Jerry West, NBA and Lakers legend, dead at 86
Jerry West, whose silhouette was fashioned into the NBA logo and who made tremendous contributions to the game of basketball as a player, a coach and as an executive with several teams, died Wednesday.
He was 86.
One of the most complete players to ever play the game, West made the All-Star team in each of his 14 seasons in the league, and while he only won one NBA championship — his Los Angeles Lakers beat the Knicks following the 1970-71 season — it wasn’t for lack of trying.
West’s teams appeared in nine NBA Finals and were 1-8, dropping six Finals to the dynastic Boston Celtics and two out of three to the Knicks.
“Those damn Celtics,” West often said.
He was named the Finals MVP during one of those losses to the Celtics, the only player from a losing team ever to be so honored.
West also made one of the most memorable shots in NBA history when he let one fly a few strides before midcourt as time expired in regulation in Game 3 of the 1970 Finals.
That basket — which hit nothing but net — sent the game into overtime, a game and series the Knicks would eventually win.
It was one of the many reasons the 12-time all-NBA selection earned the nickname “Mr. Clutch.”
West was inducted into the Naismith National Basketball Hall of Fame as an NBA player, and, later, as a member of the gold-medal winning 1960 U.S. Olympic team.
This year, he’ll be enshrined as a contributor.
After coaching the Lakers for three seasons, West became an executive with the team and later with the Memphis Grizzlies, Golden State Warriors and, most recently, the Los Angeles Clippers.
As an executive with the Lakers and later as their GM, West was involved in the drafting of Magic Johnson and James Worthy while trading for a teenage Kobe Bryant and, a week later, signing Shaquille O’Neal as a free agent.
The Lakers won five NBA titles during his 22-year tenure in the executive suite and, before leaving, he laid the foundation for their three-peat with Bryant and O’Neal.
On Wednesday, NBA commissioner Adam Silver called West “one of the greatest executives in sports history.”
“He helped build eight championship teams during his tenure in the NBA — a legacy of achievement that mirrors his on-court excellence,” Silver said. “And 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. I valued my friendship with Jerry and the knowledge he shared with me over many years about basketball and life.”
Jerome Alan West was born in Chelyan, West Virginia, on May 28, 1938. By his own telling, he had an unhappy childhood living with an abusive father.
The family — West was the second youngest of six children — moved around the area a lot, settling for a time in the town of Cabin Creek.
That led to another of West’s nicknames: “Zeke from Cabin Creek.”
He revealed in his 2012 memoir that he suffered from bouts of depression and became a withdrawn teen after the death of an older brother in the Korean War.
West’s therapy was basketball, shooting at a rim nailed to the side of a neighbor’s shed and chasing the ball down a hill whenever he missed.
He didn’t miss often.
West led his high school team to a state championship and guided West Virginia University to the 1959 NCAA Final Four.
He had 28 points and 11 rebounds and was named the tournament’s most outstanding player in a one-point loss to California in the championship game, a precursor to the title-game disappointments that would follow.
In a statement, his alma mater called Wednesday “the day everyone in West Virginia had always dreaded.”
“Jerry West was extremely proud of being a West Virginian,” longtime NBA executive and former Nets GM Rod Thorn, also a native of West Virginia and a member of the Hall of Fame, told the Associated Press. “And he never lost that.”
A strong and rugged defender, a part of his game that was often overlooked because of his scoring prowess, West was named one of the NBA’s 50 greatest players in 1997 and one of its 75 greatest players in 2022.
He averaged 27 points and 6.7 assists per game for his career.
He remains the NBA Finals’ all-time leader in total points, field goals made and attempted as well as free throws made and attempted.
West was “the personification of basketball excellence and a friend to all who knew him,” the Clippers said in a statement. West’s wife, Karen, was by his side when he died, the team said. West worked for the Clippers as a consultant for the last seven years.
The NBA has never confirmed that West was the inspiration for its iconic logo. However …
“While it’s never been officially declared that the logo is Jerry West,” Silver said in 2021, “it sure looks a lot like him.”
