Following Villanova’s second title in three years, I will take a look at the best pro player to ever come out of Villanova, Kyle Lowry. This opinion comes straight from Student Union’s resident Villanova fan, PJ Guippone. As a West Virginia student, and considering Villanova beat WVU on the way to the championship, I will take a look at Lowry’s career in comparison to WVU legend Jerry West. In my opinion, Kyle Lowry is the better pro player as compared to Jerry West. I’m not saying this is my opinion because I’m writing this due to a lost bet, but I’m also not not saying that.

I’ll strictly be looking at Kyle Lowry’s career with the Raptors, in comparison to West’s career during the same age span. Jerry West had the much easier path to success in his career. During the 60s when Jerry West played, there were very few great point guards in the league. Outside of West, there was the Big O, who was simply an unathletic version of Russell Westbrook. Besides them, the next best 2 are Bob Cousy, who was a very small, unathletic guy, and Walt Frazier.

Kyle Lowry in today’s game has to go against the aforementioned Russell Westbrook, Kyrie Irving, who has the best handles maybe of all time (all due respect to the Answer) Steph Curry, one of the best shooters ever, Dame Lillard, an all around top level player who needs more respect, and John Wall, who is one of the most freakishly athletic specimens on the planet, just to name a few. In addition to those freak athletes, you have stellar point guards from a skill perspective, that play like those at the position did in “the good old days,” just at a higher level. These are guys like Chris Paul, Mike Conley, and how Tony Parker was for years. Lastly, there are Magic Johnson level PGs that aren’t real PGs, just massive forwards who can handle the ball like Lebron, Ben Simmons and Kevin Durant, who sometimes play PG and have to be guarded by Lowry. Even with all this elite competition in today’s game, Lowry has consistently been able to cement himself in the conversation with some of the NBA’s best PGs, when I doubt that in today’s game Jerry West would be considered top 10.

In addition to Jerry West having a much much lower level of competition, Jerry West had more help in his time period than Lowry has now. The only top-level player Lowry has had while on the Raptors has been Demar DeRozan, who is a great player, don’t get me wrong, but isn’t exactly All-NBA level talent in today’s game. Jerry played with Gail Goodrich, who is the equivalent in their game of DeRozan now. DeRozan is a 4x All-Star and 0 time All-NBA, Goodrich is a 5x All-Star and a 1 time All-NBA. Goodrich has played more games, so there is time for DeRozan to improve and be better than Goodrich, but as of now, they are about equal for their time periods.

The problem then becomes after DeRozan, Lowry’s next best teammate is Jonas Valanciunas. Jerry West had Elgin Baylor. Some people say that Elgin Baylor is one of the best players of the 60s, better than Jerry West. Baylor was an 11 time All-Star while adding 10 All-NBA squads. He averaged 27.5 points, 13.5 rebounds, and 4.3 assists per game in that time. While those numbers would not be the same as today, for the game then, it was nearly unmatched, and helped to inflate West’s numbers, which were already inflated due to weaker competition.

While Kyle Lowry doesn’t get near the level of respect he deserves, he is still a top-level talent. It’s safe to say while Jerry West would still be relevant in today’s game, he would not be in the conversation for top 5 PGs in the league. If you give him the help that Kyle Lowry has had, I’m not even sure if he’s in the conversation for top 10. In reverse, give Lowry West’s team and time period, I would bet my life’s saving (yes, I know a whopping 10 dollars) that Lowry would have had a much more prolific career than Jerry West, and who knows, maybe Lowry would be the NBA logo.