How Great Was Jerry West Actually?

so how good was Jerry West actually now that's a question I'm going to try to answer in this video but before I do make sure you like And subscribe I would really appreciate it that being said let's just get started I have some things to talk about then I'm going to make some b a very bold statement in a minute or two and then we'll proceed from there so first of all let's talk about his height I think it's important to know physical attributes of a player as you can see if you were to go to basketball reference or Google it would say that Jerry was is 63 175 lb but if you watch or if you look up Jerry West and Oscar Robertson for example and you look at photos of them standing next to each other they're about pretty close in height you know Jerry West is listed 63 Oscar is listed 65 Jerry West is clearly taller now how tall exactly was Jerry West well he told I want to know how you average 13 rebounds a game in college as a 6-2 guard it's incredible well I'm really not 6'2 I'm 6'4 and a half and I have about a 40in sleeve length so and I was I was an athlete could run basketball's a game of anticipation quickness uh how your mind is wired and I was always a good rebounder and even in the NBA I was a good rebounder he was now that's very important 64 and a half with long arms Jerry West was not a small guard contrary to popular belief and I I've seen Clips I think Shannon sharp one time on on first take or not first take uh Undisputed he had said that Stephen Curry was better than Oscar cuz Stephen Curry was you know taller he he was about 62 63 and Oscar was like 61 or something ridiculous he said obviously I don't blame Shannon cuz I don't expect him to be an expert in this situation but Jerry West was again let me see if it shows here his height yeah it says 63 here again he was 64 and a half he was taller than pretty much every guard in the NBA at the time except Oscar and maybe Walt Frasier might have been taller but that's a big uh big guy uh or another name now in terms of build in terms of like what build would be like he's pretty much dwade I mean think about dwade that he has similar build to dwade in terms of height and length with like arms and and wingspan but athletically he said that he was always an athlete now one thing I will confirm is if he were to do the math on his jumps he had about a 38 and a half maybe 39 in vertical which is absolutely ridiculous that's a very impressive vertical especially for like someone who you wouldn't expect to be able to jump that high because you don't see any clips of him dunking you know now I'm going to say something very controversial now but then I'll support it and I I'll bring it back to you a couple years ago a guy might named M Mike rmo made a video about Lonzo ball and he called him Stephen Curry with a 40in vertical which was a very viral video and a lot of people clowned him for years because of that but I want to make a statement and say Jerry West to be if Jerry West was described as Stephen Curry with the 40-in vertical it would be inaccurate because Jerry West and Stephen Curry don't play the same way but it would be accurate in the sense that that's how good Jerry West was where it's yeah you need that type of expression to be able to show people how good Jerry West was now one of the things I want to point out in terms of jump shooting Jerry West is one of the best Shooters in NBA history something very important it's pretty much the found I would say I would call it the foundation of his game now there's a reason I'm saying that and maybe I'll explain it better in a second but I want you to see his beautiful jump shot and actually look at his jump shot really quickly let me make this big for you guys look at this beautiful jump he has one of the most beautiful jump shots I've ever seen just quick smooth fast just perfect absolutely perfect why is that important well his pullup jumper is even more insane look at this go right pull-up Bang Yeah he was nice I'm telling you right now Jerry West was nice his pull-up jumper was Unstoppable part of the reason he was so clutch and clutch situations was because of that pull-up jumper he has a lot of game winners on the pull-up jumper it's hard to contest those types of jump shots it's kind of like Kevin Durant where he pulls up and he's so much taller than everybody and he just shoots over everybody but Jerry West was just so quick with it that you couldn't get a contest off in time it was very hard to block his jumper I mean I think I've only seen a field clips of a center I think wi maybe Nate Thurman or maybe Bill Russell as well who were able to block it but they I mean they have a huge height advantage and we're freak athletes so that is something thing to point out now there's more to his game besides just shooting obviously that is the foundation of his game but he was an overall great scorer he knew how to drive he can he I mean he knew how to play the game multiple facets but he was a great scorer to just put it simply if you can look I mean you can see in the playoffs as well he had some ridiculous playoff runs 40 points per game for a whole playoff run 34.2 um 30 30.9 L the playoffs in scoring a couple years in the regular season you only led the league in scoring one time in 1970 because of Will and because of r Barry who pretty much held those titles for years because well I mean they were just really good at scoring but Jerry could definitely score 27 points per game for his career that's I think four I think I think it's four or five all time uh but another thing to point out and he said in in the video he was a great rebounder and he was you know you're a 64 and a half point guard and you're averaging seven seven or eight rebounds a game a couple years seven rebounds a game a couple years go up and down between six and seven and the only reason you drop below pretty much six is because will joins the team and it's hard to get rebounds over him yeah you're a pretty good rebounder in my opinion now another thing I want to point out is his efficiency in the 60s shooting 47% in the 60s is absolutely mindboggling if you any if you done any research on the 60s you understand why I say that because the paint was clogged back then it was very hard to get into the paint and when you did the center waiting for you was either Bill Russell Nate Thurman wit Chamberlain most of the time or at least 30% of the time you know which it sounds crazy to say but that's the truth right and then Kareem joined the NBA and they had other great centers like Bob laner was in the NBA and Dave Cowans and Wes unseld and uh Walt bellam me and and I mean there was more great centers than just Will Bill Russell and and aate Thurman that's the point that I'm making but his efficiency inside was insane because of that jumper I mean I I just I'm telling people like this is ridiculous I mean to to be able to shoot that type of efficiency in the 1960s and you had to shoot a lot of jump shots because of the way the game was played yeah you're pretty darn good you know and