His shooting percentage is tops on a Warriors team of noted shooters.
His Player Efficiency Rating among teammates ranks behind only that of Stephen Curry.
And only Kevin Durant has more total blocks and no one on the teams is averaging more than blocks per 36 minutes.
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The first four weeks of what may be David West’s final season have made quite the statement. His game is simply not ready for retirement.
Yet West considered just that last summer, in the wake of being on a championship team for the first time in his 14-year career.
“You’ve got to think about every year, for these last three or four years,” West said on this week’s Warriors Insider Podcast. “You always think about it. It’s something you’re marching toward. When the season was over, I took time to enjoy what we had done, what we had accomplished.”
While Warriors coach Steve Kerr was ready to welcome another season of West, general manager Bob Myers kept in contact with the veteran as he pondered his decision in the two weeks following the NBA Finals victory.
Golden State Warriors
No one on the team had enjoyed this championship more than West. His display of unrestrained exhilaration in the locker room after the Game 5 clinching was unforgettable.
So, naturally, after the scent of champagne had dissipated, West had questions of himself. His 37th birthday was approaching. Did he still have the vitality to continue? What about his wife, Lesley, and their two kids? What about his teammates?
He got full approval from all parties, including himself.
“I just talked to my family and I just felt like why not?” he said. “We won it. Let’s see what this experience is like defending it.”
West agreed on July 1 to return to the Warriors, for a second consecutive one-year contract, and there are no regrets. If there were the slightest twinge, it would have faded during the team’s trip to China in the first week of October, when they spent a few minutes in conversation with tennis great Roger Federer.
“One of the things that stood out for me that he said is that he still has the fire to compete, and that’s the one thing that’s probably still burning for me,” West said. “You want to compete. You want to face new challenges. When you get older, you have to figure out different ways to be productive and how to deal with younger and more explosive (competitors). That’s a challenge that’s intriguing to me.
“With all of that thrown in, and on top of the fact that this is a great environment to be in -- I’m learning every single day -- it just felt right to come on back and give it another shot.”