There have been a lot of players in the history of basketball that made a name for themselves at the high school, collegiate and NBA level. There are few that had a stellar career both on the hardwood at all three levels and then in the front office of the NBA. This past weekend via a video chat NBA on TNT and “Inside the NBA” host Ernie Johnson spoke with a legend that reached that high level of accomplishment on NBATV’s “#NBATogether With Ernie Johnson.”
The accomplished individual that Johnson spoke with about his career as a player and as one of the best executives in not just NBA history but professional sports history in Hall of Famer Jerry West.
After stellar careers first at East Bank High School in Chelyan, WV and then at the West Virginia University, West had a stellar 14-year career with the Los Angeles Lakers where he was an All-Star each season, winning MVP of the league’s unofficial mid-season classic. Was a 12-time All-NBA selection and five-time NBA All-Defensive Team selection and was named to the NBA’s 50th Anniversary team in 1997.
Today, the man dubbed “Mr. Clutch” for his ability to make plays down the stretch of games works in the front office of the rival Los Angeles Clippers (44-20), who are currently No. 2 in the Western Conference, 5.5 games behind the Lakers (49-14).
The league currently like the rest of the sports world has either been suspended or in the case of high school and college athletics due to the Coronavirus (COVID-19) Pandemic.
This stoppage of the NBA season has been especially tough for the Clippers, who were having their best season ever and had serious chance of making a run at the championship for the first time in franchise history.
“Right now, we’d probably be in the Second-Round (Semifinals) of the Playoffs,” West said to Johnson about where he felt the Clippers would be if the season remained on schedule. “It’s an awkward time really for people who are still involved in the game.”
West added, “But more importantly for fans in this country who love competition, and that’s what this country is really built on to be honest with you, this is a time to really get excited and here we are locked away in our houses, away from people who we enjoy being around. And it’s part of what we need to do.”
West for sure knows about the excitement and also the heartbreak of the NBA around this time because on Apr. 29, 1970 hit a game-tying field goal from three-quarter court that tied Game 3 of The Finals versus the New York Knicks at 102-102, that the visitors won 111-108 in overtime.
That time to West was an example of how fast how half a century goes by. That shot also reminded him of the disappointments of helping lead the Lakers to The Finals nine times and being on the short end in eight of those nine appearances.
One of the toughest setbacks in the Finals for the Lakers and West was the loss in 1969 to Hall of Famer Bill Russell and the Boston Celtics in seven games, but West won Finals MVP behind his 37.9 scoring average saying of that moment that it was “about as low as you can get.”
“I think of those days and there was some pretty crazy things that happened,” West said. “A different kind of game we see today obviously. But that was another real disappointing part of my career.”
The Lakers returned the favor against the Knicks in five games in the 1972 Finals, taking them down in five games as West and fellow Hall of Famers in the late Wilt Chamberlin, Gail Goodrich, Elgin Baylor and former Lakers’ head coach and current President of the Miami Heat Pat Riley led them to then an NBA-record 69 regular season wins, which included an NBA-record of 33 straight wins, which still stands as the bench mark today.
This time period West played in was also a time where professional athletes were not paid at the level they are today. During the offseason, professional athletes had side jobs to earn a living along with the sport they played in.
“Today, you have all of that for you. And this is a wonderful time to be a professional athlete,” West said. “You have every convenience and resource to make yourself better.”
West also said that he laughs today about how people can watch games either on television or their smart device. Coaches sending their players video via the internet or on a smart device on a “particular” opponent.
The era West played in had none of that, and he specifically remembers as a player he and his teammates watched film on an old movie projector.
“What an incredible advantage to have that stuff, and particularly if you’re really dedicated,” West said.
What made all the difference for West though in his rise in basketball was that he grew from 5-foot-4 to six-feet between his junior and senior year at East Bank High, where in 1956 became an All-American and was the West Virginia Player of the Year, where he became the first high school player in the state’s history to score over 900 points in a single-season, averaging 32.2 points per contest.
At first West picked up basketball as a way to pass the time on those hot humid days in West Virginia, along with fishing.
Basketball was also something that gave West confidence in himself because he grew up in a household being the five of six kids, and an abusive father in Howard Stewart.
The abuse was so bad that West said that for a time he slept with a loaded shotgun under his bed of fear that he might have to kill his father in self-defense.
Making the last shot in a game in particular build West’s confidence, and in his mind always found a way to put one second on the clock, he imagined himself as the play-by-play announcer, the referee in addition to being a player in the game.
