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Jerry West, the inspiration for the NBA’s emblem, died peacefully at his dwelling on the age of 86, the Los Angeles Clippers introduced Wednesday.
One in every of basketball’s most completed contributors, West was a staple of the game throughout eight many years, successful 9 championships as a participant, scout, coach, govt and guide. He was an architect of the Los Angeles Lakers’ 10 titles within the Eighties and 2000s and an adviser to the dynastic Golden State Warriors.
Lengthy earlier than West established himself as arguably the best common supervisor in NBA historical past, he was among the many league’s first superstars. A legend of West Virginia highschool and faculty basketball and co-captain of the 1960 U.S. Olympic males’s basketball staff, West made the All-Star Recreation every season of a 14-year profession embellished with 12 All-NBA picks and 5 All-Defensive appearances, all for the Lakers.
He gained a single title in 9 journeys to the NBA Finals, heartbreakingly shedding six title sequence to Invoice Russell’s Boston Celtics, and West’s Finals MVP award in 1969 stays the one time the respect has been bestowed on a member of the shedding staff. He averaged 37.9 factors per sport in a seven-game loss to the Celtics.
“He took a loss more durable than any participant I’ve ever recognized,” late and legendary Lakers broadcaster Chick Hearn once said of West. “He would sit by himself and stare into area. A loss simply ripped his guts out.”
A trailblazing scoring guard and relentless competitor, West was a lethal shooter earlier than the appearance of the 3-point line, and his most well-known shot got here within the type of a 60-foot buzzer beater that despatched Recreation 3 of the 1970 Finals into time beyond regulation in opposition to the New York Knicks. He joined Chamberlain and Oscar Robertson because the league’s first 25,000-point scorers. West averaged 27 factors, 6.7 factors and 5.8 rebounds for his profession.
“Jerry West was a basketball genius and a defining determine in our league for greater than 60 years,” NBA commissioner Adam Silver mentioned. “He distinguished himself not solely as an NBA champion and an All-Star in all 14 of his enjoying seasons, but additionally as a consummate competitor who embraced the most important moments. He was the league’s first Finals MVP and made rising to the event his signature high quality.”
The late Sizzling Rod Hundley once described his fellow West Virginian and Lakers teammate as “the best competitor I’ve ever seen. I do not care what you are enjoying, he needs to win. His nickname was ‘Mr. Clutch,’ and he carried that moniker effectively, as a result of each time we have been in that scenario, increase, he’d make that shot.”
West’s pursuit of perfection led him to unprecedented success as a decision-maker in NBA entrance workplaces, twice successful Government of the Yr honors. First as a scout after which as GM, he helped assemble the five-time champion “Showtime” Lakers of the Eighties. Earlier than leaving the Lakers in 2000, West signed Shaquille O’Neal and traded for Kobe Bryant’s draft rights, laying the inspiration for one more 5 titles from 2000-10.
West spent 5 seasons operating the Memphis Grizzlies earlier than retiring as a full-time shot-caller on the age of 69 in 2007. He joined the Golden State Warriors as an govt board member in 2011, famously opposing a would-be 2014 trade of Klay Thompson for Kevin Love and recruiting Kevin Durant within the 2016 offseason. West left the Warriors after the second of their 4 championships in 2017 and joined the L.A. Clippers in the identical capability, contributing to the recruitment of Kawhi Leonard and commerce for Paul George in July 2019.
West might be inducted into the Naismith Basketball Corridor of Fame in October as a contributor, making him the primary individual to be enshrined as each a participant and a contributor. He was additionally awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2019.
“Clearly, an excellent icon for the basketball world,” Mavericks middle Daniel Gafford mentioned Wednesday at Dallas’ shootaround earlier than Recreation 3 of the 2024 NBA Finals. “You already know, by no means actually simply knew an excessive amount of about him, however simply knew what he meant to the sport of basketball, and naturally, he’s our emblem — you understand, we see him each day. Simply relaxation in peace to him, and we’ll all the time be in remembrance of any individual that simply had a lot of an impression on the basketball world.”
West’s private life was not as charmed as his basketball profession. The son of a West Virginia coal mine electrician, he endured a troubled childhood haunted by the 1951 loss of life of his older brother within the Korean Battle. West served as a psychological well being advocate in his later years, sharing his lifelong battle with despair in a New York Occasions best-selling 2011 memoir titled, “West by West: My Charmed, Tormented Life.”
“The best honor a person can have is the respect and friendship of his friends. You could have that greater than any man I do know,” Russell informed The Discussion board crowd on “Jerry West Evening” in 1972. “Jerry, you might be, in each sense of the phrase, actually a champion. If I might have one want granted, it will be that you’d all the time be pleased.”
One in every of West’s 5 kids, Jerry, is at present knowledgeable scout for the Detroit Pistons.