by the way one thing I think uh I think I maybe I can find the clip but Jerry W would talk about how he would go inside the paint and sometimes he would just jump really high and just lay it up right which he would use that vertical today he would go in and Tomahawk dunk on somebody and you'd be like oh yeah he's he's pretty you know he's nice so I think he would be a highlight re today but I want to skip this for a second right and talk about his steals per game now there's a reason I'm talking about his steals per game before I get into another thing but he averaged 2.6 steals per game in the last year of his career now that's official right and he only played 31 games and 31 minutes per game which is very impressive because and here's a crazy fact I don't think anybody has a better run in 30 games with in terms of steals in 30 games he had one 10 Steel game which is insane that is dang near I think that might be the record wait let me let me look it up uh most wait steals in a game NBA I think it's 11 right yeah that was one away from the record yeah Jerry West and Larry steel both recorded 10 steals in a single NBA game wait are you serious is that wait am I tripping or is this what wait what hold on hold up let me I got to check this no okay yeah just making sure Jerry West had 10 Steals and that was what the 20th game of his season and he had a 10 steal I mean think about it he definitely did this multiple times throughout his career especially in his prime you know he had a 10 Steel game then a seven Steel game he almost had a quadruple double in that game my goodness he had a five Steel game five Steel game five Steel game five Steel games yeah he was a pretty ridiculous uh guy he had very quick hands great timing he knew how to steal the ball we don't have the official stats for his regular I mean his most of his career obviously except for the last year of his career but we could assume that it was between three and a half maybe four steals a game which sounds crazy but no he was like that he was really good at getting the ball which the reason I'm pointing out to Steels is that makes him a great defender alone that ability to steal the ball is very valuable right that's you're talking a four possession difference if you steal the ball four times in a game and you go down and make a layup that's a four possession difference like that could be an eight-point swing like that right which is very valuable I mean you talk about winning games that's very valuable but another thing is he's a great shot blocker which I forgot to mention but he's one of the best shot blocking guards in NBA history and I think YouTube used to have a good video I don't I think they I think they took it down but in the past you could find a video of Jerry West playing shot blocking defense like strictly just blocking shots and it was pretty darn good I think you can find it on Twitter now but yeah no it's pretty ridiculous I mean he was a great shot blocker but nonetheless if if I were to rank him in terms of defensive guards all the time he would be maybe top five maybe maybe top five I'm trying to think maybe top 10 defensive guards of all time uh he would be the second best in the 60s I think behind Walt Frasier which is a good very good thing so there there's the defense that I wanted to talk about but now I want to get back to the assist and there's a reason I saved assist for L for last because I have a question before I continue is do you consider Jerry as a point guard or a shooting guard because he definitely played both positions so I don't know what I would consider him but I mean if you can see in his career at the end of his career he was playing point guard he was averaging 9 and a half 9.7 assists per game 8.8 assist per game in the playoffs he did the same where he averaged he let the the league and and assist in the playoffs as well and yeah so what do you considering point guard or shooting guard because and here's where it gets crazy I'm going to say it and I'm just going to let people I think this is going to really let people realize how great he was if Jerry West right is a point guard then he as a pure point guard he would be the third best point guard ever right when you consider the the passing side of the game straight like where you value it more behind Oscar and Magic right but because he's such a great scorer such a great defender he makes up for he he's much better than everybody else right so as a point guard he would be third as a shooting guard his ability to score defend you know play off the ball move move around shoot everything whatever you whatever you want to talk about a shooting guard he would be tied for second with Kobe in my eyes it would be Michael then Kobe and Jerry West now if you consider a combo guard I think Jerry West is clearly the best combo guard in NBA history I don't think anybody has ever combined the ability to play point guard and shooting guard as good as he did right now the word combo guard is a great word because I'm going bring him back to Stephen Curry remember I mentioned Stephen Curry and I said Jerry West would be described in a sense like that Steph Curry with a 40in vertical Well Steph Curry gets a lot of hype today and I've seen people put him in the top 10 I've seen people put him in the top five to be honest with you but I don't believe Stephen Curry is a better player than Jerry West in my opinion I think Jerry West's defensive Edge is insane I think Jerry West's ability to play both the point guard and the shooting guard and be a true point guard is insane I don't think Curry plays point guard but he's really more a shooting guard than anything I don't think he can play like a facilitator role personally I don't I don't see him doing that so that to me gives Jerry West the edge in terms of just specific ability I think Jerry West is a better scorer I think he's a better Defender I think he's a better passer he's a better rebounder he's a better playmaker now that's unfair for curry for other reasons but I'm not going to get into that so I I just to put it simply I think this also this is another thing that I'm going to point out this really makes me realize how great players are like how hard it is to crack the top 10 because I want to say Jerry West is top 10 but when I say that there's a lot of names that come to mind and I go o that's a debate you see what I mean so but in terms of like shooting guards I would put him neck and neck with Kobe wherever you rank Kobe I think you should Jank rank Jerry West and I've seen people K Kobe at one I think if you put Kobe at one you might as well put Jerry West at two that's how that's how simply great he was so I I not to make this video too long but I wanted to talk about that and it's obviously my first video back in a couple days I've been dealing with that vertical so I apologize if it's not the same type of video that I made before uh but yeah no I just I just wanted to show you guys that so anyways God bless you Jesus loves you um take care I hope you guys get saved one day and yeah goodbye