“I think it really made did make me extremely competitive to be honest with you,” West told Johnson of what basketball did for him back then. “It made me not be afraid to take last second shots and make them. And I had a reputation of making a lot of last second shots. Those were very formative years for me. Giving me something to feel good about myself.”
When his playing career concluded in 1974, West had on his basketball resume an NBA title; a gold medal for the U.S.A. in the 1960 Olympic games in Rome, Italy; a spot in both the College and Naismith Basketball Halls of Fame; and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
To West, the most important of all the honors he has had in his career was the being awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which he received from President Donald Trump in 2019. Just as important to West though is to give to those that are less fortunate, which is something that he does quietly and without a lot of fanfare.
He often has said that he wishes he was “so successful” that he would have a “few billion dollars” that he would give away mostly to people to build new homes for them for free to allow them to feel “important” for a moment in their lives instead of feeling like at times “Second-Class citizens.”
“To give them a place where it was home, where it was safe. Where they didn’t have to worry about anything accept supporting themselves,” West said. “That’s always been my biggest wish in life.”
West after retiring from the hardwood in 1974 coached the Lakers for three seasons (1976-79). Then worked as a scout for three more seasons before becoming the Lakers’ General Manager prior to the 1982-83 season.
During the 1980s with him in the front office and Riley as the lead man on the sidelines helped to build through solid draft selections and trades the “Showtime” era of the 1980s where the Lakers led by Hall of Famers Earvin “Magic” Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and James Worthy, and Byron Scott, Kurt Rambis and many other role players won five Larry O’Brien trophies in nine Finals appearances, including back-to-back titles in 1987 and 1988, the first time in 19 years a team won consecutive NBA titles since the Celtics did it in 1968 and 1969.
After a slump in the early 1990s, West helped to rebuild the Lakers, who were now led on the bench by head coach Del Harris back into playoff perennial around now Hall of Fame center Vlade Divac, All-Stars in forward Cedric Ceballos and guard Nick Van Exel.
In the summer of 1996, West made three major moves that laid the foundation for the Lakers eventual back-to-back-to-back titles from 2000-02, with the signing of Hall of Famer Shaquille O’Neal in free agency. The acquisition of the draft rights to Hall of Famer to be in the late Kobe Bryant, the No. 13 overall pick by the Charlotte Hornets in the 1996 NBA Draft in exchange for Divac and the signing of six-time championship coach of the Chicago Bulls in Hall of Famer Phil Jackson.
No one was more hurt about the loss of Bryant, who was killed along with his second oldest daughter Gianna along with seven other people in a helicopter crash outside of L.A. on Jan. 26. It was a day that West said to Johnson that he was watching television to when he heard of the news of Bryant’s passing that his day simply went “downhill.” He said that it took about a week for to get over the suddenness of Bryant’s death.
“He always talked about this ‘Mamba Mentality.’ He didn’t have to create that. It was already there,” West said of Bryant and his focus to be great, which earned him two more titles in 2009 and 2010 as the lead man of the Lakers two days after his death on a TNT special about his life and legacy.”
West added that he was amazed in watching Bryant search for information of how to get better every year. He was so amazed in the early part of Bryant’s career that he made a trade in the lockout shortened 1998-99 season sending All-Star guard Eddie Jones and forward Elden Campbell to the Hornets for All-Star sharp shooter Glen Rice, big man J.R. Reid and B.J. Armstrong on Mar. 10, 1999.
West said on that night to Johnson that he made that trade because Bryant “needed” to start. Many of Laker nation criticized West for the move but it turned out to be the best move because of the end result of the 15th and 16th championship trophies added to the Lakers trophy case.
West told Johnson that he expressed how he felt in the kind of way he did about Bryant because of the fact he was taken from the world too young at age 41. How his work mentoring a number of young athletes, especially young girls, and even female professional athletes at his “Mamba Sports Academy” was becoming bigger than the five titles he led the Lakers to. His 18 All-Star selections; 15 All-NBA selections, 12 All-Defensive selections and two Olympic Gold medals combined.
“He was someone I just loved,” West said of the respect he had for Bryant. “I got to know him. I saw a change in him towards the end of his career. It was just like losing one of your sons to me. That’s how I felt about it. And even today, his memory will never die. For Kobe I will never forget him.”
Following his 20-year stint in the Lakers front office, where he helped the Lakers win a total of eight titles and an Kia Executive of the Year honor in 1995, West moved on to become the GM of the Memphis Grizzlies in 2002 and helped to shape into a consistent playoff participant.
