Seriously though how come Jerry West gets a pass?

[derb2k2]

1-8

[Akhenaten]

he played before fans iq'd dropped into the negative levels and a guy who makes the finals and loses gets a bigger ding than someone who misses the playoffs all together.

Not at all, I'm talking in the context of being compared to other all time greats not the Jarret Jack's of the world. So in relation to your Bryant's, Wade's, Jordan, Drexler etc you dont consider it a titantic demerit to have gone to 9 finals and lose 8?

How so? Especially considering many of those years there were only 8 teams in the league and he was on stacked rosters.

[Spurs5Rings2014]

How so? Especially considering many of those years there were only 8 teams in the league and he was on stacked rosters.

Not his fault he played with the LeBron of his era.

[stalkerforlife]

He doesn't get a pass...lol

No one considers him top 10.

[Psileas]

That's like john stockton numbers after you adjust for pace....honestly NEVER post per game stats from that era.

He led the playoffs in scoring in 4 (practically consecutive) seasons, including that one. Stockton was even top 10 only once (because of playing in only a short, 3 game, series).

[zeerghit]

The greatest laker ever, end of story.

[Norcaliblunt]

Why does your mom get a pass for having you? Because she's a bad bitch.

[La Frescobaldi]

somewhat fair i suppose, still a much faster pace than we generally see today in the playoffs.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/playoffs/

not as big a difference as some think. There's about 5 or 8 points difference. Some of the teams had guys like Jerry West so their points are higher than the league averages.
Funny thing is, no 3 point line.
FG% by 1967 or 68 were not very far off from today, either.
League average about .42 or .43% vs. .44 or .45% today.

Obviously, since it's awful close to the same FG% that means they took more shots, and more still since there was no 3 point line... so yeah pace was faster. Which matches the eye test - the game was much faster in those days. But people who go around talking about pace of 130 or more are just making things up, see, without even bothering to verify anything. Assuming.
A pace of 100 gets about 88 or 90 FG attempts per game and 108 or 110 pts; a pace of 102 gives about 90 to 92 FGAs and about 110 or 112 pts. True in the '70s, true in the '80s, true today.
We might extrapolate a pace of 112 or 115, maybe even as high as 120 in the early '60s when they REALLY ran.... but 130+ there's no basis for it anywhere.
Look at Phoenix with Nash - a fast team by any recent level..... pace of 96, running about 110 ppg. Of course the 3pt skews things some but the point stands; they were getting around 10 extra points a game from the 3. Take away the 3s and get the same points, their pace is well up over a hundred. Or look at them in 2006
Depends on where you look, apparently.

A funny thing; if you just take Wilt Chamberlain out of the league stat sheets they look very very similar to any other year. He warped the entire league's stat sheet up until he stopped shooting around '69. Notice, for example, the entire league suddenly jumped 7 ppg when he came in as a rookie. Every team had to start sprinting to keep up.

Notice also if you take him out of the picture and look at the league leaders, they look just about like any other season, too.

The game was much much faster in those days - the transition game was much more important. And Jerry West was one of the fastest of all.

[SouBeachTalents]

Not at all, I'm talking in the context of being compared to other all time greats not the Jarret Jack's of the world. So in relation to your Bryant's, Wade's, Jordan, Drexler etc you dont consider it a titantic demerit to have gone to 9 finals and lose 8?

How so? Especially considering many of those years there were only 8 teams in the league and he was on stacked rosters.

West has better career Finals numbers than the bolded. I'll just leave this from another thread

Lol at West being on this list, dude is probably the third greatest Finals performer of all time after Jordan & Shaq. They played at a faster pace then, but check out some of his Finals performances

1962: 31/5/3 on 46%
1963: 30/7/5 on 49%
1965: 34/6/3 on 42%
1966: 34/6/5 on 52%
1968: 31/6/6 on 49%
1969: 38/5/7 on 49%
1970: 31/3/8 on 45%

[La Frescobaldi]

Not at all, I'm talking in the context of being compared to other all time greats not the Jarret Jack's of the world. So in relation to your Bryant's, Wade's, Jordan, Drexler etc you dont consider it a titantic demerit to have gone to 9 finals and lose 8?

