Jerry West and the Burden of Being the Logo

I first met Jerry West in the summertime of 1997, as a younger, sorta shy, presumably in-over-my-head rookie beat author assigned to cowl the Lakers for the L.A. Each day Information. I knew his résumé, the championships gained (and misplaced), the clutch pictures he’d hit, the contenders he’d constructed. However I don’t assume I actually understood the person till three summers later.

It was June 20, 2000, the morning after Kobe Bryant had leaped into Shaquille O’Neal’s arms, purple and gold confetti fluttering round them, in celebration of their first NBA championship. It had been 12 years because the franchise raised a banner. 4 years since West introduced the 2 stars to L.A., at appreciable danger. Now his imaginative and prescient of a Lakers renaissance was a actuality. The entire metropolis was giddy, aglow, euphoric. Everybody besides the architect who made all of it attainable.

I discovered West in his dimly lit workplace at Lakers headquarters, sitting at his desk. He welcomed me in and agreed to reply a couple of questions. I opened with the obvious: Did you benefit from the evening?

“No,” he mentioned flatly, “I didn’t. I didn’t watch.”

West wasn’t even there. He’d spent the Recreation 6 clincher in his automobile, driving round Los Angeles, getting periodic updates by telephone. The considered watching in individual was too disturbing, too overwhelming. He advised me he’d view the entire sequence on tape, finally. Over the subsequent 20 minutes, West would say he “felt comfortable” for the followers, for Shaq and Kobe, for Phil Jackson, for proprietor Jerry Buss, and even for the group’s scouts, citing all of them by title (as a result of, he mentioned, they don’t get sufficient credit score). However he didn’t appear comfortable in any respect. So I pressed once more: What about you? In spite of everything you’ve endured, all of the second-guessing, all of the criticism, all of the doubts, is there a way of gratification?

“Not for me,” he mentioned.

Till that time, I knew West as a basketball savant, a dwelling legend, an avatar of Lakers excellence, the uncommon famous person participant who’d grow to be a famous person government, universally revered and admired. He was Mr. Clutch. He was the Emblem, as in the precise NBA brand (even when the league has denied it for many years). I knew he could possibly be passionate, intimidating, beneficiant, considerate, empathetic, gossipy, candy, cantankerous, generally defensive, and oddly insecure. However the burden of being Jerry West by no means actually struck me till that second.

West, who died Wednesday at age 86, loved extra success than 99 p.c of the gamers, coaches, and executives who’ve ever handed via the NBA. It was the enjoyment half that appeared hardest, although. No variety of victories or banners or free-agent coups would ever sate him. He heard criticism extra loudly than he heard reward. It was as if being the Emblem required a stage of perfection he might by no means attain. It was as if all of the heartbreak he endured as a participant—one title in opposition to eight defeats within the Finals—left him so scarred that he endlessly anticipated the worst.

So no, West couldn’t bear to observe any of the 2000 Finals in individual, and finally couldn’t bear to be round in any respect.

Two months after the Lakers gained that title, West would depart the franchise—with out a press convention or formal farewell or any particular clarification. However as his longtime buddy (and Lakers broadcaster) Chick Hearn would say that day, “He feels the pressures are tearing him down bodily in addition to mentally.” We’d hear he felt underappreciated. We’d hear he was upset about Jackson courting Buss’s daughter Jeanie, then a group government. We’d discover out later a few coronary heart problem.

West was the epitome of the tortured genius, an intensively aggressive and obsessive perfectionist whose each achievement appeared clouded by his personal not possible expectations. We knew the fundamentals: 9 Finals as a participant, however only one championship (in 1972). The one man to win Finals MVP whereas dropping the title (in 1969). Twelve appearances on the All-NBA group (10 first group). 5 choices to the All-Defensive group. A scoring title. An help title. A spot on the NBA’s thirty fifth anniversary group. And the fiftieth anniversary group. And the seventy fifth. And that was simply as a participant.

As an government, West presided over the Showtime period, then constructed a brand new dynasty round Shaq and Kobe. Although he left earlier than they might win their second and third titles, all these banners bear his fingerprints. He would revive a moribund Memphis Grizzlies franchise, then function a key behind-the-scenes determine within the constructing of the Golden State Warriors dynasty. He’s one of many biggest group execs within the historical past of sports activities. It’s truthful to say West took a sure pleasure in all of it; it was laborious to know the way a lot he actually loved any of it.

