The Logo

On August 7, 2001, Jerry West retired after forty brilliant years with the Los Angeles Lakers and with permanent possession of the name, "Mr. Laker, or as deserving of that sobriquet as any sports personality, at any franchise, in any sport, ever. 

Now, of course, he is completing the revivification of the Memphis Grizzlies and despite losing his fellow septuagenarian sidekick, coach Hubie Brown to illness this year no one would be wise to bet on his failing. We thought you should get to know him.

He came into the league as a skinny kid from a small West Virginia town; forty years later he retired as the most successful front office executive in league history.  And, by the way, in between he played 14 brilliant years finishing as the Lakers all time leading scorer.  He is man and myth and logo:

As a Lakers coach, executive and star player, Jerry West so personified the NBA that the league used his likeness in creating the NBA logo.

In 1960 the Lakers moved from Minneapolis, "The City of 26 Lakes" to Los Angeles, a city without lakes but with a lot more people.  Also encouraging the move was the fact that for two years the city had already been the very successful new home of what had been the Brooklyn Dodgers.  The Lakers brought with them their first draft pick ever, as the Los Angeles Lakers.  They couldn't have made a more profound impact on the city and the team with anyone else but they had no way of knowing that in 1960.  For the next four decades the fate of the team and that rookie have gone hand in hand.  The impact that the Lakers have had on Los Angeles and the impact that Jerry West has had on the Lakers have been equally profound.  I dare say NO other American team sport athlete has ever so personified a franchise.   The fate of the team and the man are so inextricably intertwined that for many fans the two define each other.  First as a player, than as a coach and for 17 years as an executive, the Lakers and Jerry West have been inseparable and hugely successful.  Let's start with his playing days.

Since his schoolboy days in West Virginia Jerry has been a celebrated athlete.  As a prep player he re-wrote the state's record book and even today, fifty years later, he is still considered one of the greatest to ever hail from the Mountaineer State.

West joined the Lakers in 1960 as a two-time All American from West Virginia University who as a junior had lead his team to the 1959 NCAA Championship game where they suffered a one point loss to the University of California. Next, he helped United States win the gold medal in the 1960 Rome Olympics where his teammates included Jerry Lucas and Oscar Robertson, the legendary "Big O", who called Jerry, "the best player I've ever played with".  In his amateur career Jerry earned almost universal respect of basketball experts.

"There just aren't any better basketball players than West," said the revered UCLA coach John Wooden in reference to Jerry's college career.

Yet another coaching icon, the great Hank Iba stated flatly, "West is college basketball's best player."  His amateur record placed West in the unenviable position of coming into the league lauded as, "the most exciting little man since Bob Cousy."  At the time, Cousy was a 10-time All Star, nine-time First Team All NBA selection and a three-time champion.

Comparing any guard to Cousy was a tremendous honor and a source of great pressure of the kind that, say Kobe Bryant and now LeBron James have to deal with as among those heralded as the next Jordan.  But, West lived up to and surpassed the lofty expectations.  He helped lead his team to the NBA Finals nine times during his career.  On six of those occasions, their bitter rivals, the Boston Celtics, ousted the Lakers.

The franchise's fortunes changed in 1972, when the trio of Gail Goodrich, Wilt Chamberlain and West brought Los Angeles its first NBA championship.  That victory would prove to be the first of seven world titles that the Lakers would win with West as either a player or executive.  Two years later after the rigors of 14 NBA seasons had taken their toll; West retired from professional basketball.

After two years of missing the playoffs, the late Jack Kent Cooke, who then owned the Lakers, cajoled West out of retirement and on August 19, 1976 West returned to the Lakers this time as head coach. 

As a coach Jerry posted a 145-101 record in three seasons including a league best 53-29 mark his first year.  In June of 1979 Jerry moved to the front office assigned to scout college players for the draft.  He watched so many games and evaluated so many players and was so familiar with the needs of rival NBA teams that he correctly predicted the first twelve picks in the 1980 draft. 

Who is Mel Kiper, Jr., anyway?  

If you are wondering, "Is there anything this guy can't do better than anyone else?" I should mention that he also holds the course record at the Bel Air Country Club.  The avid golfer carries a two-handicap and one day he waltzed out and shot a 62.

Throughout his careers as player or exec, Jerry was always careful to lavishly credit others but there has to be more than coincidence to his being the only constant ingredient for those 37 playoff appearances in his 38 years with the team. 

In fact, as a rookie he did indeed join an already talented team led by superstar forward, Elgin Baylor and Bill Sharman, possibly the best pure shooter in league history.  West and Baylor immediately became one of the league's most exciting duos, certainly the leagues highest scoring.  (That is unless you count Wilt Chamberlain and any other 76er averaging 10 or more points a game to go with Wilt's 50 ppg but that's another story.)

To give you an idea of the talent of those two Hall of Famers, here's a little two-question quiz.  When Michael Jordan set a playoff game scoring record with 63 points against the Celtics, whose record did he break and, number two, who are the second and third leading playoff scorers, by average, in NBA history?

