Baller2014 wrote:A good defensive guard can't go inside the post to guard the other team's biggest player, like Malone often did. A good defensive guard can't deter people from going into the paint by throwing his elbows and body around and knocking guys unconscious. I'm not sure what to make of West's D, but as a point guard he's playing a position where his D has the least impact on the game.
This really isn't a counter to what I said because I can just say that Malone couldn't defend guards like West, and Malone couldn't playing the pass lanes or pressure the ball the way West could.
Even just comparing West to contemporaries, and what was being said about West's play at the time, what has Malone ever done to separate himself from or match West's finals runs in '65, '66, '68, '69 and '70?
I cited the pace differences for those years in my edited post above. When we adjust for pace West would almost certainly have much worse numbers than Malone. The Jazz (and other teams) played at nowhere near the pace of the teams in the 60's.
1) I don't agree with that assessment. It was a 49 game sample size, and the 92 run was only 16 games.
What don't you agree with? That was basically 1/3 the sample size, the '92 run was so far beyond his norm, or his efficiency in any other run, and as I pointed it out, if you look at it the other years, Malone was regularly a sub-54 TS% player in the postseason.
2) 54TS% is good. It's higher than West has some/most years. His career playoff TS% is 54%! Malone shouldn't be punished because he played in an era where people had better midrange games than West's time (and thus had better efficiency). That's absurd.
Except Malone was usually under 54 TS%, and at league average or slightly below. That really isn't good, especially for someone who is known for scoring.
Why are you mentioning career? You pick out what you think is Malone's best 5 year stretch, but then compare it to West's career? I never use career numbers because it includes decline years and early years, sometimes before a player is even close to their prime. Plus, you have to factor in volume.
In West's case, look at this.
1965- 40.6 ppg, 5.7 rpg, 5.3 apg, 44.2 FG%, 89 FT%, 53.4 TS%, 11 games
1966- 34.2 ppg, 6.2 rpg, 5.6 apg, 51.8 FG%, 87.2 FT%, 58.1 TS%, 14 games
1968- 30.8 ppg, 5.4 rpg, 5.5 apg, 52.7 FG%, 78.1 FT%, 59.6 TS%, 15 games
1969- 30.9 ppg, 3.9 rpg, 7.5 apg, 46.3 FG%, 80.4 FT%, 54.2 TS%, 18 games
1970- 31.2 ppg, 3.7 rpg, 8.4 apg, 46.9 FG%, 80.2 FT%, 55 TS%, 18 games
So yes, Malone's '92 run was more efficient, but it came on 29 ppg as opposed to West's 31 ppg on 60 TS%, but more importantly, after West's '65 run which was only 53.4 TS%(a typical Malone run) except on over
40 ppg West was regularly topping a normal run for Malone every other year while scoring more in all of these runs than Malone did in any of his runs.
Go ahead, try to find someone else in West's era who was putting up these types of numbers in the playoffs. I excluded '67 because West only played 1 minute in those playoffs, so that's obviously not fair to use, but outside of that, this is every year from '65-'70.
So West was much better compared to his peers, and West was regularly facing top defenses of his era such as Boston year after year in the finals then the Knicks in 1970.
Looking at them against their peers, I don't see the case for Malone. West was regarded as a great playoff performer for reason, while Malone, was not.
I took a peak season from Jerry West where he went to the finals (I chose 66) and Karl Malone (I chose 98 -- both have several seasons close to these that could be chosen instead but these are finals appearances with good postseasons -- unlike say 97). Both were 2nd in MVP voting. 