Which isn’t to say that West didn’t love the sport itself. The person was the consummate health club rat, attending predraft exercises and NBA summer season leagues proper into his 80s. He was a quiet confidant to dozens of younger superstars over the previous 20 years—together with many who by no means performed for any of the groups that employed him. Rivals would possibly name it tampering. But it surely was the celebrities who sought out West. And West endlessly felt an obligation to the sport, and to the generations who adopted him, to offer no matter counsel he might.

He was simply as fast to take calls from reporters, additionally searching for his knowledge and insights, or generally simply to share the most recent scuttlebutt. Formally, West advised me again in 1997, he was not somebody who would communicate off the document. Unofficially? West was an irrepressible gossip and a delightfully candid fact teller. He’d let you know instantly if a purported star was overrated (and he was normally proper). He’d admonish you for describing a participant as “nice,” insisting the phrase is simply too liberally used (he was proper about that, too).

And sure—regardless of his protestations at his portrayal within the HBO present Profitable Time—West had a fierce mood and an affinity for F-bombs. “Let me let you know one thing!” was a typical, biting chorus that may preface a feisty Jerry West lecture. “You fucking individuals,” was one other, normally previous a broadside concerning the media.

When he was working the Grizzlies, West as soon as left a protracted, profanity-laced grievance on a beat author’s voicemail … then cheerfully signed off by saying, “You possibly can name me again within the workplace, tomorrow. Bye-bye.” “He was extremely candy,” mentioned the reporter, Ron Tillery, who lined the Grizzlies for The Industrial Enchantment. Tillery mentioned the 2 nonetheless spoke at the least twice a 12 months, proper up till the tip.

The purpose isn’t that West was needlessly imply or intimidating, simply intensely proud and passionate concerning the league he’d assist to construct.

West liked the sport a lot that he took the Memphis job at a time when the Grizzlies have been thought-about one of many worst franchises in professional sports activities. He arguably put that franchise on the map, shepherding the Grizz to their first three playoff appearances—and chafed when native media celebrated that modest achievement.

However West endlessly remained a Laker, a buddy and adviser to Kobe and (individually) to Shaq, lengthy after he left. On one go to to Memphis, early in West’s tenure there, he made positive to point out me his wristwatch: It was nonetheless set to Pacific time.

Tensions with the Buss household, and Jeanie particularly, most likely saved West from ever rejoining the franchise that outlined him (and that he helped outline). He would as an alternative lend his knowledge to the Warriors (the place he helped recruit Kevin Durant) and at last the Clippers (the place he helped recruit Kawhi Leonard), as a marketing consultant. The sport saved evolving, however West endured as an oracle of basketball knowledge as a result of he embraced the change.

It wasn’t till 2011, with the discharge of his autobiography, West by West: My Charmed, Tormented Life, that we would really perceive the extent of his private torment, his trauma. Of the bodily abuse he suffered by the hands of his father as a baby. The devastation of dropping a beloved older brother within the Korean Battle. The poverty. The paralyzing melancholy. West divulged all of it in his e book, then spent his closing decade talking as overtly as any former athlete has about psychological well being—a contribution as enduring as something he ever did on the court docket.

“There’s generally stuff you hold hidden endlessly, that you simply don’t need individuals to learn about you,” West advised a gaggle of 125 college students final July, on the Sports activities Enterprise Classroom, an offshoot of the NBA’s summer season league. After which he proceeded to inform them about these issues, in an hour-long dialogue that was uncooked, at occasions troublesome, and intensely emotional. “I’m flawed,” West mentioned then, “due to the issues I noticed rising up.”

It was the final day I’d see or communicate to West. He appeared extra frail, however no much less feisty or intimidating than the primary time I met him. I joked concerning the quote he’d given a day earlier, about the concept that he was, in his time, a “wolf” on the court docket, in distinction to the mere “canines” that at present’s gamers generally describe themselves as. “It’s not humorous,” West scolded me. “I wasn’t kidding.”

Towards the tip of his dialog with the scholars, West got here again to the thought.

“Folks chortle at what I mentioned. It’s the fact,” he mentioned. “Have you ever ever heard a wolf [howl]? How haunting is that sound? Haunting, proper? … It’s what you concentrate on going to these video games. I used to be going to kill that canine. I used to be going to make him respect me as a participant, but additionally know that there’s no means that I used to be going to provide in. … I’ve been a wolf all my life. And I’ve needed to be, to in my very own means, survive.”

The world celebrated Jerry West, for all he achieved and all he represented throughout the a long time, even when West couldn’t convey himself to do the identical. Possibly West by no means felt worthy of all of the reward. Possibly his trauma wouldn’t permit any outward acknowledgment. However the wolf inside knew higher.