'm not trying to be pedantically prescriptive here. I don't really care what labels we place on a player, because those labels are based on rigid paradigms that imply things about those they label that a player like West cannot be captured by.

Re: Harden a point guard? Yes, thought as with West, he's more of a lead guard. Only thing that drives me nuts here is when Harden gets classified as a shooting guard as if pairing him with a "point guard" makes sense. West was considerably more flexible and could be amazing on and off the ball, while Harden's off-ball game is just about resting.

Re: Pippen a point guard. He's a point something. If the basketball world had been consistent after Magic, anyone in Magic's mold would have been called a "point guard", but there's good argument to be made that players like this should never be called "guard", because they aren't going to be one of the two smallest guys on their team.

Again, it's only because of the point guard distinction that we have this issue. If point guard were defined as all the other positions are based on defensive assignments, then guys like Magic or Oscar could be properly designated wings and West or Harden as combo guards. There is no other position where there is this confusion, only point guard, and changing the terminology to lead guard does nothing to dispel this confusing aspect. Big guard/Small guard would be better definitions for the 2/1 positions and while there would always be questions and quibbles, they would be far less a mishmash than this point guard/off guard or lead guard/off guard or point forward (or even point center for Jokic) issue.

Apologies up front, but I must have missed you saying this before.

You're entirely correct that "lead guard" does nothing relating to the problem of offense/defense you point out.

To be clear, I'm not trying to change how we call things. I'm not using terms I've made up. I'm using terms I've encountered as best they make sense to me.

As an addition, I think the idea of discrete positional titles has been archaic and outmoded for a long time. Role-related descriptors seem the way to go.

[FuShengTHEGreat]

He was a scoring guard who was his team main playmaker. He usually played next to a typical SG like Barnett or Goodrich, though not always.

I have him as someone who started at SG and became full-time PG during his prime. It's reasonable to put him at both positions, it's fuzzy anyway.

What year would you say he made the switch to being a full time PG? He led the league in scoring for the first time in his career at 31, would you consider that still his prime?

I think it happened around 1962/63 season when the Lakers replaced Selvy with Barnett at the starting 5. There are reports about West improving his ball-handling skills in the sophomore season, but he still shared PG duties with Frank.

After that season, the only time I'd say it's arguable whether he was a PG or not was in 1966-67 period when Hazzard started next to him. Walt was mostly an on-call player and playmaker. After he left the Lakers, West shared backcourt with players like Clark, Goodrich and Garret, none of which took PG role from West.

I'd say that West ended his prime with 1971 injury, though his 1971-72 RS was still very close to that level .

If you were ranking him all time as a player do you lean more towards comparing him to MJ, Kobe?

Or do you more tend to rank him against Magic, Curry & Oscar?

[70sFan]

What year would you say he made the switch to being a full time PG? He led the league in scoring for the first time in his career at 31, would you consider that still his prime?

I think it happened around 1962/63 season when the Lakers replaced Selvy with Barnett at the starting 5. There are reports about West improving his ball-handling skills in the sophomore season, but he still shared PG duties with Frank.

After that season, the only time I'd say it's arguable whether he was a PG or not was in 1966-67 period when Hazzard started next to him. Walt was mostly an on-call player and playmaker. After he left the Lakers, West shared backcourt with players like Clark, Goodrich and Garret, none of which took PG role from West.

I'd say that West ended his prime with 1971 injury, though his 1971-72 RS was still very close to that level .

If you were ranking him all time as a player do you lean more towards comparing him to MJ, Kobe?

Or do you more tend to rank him against Magic, Curry & Oscar?

I think despite his immense scoring talent, the combination of his health issues and 1960s environment makes his career closer to Kobe than Jordan, though peak wise I can see him reaching closer to MJ.

I think West and Kobe are both in the same tier with Magic, Curry and Oscar.