How so? Especially considering many of those years there were only 8 teams in the league and he was on stacked rosters.

The Lakers weren't stacked at all in the '60s. Not even close. Even by the standards of the day when every team was "stacked" with the best out of college. They had West & Baylor, and nothing. LeRoy Ellis or Mel Counts were fine centers but if you wanna call them a great center go ahead lol

Chamberlain showed up in '69 and they could field a good starting squad but that was still a weak team overall with an unbelievably bad coach. The first shot they had was in '71 when Gail Goodrich showed up but both Baylor and West missed the playoffs injured, and '72 which they won. By '73 those guys were old and out of gas.

[Akhenaten]

West has better career Finals numbers than the bolded. I'll just leave this from another thread

so gaudy raw numbers mean more than perennial losses in the Finals?

[dhsilv]

Not at all, I'm talking in the context of being compared to other all time greats not the Jarret Jack's of the world. So in relation to your Bryant's, Wade's, Jordan, Drexler etc you dont consider it a titantic demerit to have gone to 9 finals and lose 8?

How so? Especially considering many of those years there were only 8 teams in the league and he was on stacked rosters.

I'd agree that having 9 teams in the league for a good chunk of his career is something worthy of questioning his status. But the converse to this is West made the nba finals 9 times. That is more than Bryant, Wade, Jordan, and Drexler.

Missing the playoffs is a titantic demerit. Making the finals and losing is still a good guy on your list of accomplishments. Otherwise you're literally saying it's better for someone's career to win less games. This is just an absurd notion.

Now if he played he was horrible in the finals, that would possibly open us up to another topic, but by all accounts he is one of the most clutch players in nba history.

[LAZERUSS]

Not at all, I'm talking in the context of being compared to other all time greats not the Jarret Jack's of the world. So in relation to your Bryant's, Wade's, Jordan, Drexler etc you dont consider it a titantic demerit to have gone to 9 finals and lose 8?

How so? Especially considering many of those years there were only 8 teams in the league and he was on stacked rosters.

West played in league's that had 8 teams in his rookie season. He played in leagues with 9 teams from '62 thru '66; 10 teams in '67; 12 teams in '68; 14 teams in '69 and '70; and 17 teams from '71 thru '74.

He went to the Finals in '62, '63, '65, '66, '68, '69, '70, '72, and '73.

His teams lost to the greatest dynasty in NBA history in six of them ('62, '63, '65, '66, '68, and '69); the 60-22 Knicks and their four HOFers in '70; and the Knicks and their six HOFers in '73. And they beat the Knicks and their five HOFers in '72.

Furthermore, his teams lost in seven games in the '62 Finals (losing game seven by three points in OT); seven games in '66 (losing game seven by two points); seven games in '69 (losing game seven by two points); and seven games in '70 (as a considerable under-dog.)

If West were to have a black mark, it would have been the fact that in his only title run, he was mired in the worst shooting slump of his career (shooting .376 in the post-season, and an even worse .325 in the Finals.)

Only on ISH would making the Finals NINE times be considered some kind of failure. Especially factoring in that he played brilliantly in most all of them, and lost four in game seven's (three by razor-thin margins.)

[Akhenaten]

The Lakers weren't stacked at all in the '60s. Not even close. Even by the standards of the day when every team was "stacked" with the best out of college. They had West & Baylor, and nothing. .

you realize you are really dumping on that era right?

so these two players with with assorted excrement surrounding them (or as you put it NOTHING) dominated the era going to 6 out of the ten Finals, what does that say about the teams they were competing against?

You're literally saying the 60's teams outside of the Lakers and Celtics were complete garbage

[sdot_thadon]

He got a "pass" until the Jordan era. Everyone's expectations and standards got severely mutated, even stuff that's history.