David West chased a ring after he left the Indiana Pacers and got it, but he still left a legacy with the team he took to a pair of Eastern Conference Finals.
David West called it a career on Thursday, retiring as a two-time All-Star and winner of two NBA championships. His legacy with the Indiana Pacers, however, had already had the final chapter written.
For some, his choice to leave the Pacers to chase a title — first with the San Antonio Spurs and then successfully with the Golden State Warriors — rubbed them the wrong way. But as always, West did it on his terms.
While no one is left from that era on the current Pacers team, he set the tone for the teams that pressed the Miami Heat to the limit. West didn’t win a title in Indiana, but he made sure the Pacers were in the right mindset to win one.
After Indiana team upset the Heat in Game 2 of the conference semifinals, West stopped some of younger players from savoring the moment for too long and got their butts off the floor in a hurry. The message to his teammates was clear: They won a game, it wasn’t time to celebrate because there was still work to be done.
It’s too easy to define him by that moment, but it let you know what kind of player West was.
And it isn’t an exaggeration to say he was the unquestioned voice. Back in 2014, SB Nation’s Paul Flannery detailed how West’s leadership role worked.
"“David is the real reason why this locker room is the way it is,” George said. “The second he came here he had everyone playing as a team and giving himself and sacrificing himself for the betterment of the team. That just flew throughout the whole locker room. He’s so wise. It’s beyond basketball, some of the conversations that we have.”In the locker room, his voice is the unquestioned authority. He’s the one who decides when the joke has gone too far or whether the music should be turned down. “When he speaks,” Hibbert said, “you listen.”Naturally, West shrugs off the suggestion that he is the team’s de facto leader.“We don’t walk around labeling, you’re this or that. Everybody’s got a voice in the locker room because everybody’s got to be held accountable,” West said. “We’re asking you to do a job defensively. That’s what we expect of you. Our coach will go off and get mad when he has to, our assistants the same way. But first and foremost it comes from us. We police each other so we make sure we’re holding each other accountable. Everybody has a voice. Everybody can say what needs to be said so when we get out there to play we’re all on the same page.”"
Leadership is often overblown, but when you have a true leader like West (or now, Victor Oladipo), the effects are tangible.
West helped keep the ship pointed in the right direction — until the Struggle, at least — and possibly got more out of the team than expected. Paul George was clearly the best player, but West was the team’s leader.
The biggest “what if?” of that era is what happens if Paul George doesn’t get injured. Instead of a lost season that pushed West to chase for a ring elsewhere — at a significant discount — could Indiana have re-tooled more effectively around their then franchise player and a veteran like West? We’ll never know, but if they had held things together, West would have remained the team’s unquestioned leader.
David West’s on-court impact on the Pacers
As much as his leadership mattered, West’s impact wasn’t limited to intangibles.
Much like his attitude, his game was far from modern, but the 17-foot Assassin still stretched the floor by having decent range for a frontcourt player. In his time with the Pacers, he shot 49.5 percent from 16 feet up to the 3-point line, forcing opponents to respect his shot even if it meant chasing him out well away from the basket.
And he loved shooting from the top of the key and right elbow.
And the pick and pop proved effective for Indiana, too, with West around. More space meant more time for Roy Hibbert down low and more room for Paul George and Lance Stephenson to cut to the basket. In that final season before Paul George’s injury, West racked up 149 assists between those three teammates.
One of his best moments on the court came when West saved Indiana’s bacon in the seven-game series against the Atlanta Hawks during The Struggle, going 5 of 6 in the fourth quarter of Game 6.
West did everything he could to push that disappointing Pacers team into an Eastern Conference Finals with the Heat, but no amount of leadership could overcome a team broken internally. But it’s hard to find fault in West for that.
While ultimately Indiana came up short of their goal, David West played a key role in bringing back respectability to the Indiana Pacers after the Malice in the Palace.
David West was his own man, and never let anyone else dictate who he was. With the Indiana Pacers, he helped dictate who they were, and they were better off for that.