The legendary Jerry West, whose contributions to the Lakers have been immense, has been elected to the Hall of Fame yet again.
While many people believe either Magic Johnson or Kobe Bryant was the greatest Los Angeles Lakers player ever, Jerry West was likely the best Laker ever in any capacity.
He had a stellar 14-year playing career with them in the 1960s and early 1970s during which he averaged 27 points, 6.7 assists and 5.8 rebounds a game. In the early 1980s, he became the Lakers’ general manager. In nearly two decades in their front office, he turned Showtime from a one-hit wonder into a true dynasty while also landing both Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant in the 1996 offseason.
After leaving the Lakers, West has worked for the Memphis Grizzlies, Golden State Warriors and now the Los Angeles Clippers. He has been successful with all three franchises.
The 85-year-old has already been inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame as a player and a member of the legendary 1960 United States Olympic team. Now he’s going in as a contributor.
ESPN Sources: Jerry West has been elected into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame as a contributor to the game — his record third Hall enshrinement. West has been previously inducted as a player (1979) and member of the 1960 U.S. Olympic team (2010). pic.twitter.com/a1lbIEUX3L
While Lakers fans may be miffed that West has been with the Clippers for the last few years, they should remember the Lakers wouldn’t be the gold standard of basketball without him.
Two important and popular members of the Lakers from back in the day are finalists for the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.
In the 1980s, Michael Cooper was one of the most popular and important members of the dynastic Los Angeles Lakers. He never made an All-Star team, but he made eight All-Defensive teams and was named the Defensive Player of the Year during the 1986-87 season.
Cooper’s ability to not only defend but also handle the basketball, facilitate and hit 3-pointers helped those showtime Lakers win five NBA championships.
For most of that era, their general manager was Jerry West, a legendary player for them during the 1960s and early 1970s. He made some deft moves as an executive that not only turned Showtime into a dynasty but also set the foundation for the Kobe Bryant-fueled dynasty in the 2000s.
Cooper has been named a finalist for the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame as a player, while West is a finalist as an executive.
After his playing career ended in 1990, Cooper went on to become a coach. He coached the WNBA’s Los Angeles Sparks to back-to-back titles in the early 2000s and has had successful stints in the G League and at the University of Southern California.
West left the Lakers in 2000, and he went on to work in the front offices of the Memphis Grizzlies and Golden State Warriors while having plenty of success. He is an executive board member and consultant for the Los Angeles Clippers.
West, of course, is already in the Hall of Fame as a player.
On Dec. 22, 1971, the Lakers attained the longest winning streak in the history of professional team sports, and their record still stands.
When the Minneapolis Lakers moved to Southern California and became the Los Angeles Lakers in 1960, the area didn’t really notice. Los Angeles was a football and baseball city back then, and it certainly didn’t help that the Lakers reached the NBA Finals seven times in their first 10 seasons in town, only to lose each time.
As a result, they acquired perhaps the worst reputation in sports and in life: a reputation for being a bridesmaid, but never a bride.
But that all started to change during the 1971-72 season.
The Lakers entered the season still possessing Jerry West, Elgin Baylor and Wilt Chamberlain and the NBA’s first real “superteam.” But all three men were at the tail end of their careers, and in particular, Baylor seemed to have very little left in the tank.
Under new head coach Bill Sharman, the Hall of Fame Boston Celtics guard, the team started 6-3. But it still needed an extra something, and Sharman wanted it to be a feared fast-breaking team. He wanted 23-year-old forward Jim McMillian to replace Baylor in the starting lineup, and with Baylor struggling mightily, the superstar simply decided to retire right then and there.
Surely, with his playing career over, the Lakers’ last hope of winning a world championship also seemed to go out the door.
LeBron James was No. 2 on HoopsHype’s list of the 77 greatest players ever, and just one of many Lakers greats to make the ranking.
The NBA is about to begin its 78th season, and there are plenty of interesting storylines going into the 2023-24 campaign. One of them is whether LeBron James will continue to play at a high level and lead the Los Angeles Lakers to another world championship, which would be his fifth.
He already has a sterling resume, and his individual accomplishments are almost second to none. While he has won four championships, he has also lost six times in the NBA Finals. Depending on how one perceives James, he or she may consider it a disappointment, or one may consider simply making it to the title series 10 times a massive accomplishment, regardless of how many times he took home the Larry O’Brien Trophy.
The debate about where James ranks among the greatest NBA players ever rages on. HoopsHype just gave its ranking of the 77 greatest players ever, and it had James at No. 2.
