10 playoff runs for LAL, 5,845 playoff minutes. Every number is adjusted for the opponent faced and the league of its time.
Note that players before the 1980s carry more variance and guesswork due to limited data.
Outside of Jordan, Jerry West is the most complete guard in NBA history. He had range, defense, passing, and arguably better playoff scoring than Kobe or Steph. However, All defensive teams didn’t exist for most of his career, nor were steals and blocks recorded. He never won MVP - making him the greatest ever to not win one. He went 1-8 in the NBA finals, despite being an all time playoff performer, nicknamed “Captain Clutch.” In 1969 he won Finals MVP in a losing effort, averaging 37.9 points a game, the only time a player on the losing team has ever won the award. And he’s a white guy who played in the sixties so of course he’s underrated.
After just one ramp up rookie season where he was “only” an all star level impact player, he averaged 31 and 8 in year two. This started a 10 year stretch where he averaged between 25 and 31 ppg and between five and ten assists per game. With the pace of that era, the adjusted numbers you will see on the leaderboards don’t look “all-time” impressive, 24-28 points per 75. But take a look at the efficiency. Plus 6, 7, 8, 9! Points better than league average. West was simply a more advanced offensive player than most during his time. He had flawless shooting mechanics, a low sitting handle which allowed him to penetrate the defense and draw fouls, leading the league in free-throw makes and attempts in 1966 and 1970. Similar to today’s modern shooters, if you gave him any amount of space he would drain the jumper in your face with his lightning quick, high release jumpshot. If you played him too close he would blow by his defenders and get to the hole. In 1966 he scored over 31 points per game and led the league in true shooting percentage. This feat of scoring over 30 and leading the league in efficiency has only been matched one other time - in Steph Curry’s mythical 2016 regular season. He was also one of the first (along with Oscar) to routinely manipulate double teams and turn the scoring attempts for himself into layup attempts for his Hall of Fame teammates Baylor and Chamberlain.
West was also elite defensively. He had a 6’9” wingspan and was a very cagey defender, but also very active. In the limited film we have of the 1960s, he can be seen blocking opponents jump shots on the perimeter from behind and coming in from the side, as well as blocking shots near the top of the square on the backboard. The all defensive teams didn’t exist during most of his career, but even after a few career changing knee injuries he made 1st team all defense four consecutive times and 2nd team once.
What really sets “The Logo” apart is how consistently fantastic and dominant he was in the playoffs. You can see his numbers below, but in the heart of his career, from 1961-1968, he didn’t have any duds. He didn’t lay any eggs, he was brilliant series after series, even against the greatest defenses of all time. Russell’s Celtics were upwards of 10 points better than league average in defensive rating, and West averaged 29 per 75 on +10 true shooting against them in the playoffs over his career (6 series). A literal flamethrower. In comparison, Kobe only had one series his whole career that topped both the volume and efficiency that West put up against the best defenses the league has ever seen. The other factor is his consistency, he didn’t have a Steph in the 2016 finals, or a Kobe vs Detroit in 2004. Durant had 2016 against Dallas. Dirk had 2007, everybody outside of MJ had a bad scoring series in the playoffs. Not Jerry. 26 on +12, 29 on +8, 34 on +5, he was money, every time. It wasn’t until after his knee injury and Wilt joined his team in 1969, heavily changing to the offense, that he had his first poor showing, against Atlanta in 1969.
Due to his relatively short career by today’s standards, a lack of MVP awards, and only one title, combined with the era tax put on him by those of lesser intellectual capacity, Jerry West isn't discussed in conversations of the league’s greatest players. You’ll notice that in all the other player profiles, I go over a player’s weaknesses. Jerry West truly didn’t have any on-court weaknesses. He didn’t have Magic’s poor defense. He didn’t have Steph’s 2016 finals. His numbers didn’t go down in the playoffs like Durant, they went up. Not to mention no burner accounts. He didn’t have Wade’s lack of shooting or Kobe’s overshooting and under-passing. The only thing really missing is time on the court: health and volume of elite seasons. Now, for me, that’s a huge part of how I rank players on any all time list. Having 6 MVP seasons is better than 2. And 9 MVP seasons is better than 5. West played basically the entire ‘67 and ‘71 seasons at an MVP level and got hurt right before or immediately as the playoffs started. How you scale injuries into your player evaluations is going to differ from person to person. But just as a thought exercise, let’s plug in those two seasons as MVP level, similar to how his surrounding seasons are, and compare to the other all-time guards, not named Michael Jordan.
