West is the best small guard of all-time. He isn't technically a point guard like the names listed above, but functionally played as one for the peak of his career and certainly isn't a wing. He was the best perimeter scorer for basically his entire career, and also was perhaps the greatest player of all-time at getting to the free throw line. His 840 free throws made in 1965-66 are still the most ever made in a season, nearly 100 more than Harden made this season. His shooting efficiency, while good but not great by today's standards, were basically revolutionary for guards during his time. His 47 percent career mark is 10 points higher than Cousy's.
In 1965, with Baylor sidelined, West averaged 40.5 ppg during the playoffs, losing to the Celtics in the Finals. Obviously, with the possible exception of Pete Maravich, West is the older player who would have benefited the most from the three point line. He also ranks 32nd all-time in career assists, despite not being a traditional point guard and playing during a time when assists were calculated differently and harder to come by. Oh, and he was also the best defensive guard for his entire career and renowned for his toughness across the league. During his time, West was a combination of James Harden on offense and Marcus Smart on defense
Yeah, I was grappling with how to categorize Jerry West as soon as I posted my list. In absolute terms, he was about the same size as Steph or Nash, though relative to players of his era he was a legit-sized SG; and he typically played alongside a smaller guy (Gail Goodrich, Walt Hazzard, Archie Clark, e.g.) On the other hand, as you say, he was a clearly their lead guard in terms of usage, minutes, and assists.
As an aside: while I know “absolute terms” is not really the spirit of this convo, I gotta say it was kinda shocking to me to watch a good couple-hour chunk of the 1969 Finals and see how (relatively) unskilled West and the other luminaries in that game — Havlicek, Nellie, Wilt, Russell, etc. — were compared to the stars of today. West was able to dominate the games I saw with what appeared to be 2 or 3 dribble moves, and no left hand to speak of. Just many levels less advanced than the playmaking arsenals of Curry, Kyrie, Nash, CP3, e.g.
As far as shooting, while West’s star would no doubt have shined even brighter had he had the three-ball in his era, his career FT% (basically the one context-independent stat we have) was an excellent-but-not-elite 81.4%, suggesting he might not have been as elite from behind the arc as, say, Steph (90.5%) or Nash (90.4%).
That said, we can only compare players to their era, and in that regard, the Logo was totally dominant. And on balance, yeah, he makes a lot more sense under “smalls” than alongside huge wings like LeBron, Bird and KD. I can’t really see a strong argument for him over Steph (both because I’m a Steph stan and because Steph has him by rings, most stats, NBA records, and historic significance). But I think he slots in pretty comfortably at #2 on the list — which has the added benefit of knocking off Isiah, who I always feel is pretty massively overrated.
So, with a measure of recency bias (which I feel is somewhat appropriate given the advances in skill, athleticism, size of talent pool, and prominence of the league):
Smalls
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Curry
West
Stockton
Nash
CP3