“There have been major developments in LeBron James‘ GOAT case since last year, most notably in the form of the four-time league MVP becoming the NBA’s all-time regular season leading scorer. (He already was No. 1 by a mile in the playoffs). Oh, and he also has the most playoff series wins in league history after a surprising run to the Western Conference Finals last season, though that did end in a sweep loss.
“Now three of the eight HoopsHype staffers taking part in this vote pick him as the best ever. It’s getting close.
“… Few players have ever matched James’ absurd basketball IQ, one that he could use to continue to dominate for the next few seasons as his career winds down.”
If James is fortunate enough to avoid any major injuries, he could continue to add to his legacy and strengthen his argument as arguably the greatest ever over the next couple of years or so.
With the 2023 NBA offseason here in full swing, a fair amount of attention tends to turn toward the history of the league in the absence of new deeds to analyze on the court or in roster construction. And in the wake of Philadelphia 76ers legend Julius “Dr. J” Erving putting out an all-time list of NBA greats, others have started to do the same.
Among them are former Boston Celtics championship forward and current broadcaster Cedric Maxwell broke down his list compared to Dr. J’s on his eponymous CLNS Media podcast with cohost Josue Pavon. The names on Erving’s list are Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, Oscar Robertson, Jerry West and Elgin Baylor along with more modern era players Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson and Karl Malone.
To hear who Maxwell put on his all-time great list, check out the clip embedded below.
It isn’t often a player gets an earnest comparison to Boston Celtics Hall of Fame big man Bill Russell from one of Russell’s peers, but new NBA phenom Victor Wembanyama garnered such praise from Los Angeles Lakers legend Jerry West at the NBA’s 2023 Las Vegas Summer League.
West said of Wemby on Sirius XM via Bleacher Report’s Paul Kasabian that “a little bit of a bigger Bill Russell” and that we “rarely see someone that combines his brain and his ability” — quite the compliment given that for many Russell was the greatest player to play the sport.
“Just watching him play, it’s an easy game for him to play, very easy,” suggested West. “Never looks like he’s really working, and if you watch really great players, they don’t look like they’re working hard, they’re always in the right place at the right time.”
“But I think when he comes into the league,” related the Lakers icon. “If you watch him defensively, he ruins games. He reminds me a little bit of a bigger Bill Russell with a big reach coming from everywhere, blindside.”
“Any offensive player is going to have to really be cautious about where he is, because he is going to mess up some offenses, that’s for sure.”
Kobe Bryant almost became a member of the Grizzlies in 2004, but Jerry West, then an executive with them, told him not to do it.
The late great Kobe Bryant has a basketball resume that has been matched or exceeded by very few, and he is one of only a select handful of all-time great athletes to play his whole career with one team.
But there were two times in which he nearly left his beloved Los Angeles Lakers. One came when he infamously demanded a trade in 2007, and the other came three years earlier.
In 2004, the Lakers had just lost to the Detroit Pistons in the NBA Finals. There were signs all season that their dynasty was on its last legs, and there was speculation that Bryant, head coach Phil Jackson and even Shaquille O’Neal could leave.
Bryant became a free agent that summer, and even right after O’Neal was traded, he wasn’t sure he wanted to return to the Lakers.
According to former Lakers executive Jerry West, Bryant considered signing with the Memphis Grizzlies, the team West was working for at the time. But West said he talked the shooting guard out of it (h/t Lakers Daily).
— Podcast P with Paul George (@PodcastPShow) June 12, 2023
“He became a free agent, and his agent then was Rob Pelinka,” West recalled. “So, I met them in Orange County in a hotel room, and he said he wanted to come to Memphis and play basketball. And I looked at him, and I said, ‘You kidding me?’ And he said, ‘No.’ And I said, ‘Kobe, no, no, you belong somewhere out here, OK?’ And even though he woulda never played there, I just wanted to reassure him that — don’t feel like you have any obligation with me or the Grizzlies to play here. I guess in some sense, that might have been tampering. I didn’t look at it as tampering because he was at our house all the time. He ate at my house a lot. I felt more like a father figure with him.”
It was advice that was bad for a Grizzlies team that, at the time, was starting to achieve respectability, but it turned out to be a blessing for a beleaguered Lakers franchise.
Bryant heeded West’s advice and remained in the Purple and Gold on a new contract that summer. Although the team went through three painful years of rebuilding, the arrival of Pau Gasol in 2008 immediately led to three straight NBA Finals appearances and back-to-back world championships, including one over its archrival Boston Celtics.
