Coach Nick of Bball Breakdown KILLS Jerry West:

[jrong]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMp7c2bcfkk

I lifted this video from RGM. It's his retro-breakdown of the famous Game 7 of the 1970 NBA Finals between the Lakers/ Knicks. And what he exposes is that West frequently dribbled with his right hand while going left.

I have to be honest-- this video does make me rethink where I rank West all-time. I understand that to a certain extent, cross-generational player comparisons have to be made within the context of how players played relative to the competition in their respective eras. But, this video, wow... just watch it.

[Sakkreth]

He also showed that he can drible with his left in this video, he just doesn't use his left if he's sure that the ball won't get stolen anyways, so it's no difference.

[jlip]

There was a thread done here on ISH about this very video about a month ago, and one of the posters showed multiple pictures of West dribbling with his left hand going right. The most popular image of West is actually the NBA logo itself which happens to be his silouhette. In that very image he is dribbling with his left hand.

[8BeastlyXIOAD]

Imagine Michael Beasley playing in the 70's

[Rekindled]

this game was one of the reason why wilt shouldnt be ranked in top5 of all time. dude got so scared by Willis Reed playing on 1 leg, he did nothing the rest of the game lol

[jrong]

He also showed that he can drible with his left in this video, he just doesn't use his left if he's sure that the ball won't get stolen anyways, so it's no difference.

The video shows Clyde Frazier pick the ball from him and score because he was going left and dribbling with his right hand.

[IGOTGAME]

Horrible breakdown....Players today still do that. He took a wide angle and was hopping while bringing the ball up. That has nothing to do with handle, I have seen guys like John Stockton, and Chris Paul do the same thing. If you reach in they are just going to blow by you and they know that. Horrible video...I'd like to see all the guys today that would continually rip Jerry West.

[chips93]

Imagine Michael Beasley playing in the 70's

new account again??? wtf?

[chains5000]

Does this mean this era's coaches >>>>>>>>>>>>>> 70's coaches?
I mean, it was easy as hell to stop West, even non NBA coaches know how to nowadays.

[Hammertime]

The video shows Clyde Frazier pick the ball from him and score because he was going left and dribbling with his right hand.

If it was that easy and if it was that glaring of a hole in this game, wouldn't he have been exploited more and consequently, have been a much worse player?

People love to point to deficiencies in a player's game and then claim that it would somehow prevent a player from succeeding at the highest level. A sort of popular belief has been created that you cannot possibly be a great basketball player unless you're about 6'5-6'9, black, quick, have a high vert and a wicked crossover.

Yes, Jerry West did not dribble with his left, and consequently, would probably have to avoid going left at all in today's league. He'd be far from the only star with glaring holes in their game.

Shaq shoots FTs worse than grade-schoolers, so conventional logic used to claim he'd be a liability in close games. How many close playoff games has Shaq cost his different teams on account of missed FTs? Shawn Marion has an ugly, ugly shot. He's hit half his shots for the career and a third of his threes. Does he get blocked a lot because he starts his shot from the chest, as conventional logic would say?

What about Kidd early in his career, when he was shooting in the .300s from the field? According to the logic of Rubio haters, if you can't hit a jumpshot, defense doesn't worry about you and you can't set your teammates up as well. Sure didn't stop Kidd from being a great distributor even back then. I could go on and on with examples.

The point I'm trying to make is that really talented players compensate for their weaknesses. Even Jordan had them. He couldn't really shoot threes consistently, but was he habitually left open beyond the arc? Hell no. Many current quality players, if you saw their college or overseas highlights and did not know they were in the NBA, would seem like they couldn't cut it in the league. The idea that West would be an automatic turnover every time he came down the court in today's league is very naive.

[G.O.A.T]

This guy is a goof, anyone over the age of 25 that goes by coach (insert first name here) is a douche.

If you know anything about the triangle offense, watch his video "breakdowns" of it where he gets basic terminology wrong and doesn't even understand the options off each pass.

I can't stand guys like this, I meet them everywhere I go, people who think they are coaches because they put the money up for an AAU team, he'd fit in great here at ISH with the other uninformed no-it-alls.

[wpdougie2180]

this game was one of the reason why wilt shouldnt be ranked in top5 of all time. dude got so scared by Willis Reed playing on 1 leg, he did nothing the rest of the game lol

What???? Didn't Wilt have a 20+ point, 20+ rebound game while holding the aforementioned Reed to 4. Meanwhile West (no knock on him) was getting slaughter to the tune of 36/19/7 with countless steals by Frazier to put that on Wilt is ridiculous. Back on topic a couple of highlights doesn't show what a player could do on the court the sooner people realize that the better.

[G.O.A.T]

this game was one of the reason why wilt shouldnt be ranked in top5 of all time. dude got so scared by Willis Reed playing on 1 leg, he did nothing the rest of the game lol

Reed was not a notable factor in the game other than running down that tunnel. There was nothing Wilt could have done about that.

I think he should have been more assertive considering he scored almost 50 the previous game, but he was like 1-10 from the line that game, so he was reluctant to go to the rim. He did have 24 of his teams 49 rebounds, which was as many as the top two Knicks players combined.

[jrong]

This guy is a goof, anyone over the age of 25 that goes by coach (insert first name here) is a douche.

If you know anything about the triangle offense, watch his video "breakdowns" of it where he gets basic terminology wrong and doesn't even understand the options off each pass.

I can't stand guys like this, I meet them everywhere I go, people who think they are coaches because they put the money up for an AAU team, he'd fit in great here at ISH with the other uninformed no-it-alls.

He also does video-breakdowns of current NBA games, and he rips all of today's players too. I think he's kind of obnoxious, actually.

And I'm not suggesting that West would be J.R. Smith's ***** or anything like that. I'm sure he'd still be a perennial all-star today.

But, put it this way, before seeing this, I would have never thought of comparing a player like say, Clyde Drexler, to West. Although Drexler had dribbling-related issues of his own....


....The other thing that for me is something I have to take account of, is the overall speed at which the players are moving collectively. While you can certainly see some of the skills that players widely seemed to possess that are lost arts today, the players are also moving in slow-motion by modern standards.

(The personal analogy that came to mind is my alma mater's D3 soccer team when we play the better D1 schools. My school is kind of like the D3 soccer equivalent of UConn women's basketball (google it if you want to know who we are). We've won 8 out of the last 11 national titles. And we do play D1 schools and beat a lot of them. We can probably beat the bottom half of all D1 teams.

But, when we play D1 teams in say the 50 - 75 percentile, there's no difference in skill; in fact, often we're superior in that department. But, D3 schools don't get the super-stud athletes. And athletically, we just can't keep up....)

[VoltFaceCons]

Awesome video and awesome channel. Thanks for posting.


And did I hear him say that his hand was hurt in that video? I'm pretty sure he did.