Jerry West, one of the greatest basketball players of all time and the literal icon of the NBA, died Wednesday morning. The Los Angeles Clippers announced the 86-year-old's death in a press release, which called him "the personification of basketball excellence and a friend to all who knew him." His wife of 46 years, Karen, was reportedly by his side.
Though West worked as an executive for the Clippers since 2017, he made his name with the Los Angeles Lakers. From 1961 to 1974, he was named an All-Star every single year of his career. He led the Lakers to the NBA Finals nine times and won a title in 1972 alongside Wilt Chamberlain and Elgin Baylor. West was such an outstanding competitor that he's the only player in NBA history to win an NBA Finals MVP Award despite playing for the losing team. He won the honors in 1969 against Bill Russell and the Celtics. Both players were eventually named to the NBA's 75th Anniversary Team.
"Jerry West was a basketball genius and a defining figure in our league for more than 60 years," NBA commissioner Adam Silver said in an official statement. "He distinguished himself not only as an NBA champion and an All-Star in all 14 of his playing seasons, but also as a consummate competitor who embraced the biggest moments.... I valued my friendship with Jerry and the knowledge he shared with me over many years about basketball and life."
After a successful career on the court, West coached the Lakers for three years and then moved to a general-manager position to help build the Showtime Lakers of the early '80s. West, owner Jerry Buss, and head coach Pat Riley led a Lakers team boasting Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to five championships. Most recently, he was portrayed by actor Jason Clarke in Winning Time, an HBO series depicting the rise of the Showtime Lakers. Later, West would become instrumental in building the next generation of Lakers stars when he acquired the draft rights to Kobe Bryant and signed Shaquille O'Neal.
"He helped build eight championship teams during his tenure in the NBA—a legacy of achievement that mirrors his on-court excellence," Silver's statement continued. "He will be enshrined this October into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame as a contributor, becoming the first person ever inducted as both a player and a contributor."
His name is plastered somewhere in the running for just about every scoring record you can find, and he's currently still 25th on the NBA career-scoring list. And while the NBA has never officially confirmed that West's silhouette is outlined in its current logo, it's not really up for debate, either. As Silver once joked about the NBA logo back in 2021, "It sure looks a lot like him."
According to ESPN, the NBA plans to honor West with a pregame tribute before game 3 of the current NBA Finals series between the Boston Celtics and the Dallas Mavericks on Wednesday night. Before the official presentation, you can read the sports world's tributes to West below.
As an assistant editor at Esquire, Rosenberg covers film, TV, sports, anime, music, and video games. When he’s not trying to remember character names from House of the Dragon, you can find him theorizing about the future of Yellowstone, or putting another hundred hours into The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. Rosenberg's standout stories include an interview with Olympic breakdancing athlete Victor Montalvo, a pitch to the Oscars to add a Best Animal Actor category, and a plea for Hollywood to fix bad movie titles. His past work can be found at Spin, Insider, and his personal blog at Roseandblog.com. What’s one piece of life advice that Josh can give? A movie a day keeps the doctor away.
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