Answer to the first question, Elgin Baylor scored 62 against the Celtics and second, when they retired, Jerry West had the highest playoff scoring average and Baylor was second. 

Imagine, these guys played over one hundred playoff games together and, on average, they combined for more than 56 ppg - roughly 15 points a game more than Jordan and Pippen. 

But there was more than playoff performances, West was the heart of the great 1972 Lakers team which gave them their first LA-based NBA championship and a then best record of 69-13, a record that stood for more than a quarter century.  That team also won 33 straight games still the all time record for professional team sports.

Appropriately nicknamed "Mr. Clutch" because of a surreal ability to produce when the game was on the line, West established himself as one of the greatest players in NBA history.  Spending each of his 14 years with the Lakers, he led the team in scoring seven times, averaging 30-plus points four different years, highlighted by a career best 31.3 during the 1965-66 season.

When he retired following the 1973-74 campaign, he had become only the third player, and first non-center, in league history to tally 25,000 points.  He finished with a career scoring average of 27.0 points a game, which still ranks fifth best in league history.  How a player lifts his game at playoff time is always a great indicator of character, well, as mentioned earlier, West's career playoff scoring average was 29.1, almost ten per cent higher than his regular season average.

For me, West's most incredible feat wasn't averaging over 40 ppg for the entire 1965 playoffs including an all time record 46.3 for the six game championships against Baltimore although that is truly unbelievable.  Especially when you remember that unlike Jordan's Bulls or, even more so, Allen Iverson's 76ers, the Lakers were never a one-man gang.  There was always Baylor and other deadeye shooters like Bill Sharman or Gail Goodrich and on that '72 team, Wilt Chamberlain.

To me, and likely you after you learn it, the most amazing mark Jerry West set and still holds is the record for most free throws made in a season - 840 MADE free throws by a lanky 6'2" guard.  That one fact says so much about his game and what he would do to win.  Today, many jump shooting big men don't drive the ball enough to get 300 free throws attempted (think Jamal Mashburn or Glen Robinson).  Jerry West was among the very best jump shooters of his or any era but; he also took it to the hoop often enough to make 10.24 free throws a game.

But, Jerry was much more than a scorer.  He led the league in assists with almost ten a game during the 1971-72 season.  He was picked for the All NBA team ten times and made the first team All Defensive Team four times.  Bill Russell, who played against West for ten years, and is still a pretty fair evaluator of defensive talent once, said of West, "Jerry is actually a better defensive player than he is an offensive player".

Jerry West was picked for the All Star game every one of his 14 seasons, winning the Most Valuable Player honors in 1972.  He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility, picked for the NBA's 35th Anniversary Team in 1980 and was selected as one of the 50 Greatest Players of All Time in 1997.

He also had a Hall of Fame career as a sports executive with a sparkling track record that speaks for itself.  When the Lakers were winning five championships during the 1980s, West, with typical modesty, deflected all credit for the outstanding success to the players and Coach Pat Riley.  Jerry always said repeatedly that his value as General Manager and personnel guru would be judged at the end of the "Showtime" when it would be necessary to rebuild the team.

Well, consider that self-imposed challenge a throbbing success and consider his value immeasurable.  In June 2001 he completed a mission he started in 1988, when the Lakers won their last championship of the 1900s, by winning the first championship of the new millennium.

Gracefully and patiently West rebuilt the team while still keeping it very competitive.  Remember the Lakers seemingly are always too good to miss the playoffs and get into the draft lottery.  West became General Manager in 1982 and added the title1 of Executive Vice President of Basketball Operations in 1995.  Since 1982 the Lakers have recorded the NBA's highest regular season winning percentage .665.  That translates to the Lakers winning two out of every three games they played under West's helmsmanship.

Long known, almost feared, for his shrewd personnel moves and trades, West made his biggest acquisition ever (quite literally) in the summer of 1996 when he signed Shaquille O'Neal to a free agent contract and thereby making the Lakers a championship caliber club once again. 

Two years later he traded up to draft Kobe Bryant.  Also, he personally convinced Phil Jackson that returning to his beloved Knicks, whose championship teams Jackson had played for, was not as appealing a decision as coming to Los Angeles and restoring that gloried franchise.  By 2000 those moves had paid off with another title1 and, if West's successors had been able to maintain harmony, the Lakers would still be the overwhelming choice to win.

But, it wasn't until 1995 that West was honored as NBA Executive of the Year, certainly a long overdue accolade for a man who guided the Lakers through one of the greatest decades in team sports history and had once again positioned his team among the NBA's elite.  However success and Jerry West have been synonymous for many years. 

Since the Lakers moved to Southern California in 1960, the team has qualified for post season play in all but three seasons and two of those three were the only years that Jerry West wasn't affiliated with the club!  The ex-sharpshooter has been affiliated - - as player or coach or general manager - - for each of their six championships in Los Angeles and for 38 playoff visits in 40 years. 

No franchise has had such an impact on the nation's largest city as the Lakers and no one person has had such a dynamic impact on a franchise - at all levels - from the locker room to the executive suite as Jerry West, Mr. Laker.