Kobe Bryant vs. Jerry West: Do Career Numbers Favor West over Kobe?

Popular theory says Los Angeles Lakers guard Kobe Bryant will soon surpass Magic Johnson as the greatest player in the history of the franchise, if he hasn't already, but there is also a small but vocal contingent that says Bryant must first pass Lakers legend Jerry West.

Most Lakers fans feel Bryant cleared the West hurdle once he captured the franchise's career scoring record, but is the sum of Kobe's 27,000-plus points greater than the pieces that led to West's 25,000?

West's career averages certainly make a convincing argument.

From 1960-74 West averaged 27.0 points, 6.7 assists and 5.8 rebounds while connecting on 47 percent of his shots from the field. Conversely, Kobe has averaged 25.3 points, 5.1 rebounds and 4.7 assists while shooting 45 percent from the field during his 15-season career.

If you didn't notice, West just happens to hold a career edge over Bryant in each statistical category.

That's not even considering that West, who was one of the game's greatest jump shooters during his era, didn't have the benefit of the three-point line at any point in his career.

I guess if you hold up Kobe and West's career averages beside each other and factor in the point that West could have been a great three-point shooter, West would surely win the debate.

Unfortunately for the small West contingent, the conversation doesn't end with career averages, since there are several other important factors that should be taken into consideration.

West was one of the NBA's most dominant scorers of his time, but Bryant still managed to lead the league in scoring one more season than West did.

Bryant may never be the distance shooter West was, but he has been a good enough long-range scorer to hold a share of the NBA single-game record for three-point field goals made in a game. If his career ended today, Bryant would rank on the top-20 all-time list for both three pointers made and attempted.

That's not even a major part of Bryant's game.

NBA Finals appearances are something both West and Bryant are very familiar with, as West played on the game's grandest stage a total of nine times, and Bryant reached the postseason's final series seven times.

However, the similarity ends there since West was only able to capture one championship in his nine Finals' appearances, while Bryant's five championships equals Magic's team record.

Granted, winning rings is not everything, but when it comes to comparing great players, especially those who wore the same uniform, it may be the main thing.

The Lakers are arguably the greatest franchise in NBA history and while they have set the standard for Finals appearances, the Boston Celtics still own the league's record for most championships won.

Many of those Celtics rings came at the expense of West's Lakers. While time and subsequent championships have erased the wounds for those who may remember the team's failures during that period, it can't erase the fact that West lost more Finals series than any star player in NBA history.

Of course you could add in the fact that West's only Finals MVP was earned in a losing effort, and that is an extraordinary feat considering no one has ever done it before.

How does one Finals MVP award in a losing effort look next to two Finals MVP awards that were backed by the Larry O'Brien trophy?

I have the utmost respect for what West has done for the Lakers franchise on and off the court, but at the same time it would be silly to think that his career averages hold more weight than Kobe's career accomplishments.