Against seemingly all odds, Bryant’s career had a happy storybook ending.
Based on what we’ve seen so far, the inaugural winner of the NBA’s Jerry West Clutch Player of the Year should be Kings guard De’Aaron Fox.
After the award was first introduced last month, we ranked the ten most deserving candidates. Unfortunately, however, we omitted Fox from that list. That was a mistake, and as the Kings climb toward the top of the standings in the Western Conference, he continues to prove why.
Even though DeRozan leads the NBA in total clutch scoring, Fox still has a far better case to win the award. The Bulls have a losing record (8-13) during games DeRozan has played that have gone into the clutch while the Kings are winning (12-9) with Fox.
Fox is outscoring DeRozan (and everyone else in the league except for Joel Embiid) in points per 100 possessions in high-leverage or very-high-leverage situations, per PBPStats. He is also shooting a perfect 14-for-14 at the rim on these possessions.
“My official definition only includes the impact of the following: made/missed field goals, drawing fouls, made/missed free throws, and turnovers. This roughly aligns with how we define “usage” in the NBA, and I chose this approach because it felt “symmetric” in that a player could get WPA “credits” (making field goals, drawing fouls, etc.) as well as “debits” (missing field goals, turnovers, etc.).”
Based on this metric, Fox currently ranks second-best behind only DeRozan in clWPA (Clutch Win Probability Added) so far this season.
But his tracker allows you to see isolated scores in the clutch for clutch shooting, drawn fouls, free throw shooting, turnovers, rebounds, assists, steals, and blocks.
Fox leads all players in total Clutch Win Probably Added due to field goal shooting:
When the game is on the line, the ball is going to Fox because he is one of the rare players who is more efficient when the game is on the line.
His effective field goal percentage in clutch minutes (63.3 percent) is much higher than his typical minutes (53.8 percent) and the league average in clutch minutes (45.9 percent) as well. His free-throw percentage in clutch minutes (86.7 percent) is also higher than it is during his typical minutes (73.7 percent) this season.
He already had a signature moment on Nov. 5, connecting on the game-winning buzzer-beater taken from the farthest distance in 2022-23. It was a 31-foot, unassisted 3-pointer to seal the deal against the Magic.
Overall, Fox has made 11 shots to take the lead in the final two minutes of the game, which is tied for the second-most of any player in the NBA. He has made 7 shots to either tie or take the lead in the final thirty seconds, which is also tied for the second-most in the league.
Fox is having a phenomenal season and while there is still plenty of season left to be played, he deserves some serious acknowledgements for all of his accomplishments thus far.
The L.A. Times Sports staff revealed the results of that ambitious question. Their experts only looked at players who played at least 100 games with the franchise. Magic Johnson, Kobe Bryant, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Jerry West, Elgin Baylor, and …
Chris Fedor @ChrisFedor #Cavs Darius Garland hasn’t been himself this season — the effervescent All-Star that helped pull the organization out of basketball purgatory. Sickness. Slumps. Injuries. But forget Sunday’s final score. Best sight for Cavs was a prancing, swaggy D.G. cleveland.com/cavs/2022/11/d… – 1:22 AM
Los Angeles Lakers superstar LeBron James attempted the extremely tough task of creating the greatest starting five of Lakers players ever. James, who ended up excluding Kareem Abdul-Jabbar on his list, did create a pretty amazing lineup. “All-time …
Los Angeles Lakers superstar LeBron James attempted the extremely tough task of creating the greatest starting five of Lakers players ever. James, who ended up excluding Kareem Abdul-Jabbar on his list, did create a pretty amazing lineup. “All-time starting five for the Lakers?” James said. “I’m going Magic [Johnson] at 1, Jerry West at the 2, Kobe [Bryant] at the 3, myself at the 4 and Shaq (Shaquille O’Neal) at the 5.”
Mike Bresnahan @Mike_Bresnahan
Darvin Ham was coy when asked who’d round out the Lakers’ other two starting spots, assuming LeBron, Anthony Davis and Westbrook were in the first five.
“Kareem, James Worthy, Byron Scott,” Ham said. – 6:13 PM
Jovan Buha @jovanbuha
Lakers Media Day notebook:
— The awkward dynamic between Russ and the Lakers
— Trading both draft picks
— Managing LeBron and AD’s workload
— Injury/health updates
— And more: theathletic.com/3632175/2022/0… – 12:57 PM