| Magic | Curry | Kobe | West | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Years needed to ramp up to MVP level | 2 | 5 | 3 | 1 |
| All-NBA 1st team or MVP level (or above) seasons | 10 | 9 | 11 | 9 (7 + 2 injury-adjusted) |
| Super Saiyan MVP level seasons | 3 | 3 | 0 | 0 |
| Semi-washed post-prime seasons of value | 1 All-Star | 1.5 All-NBA | 1 All-NBA, 2 All-Star | 2 All-NBA |
| Totally washed, post-post-prime seasons | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 |
That’s pretty damn even. If we’re charitable about ranking his late season injury seasons and have some kind of era-based longevity curving, I think there’s a case for West being as high as 10th all time. The only reason his impact doesn’t get into the highest level is due to the restrictions on offensive output in the 1960s. You could say he should have had more assists, but the Luka Doncic/James Harden model didn’t exist back then. One player just didn’t have that high of usage. Additionally, there was no 3-point line, so there wasn’t a concept of gravity or true floor spacing. That and the league having fewer teams, meaning there isn’t as much of a gap one can create on offense vs the rest of the league are the only knocks on West outside of his longevity. Overall, someone with 7-9 MVP level seasons, the best offensive player of his era who was also a great defender and an all time playoff performer with remarkable consistency and all time scoring numbers places him somewhere between 10 and 20th all time, and I currently have him 16th.
The 1967 and 1971 playoffs are absent because West was hurt at the start of them. 1961 is absent from the season and window tables because its playoff sample is incomplete, and 1974 because he played only 31 games and the Lakers lost without him.
Multi-year windows count playoff years only. The best window depends on what you measure.
| Best by | Window | Years | Value | MP |
|---|
Regular season team results by year. ORtg and DRtg are points per 100 possessions. rOff is ORtg minus the league average, and rDef is the league average minus DRtg, so a positive number is good for both. A dash in the seed column means the figure is not in the dataset (1971 and 1974 W-L, seed and SRS).
| Year | Team | Age | GP | W-L | Seed | SRS | ORtg | DRtg | Net | rOff | rDef |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1961 | LAL | 22 | 79 | 36-43 | 2 | -0.11 | 90.8 | 90.9 | -0.1 | -1.3 | 1.2 |
| 1962 | LAL | 23 | 75 | 54-26 | 1 | 1.8 | 95 | 93.3 | 1.7 | 1.4 | 0.3 |
| 1963 | LAL | 24 | 55 | 53-27 | 1 | 2.67 | 97.4 | 94.7 | 2.7 | 1.5 | 1.2 |
| 1964 | LAL | 25 | 72 | 42-38 | 3 | -0.87 | 97.9 | 97 | 0.9 | 3.3 | -2.4 |
| 1965 | LAL | 26 | 74 | 49-31 | 1 | 1.7 | 97.4 | 95.8 | 1.6 | 3.8 | -2.2 |
| 1966 | LAL | 27 | 79 | 45-35 | 1 | 2.76 | 98.3 | 95.7 | 2.6 | 3.4 | -0.8 |
| 1967 | LAL | 28 | 66 | 36-45 | 3 | 0.31 | 97.4 | 97.1 | 0.3 | 1.3 | -1 |
| 1968 | LAL | 29 | 51 | 52-30 | 2 | 4.99 | 101.7 | 97 | 4.7 | 4.9 | -0.2 |
| 1969 | LAL | 30 | 61 | 55-27 | 1 | 3.84 | 98.5 | 94.9 | 3.6 | 3 | 0.6 |
| 1970 | LAL | 31 | 74 | 46-36 | 2 | 1.76 | 99.1 | 97.4 | 1.7 | 0.1 | 1.6 |
| 1971 | LAL | 32 | 69 | – | – | – | 98.8 | 96.1 | 2.7 | 1.6 | 1.1 |
| 1972 | LAL | 33 | 77 | 69-13 | 1 | 11.65 | 103.1 | 92.6 | 10.5 | 5.2 | 5.3 |
| 1973 | LAL | 34 | 69 | 60-22 | 2 | 8.16 | 99.4 | 91.8 | 7.6 | 2.6 | 5 |
| 1974 | LAL | 35 | 31 | – | – | – | 97.4 | 96.6 | 0.8 | -0.3 | 1.1 |
His 25 best playoff games, in ranked order by default (Rank). Click any column to re-sort, for example Game Score, and click Rank to return to the ranking. Context marks the game: E for an elimination game, CO for a closeout game, and 7 for a Game 7 (5 for a deciding game in a best-of-five series). Steals, blocks and turnovers were not recorded in his era, so those columns are absent. TS% is true shooting and rTS% is true shooting relative to the opponent's defense.
The sortable version of the series rows above. Every playoff series in the dataset, in order, including the 1961 Western Division finals. Pts, aTS and the box score columns are per 75 possessions and adjusted for the opponent. Assists were not tracked for some early series, so those cells are blank. Click any column to re-sort.