NBA players paid tribute to one of the greatest to ever do it.
Jerry West, the 1969 NBA Finals MVP and 1972 NBA champion, has died. He was 86 years old.
West, who remains the logo of the league, was one of the most accomplished individuals in basketball history. Not only was a 14-time All-Star (earning the nod every year he played) but he was just as successful, if not more so, after his playing career.
He won eight championships as an executive, helping assemble some of the greatest teams to ever step on the court, including uniting Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal on the Los Angeles Lakers.
West was named NBA’s Executive of the Year two times, receiving the honor in 1995 and 2004.
His life touched decades of players and his memory was honored by several around the league who had the opportunity to learn from him on and off the court.
NBA players remembered The Logo
Will truly miss our convos my dear friend! My thoughts and prayers goes out to your wonderful family! Forever love Jerry! Rest in Paradise my guy! ๐๐พ๐๐พ๐๐พ๐๐พ๐๐พ๐๐พ๐๐พ๐ค
โWouldnโt be where Iโm at in my career without you.โ
Westโs Clippers signed Hartenstein to a 1 year, $1.7M deal in 2021, paving the way for a career-best season and a subsequent multiyear deal with the Knicks. pic.twitter.com/UrdsIoRpX4
Jerome Alan West, also known as Jerry West and The Logo, passed away at the age of 86. The NBA family lost one of its main icons, a relevant figure in the League since the 1960s. West, a Laker legend who won the NBA title in 1972 with Wilt …
Jerome Alan West, also known as Jerry West and The Logo, passed away at the age of 86. The NBA family lost one of its main icons, a relevant figure in the League since the 1960s.
West, a Laker legend who won the NBA title in 1972 with Wilt Chamberlain, later established himself as one the greatest executives in NBA history. He was responsible for bringing Shaquille OโNeal to Los Angeles and then trading for Kobe Bryant, forming one of the most dominant duos ever. Later, he would continue his successful work as an executive with the Memphis Grizzlies, Golden State Warriors, and the LA Clippers.
Hereโs how social media reacted to the death of West.
Here’s the story behind how Jerry West became the NBA logo.
Jerry West is an absolute NBA legend, from his accomplishments as a player (he’s one of the all-time greatest point guards) to what he did as the member of a bunch of front offices — he helped build the Showtime Lakers, put together a solid Memphis Grizzlies team, helped the Golden State Warriors start a dynasty and was part of the Los Angeles Clippers front office.
Oh, and he’s the NBA logo. Literally! That’s his silhouette that graces the logo.
So how did that happen? Hear from West himself in an appearance on Paul George’s podcast. But below that is more from a Los Angeles Times story in 2010:
[Alan] Siegel, 71, designed the familiar logo in 1969, taking a Wen Roberts photograph of the Lakers star and turning it into an iconic image. …
West, in fact, was one of Siegel’s favorite players — along with John Havlicek and Oscar Robertson — but that’s not why he chose to feature the former West Virginia star in his design.
The photo, Siegel says, just grabbed him.
“It had a nice flavor to it,” he says, “so I took that picture and we traced it. It was perfect. It was vertical and it had a sense of movement. It was just one of those things that clicked.”
When the Lakers won their first NBA title in 1972 after moving to Los Angeles, they set the foundation for what they would do later.
Over a span of several decades, the Los Angeles Lakers became the gold standard of basketball by winning championship after championship. They did so with a formula that consisted of transcendent leaders, star players, selfless supporting contributors and a healthy team concept.
The Lakers are one of very few teams in sports that have had multiple dynasties. They had one in their embryonic years in Minneapolis, one during the Showtime era of the 1980s and yet another one in the first decade of the 21st century. As such, not every one of their championship teams can be put on a top 10 list.
We continue our ranking of the 10 greatest Lakers teams to win it all with a look at the one that was the first to win it all following the franchise’s move to Los Angeles.
A Bridesmaid Reputation
The Lakers were the NBA original dynasty team right after the league was founded in 1946. They won the championship of the National Basketball League, a rival of the NBA, in 1947, and they then joined the Basketball Association of America (BAA), which was the NBA’s predecessor.
Right away, they won five of the next six titles behind Hall of Fame center George Mikan, who has long been considered basketball’s equivalent of Babe Ruth.
After some dark years following Mikan’s retirement, the Lakers drafted Elgin Baylor in 1958 and Jerry West in 1960, then moved from Minneapolis to the Southland in advance of the 1960-61 season.
Starting in the 1961-62 campaign, they would reach the NBA Finals seven times in nine seasons, only to lose on each occasion, usually to Bill Russell’s Boston Celtics. On four of those occasions, they lost in Game 7, making their failures that much more painful.
Heading into the 1971-72 season, it looked like L.A.’s window was just about shut. Baylor and West were aging and brittle, while legendary center Wilt Chamberlain wasn’t the scoring machine he had once been.
It hired new head coach Bill Sharman, a former Hall of Fame Celtics player, and while it started 6-3, Sharman wanted more speed, so he asked Baylor to come off the bench in favor of young Jim McMillian.
Baylor instead decided to retire right away, and the Lakers went on a historic run right away.
Starting with their very next contest, they won 33 games in a row, which still stands as an American pro sports record. They ended up with a 69-13 record, which was another NBA record that would stand for nearly a quarter of a century.
Sharman remade the aging Lakers into a running team that ignited their fast break off of their defense. Chamberlain, who had always put offense first, remade himself into a shot-blocking monster. West and fellow starting guard Gail Goodrich averaged 25.8 and 25.9 points a game, respectively, while McMillian put up 18.8 points per contest.
As great as that was, the real test was ahead.
From Bridesmaids to Simply The Best
After sweeping the undermanned Chicago Bulls, the Lakers advanced to the Western Conference Finals to face Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and the defending NBA champion Milwaukee Bucks. Abdul-Jabbar had just won his second MVP award in just three seasons, and he had emerged as the heir apparent to the 35-year-old Chamberlain.
Yet although Abdul-Jabbar put up monster numbers, the Lakers were able to get past Milwaukee in six games to reach the NBA Finals yet again.
There, they faced the New York Knicks, the team that had beaten them there in 1970. After New York took Game 1 114-92, it looked like the Lakers were going to fall yet again on the game’s biggest stage.
But they took Game 2, then claimed the next two contests at Madison Square Garden to take a 3-1 series lead.
Going into Game 5 at The Forum, it was uncertain if Chamberlain would play after falling on and breaking his right hand in Game 4. But he played with his hand protected by a thick pad, and he posted 24 points, 29 rebounds, eight assists and an unofficial eight blocked shots (blocks weren’t officially kept as a statistic until two seasons later).
With the Big Dipper playing inspired ball, especially defensively and on the boards, the Knicks ran out of fight. They fell, 114-100, and for the first time since moving to L.A., the Lakers were world champions.
Those Lakers of Chamberlain and West wouldn’t win another ring, and both legends would retire soon after winning it all in 1972. But what they did that year set the foundation for what the franchise would do in the 1980s when it won five NBA titles and made itself into the gold standard of basketball.
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 โ 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 Jamesโ GOAT case since last year, most notably in the form of the four-time league MVP becoming the NBAโs 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. Itโs getting close.
“… Few players have ever matched Jamesโ 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.”