After that five-year stint, where West won his second Executive of the Year Award, he joined the Golden State Warriors in 2011 as a member of their executive board, working directly with current owners Joe Lacob and Peter Guber.
Together, they constructed a roster through the draft and free agency where they drafted the current perennial All-Star backcourt in two-time Kia MVP in Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson; and three-time All-Star and 2017 Kia Defensive Player of the Year in Draymond Green. They also signed All-Star swingman Andre Iguodala; drafted current Sacramento King Harrison Barnes and signed the likes of guards Shaun Livingston, Leandro Barbosa, and acquired center Andrew Bogut.
That squad of players led by head coach Steve Kerr, who the Warriors signed in the summer of 2014, after firing now NBA on ESPN/NBA color analyst Mark Jackson won the franchise’s first title in four decades in 2015 over the Cleveland Cavaliers in six games, and West won his seventh ring serving as a team executive.
The edition of perennial All-Star Kevin Durant, now with the Brooklyn Nets the summer of 2016 got the Warriors back to the Finals for the third straight season and they earned their second title in the last three seasons defeating the Cavaliers, who took them down in the 2016 Finals in seven games in five games. West, thanks to the work by Durant, the MVP of 2017 Finals earned his eighth title as an executive.
On June 14, 2017, West announced that he was joining the executive board of the Los Angeles Clippers.
As he did with the Lakers, Grizzlies, and Warriors, West alongside owner Steve Ballmer, GM Michael Winger, Team President Lawrence Frank, and head coach Doc Rivers made some major trades to turn the Clippers into a title contender. Their two biggest moves came this past offseason were the acquisition of All-Star Paul George and two-time NBA champion, and reigning Finals MVP Kawhi Leonard.
Before the NBA play suspended play on Mar. 11 due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, the Clippers were ascending having won seven of their last eight games and 11 of their last 16 games and had were giving themselves a real shot at their first title in franchise history. Now there is a sense of uncertainty that they will even get the opportunity to compete for a championship, especially with the prospect of facing the rival Lakers and four-time Kia MVP LeBron James and perennial All-Star Anthony Davis in the Western Conference Finals, which was slated to be on TNT this postseason.
“This would have been an incredible thing for basketball if someway, somehow these two teams could have played in a Western Conference Final,” West, whose Clippers had beaten the Lakers in two of the first three meetings this season said. “I think you would have seen record numbers on TNT. I think the viewership would have been obviously bias towards the Lakers, which is great.”
“It’s horrible to sit here and not have something to root for. For me anticipating Milwaukee (Bucks) in the East or the other good teams over there.”
The one thing that West can take some pride in during this tough time in our country, that is without sports at the moment is that his two sons Ryan and Jonnie have followed in their father’s footsteps working the front offices with the Lakers and Warriors respectably.
West said to Johnson that while he and his two sons to his second wife of 42 years Karen work for teams in the same division (Pacific) and same conference (West), they do talk about certain players in the league and how the younger West’s need to do to reach the level of greatness their father did in the NBA from the executive side of things.
That is why the elder West, who watches every game that he can and marvels at the talent of the players in this league and not be able to talk about other players in the league without facing repercussions because that it considered tampering today.
“You’re prohibited from doing that today, and I just don’t like that,” West said. “At one time you could talk about players. I like to talk about the players I like because I like how they play. I like how they compete. I like what they do for the other team.”
One it comes to some of the very best to ever be associated with basketball, Jerry West is at the top because of how he was as a player on the hardwood and his ability to work in concert with the front offices of the Los Angeles Lakers, Memphis Grizzlies, Golden State Warriors and now the Los Angeles Clippers.
As talented as he was as a player and an executive, West was a person who put a lot of work and dedication into his craft both on the court and as an executive. That is not bad for a young man who had a rough childhood and because he found something that built his confidence that made him into a Hall of Famer at the collegiate and professional level. A gold medalist and the recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Jerry West is a clear example of a person who took pride in himself and built friendships that made him have an appreciation for people and the impact they can have on others.
Information, statistics, and quotations are courtesy of 5/2/2020 5 p.m. edition of NBATV’s “#NBATogether With Ernie Johnson: With Jerry West;” https://www.espn.com/nba/standings; https://www.espn.com/nba/team/schedule/_/name/lac; https://www.basketball-reference.com/playoffs/1969-nba-finals-celtics-vs-lakers.html; https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_Jones_(basketball)#Charlotte_Hornets; and https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_West.
No comments:
Post a Comment