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What: “Vintage NBA”

Where: ESPN Classic

When: Thursdays, 5 p.m.

This new one-hour weekly series, produced by NBA Entertainment, features an NBA legend each week. The series tipped off June 17 with a look at Julius Erving. Last week’s show featured Walt Frazier, and the spotlight tonight is on Jerry West.

But don’t expect anything in-depth or hard-hitting. There is a lot of fluff and a lot of filler. Too much time is devoted to the 1972 NBA All-Star game, which was played at the Forum. West made the winning shot and had six steals, but it’s not the first moment that comes to mind when you think of West.

Keith Jackson and Bill Russell were the ABC announcers, and they bring back some memories, but footage of the game takes up nearly the entire second half of the show. It easily could have been edited to make room for other highlights of West’s career.

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The show’s format calls for a current player to talk about the featured legend in a segment called “In the Chair.” Chosen for tonight’s segment was the Lakers’ Kobe Bryant.

As you might expect, Bryant says only good things about West, the Laker executive vice president. Bryant is smart enough to not bad-mouth the boss. But he could have dressed up a little for his session with Robin Roberts, the show’s host.

There is old footage of West in action, but not enough. One semi-interesting segment, narrated by a young Chick Hearn, shows West in the late 1960s throwing a football around with his three young sons.

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There are interviews about West too, but again not enough. Sam Jones, Tom Heinsohn, Hot Rod Hundley and a few others are interviewed, but nothing from Wilt Chamberlain, Gail Goodrich, Elgin Baylor or Bill Sharman.

Sharman was West’s coach when the Lakers won their first NBA championship in 1972 and also was the coach of the West team in the 1972 All-Star game. But Sharman often is overlooked for such projects because his voice never fully recovered from a bad case of laryngitis he had when coaching the Lakers. Sharman still has a lot to say, even though it’s in a scratchy voice.

Future “Vintage NBA” programs will focus on George Gervin (July 8), Bill Walton (July 15) and Magic Johnson (July 22).

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