For Jerry West, the accolades are far too many to count.
In just over two weeks’ time, this past summer, the NBA lost two titanic personalities in Bill Walton and Mr. West, whose impact on the game spanned the hardwood, courtside, and executive offices.
On the merit of compiling 42 points, 13 rebounds, and 12 assists, a triple-double in a Game 7 loss in the 1969 NBA Finals, West became the first and only player to win a Finals MVP in a losing effort, a feat that caused Bill Russell to remark, “Los Angeles has won the championship, but Jerry West is a champion.”
Despite making the finals nine times as a player, he only came away with one title for his years of dominance with the Los Angeles Lakers, losing six times to the Boston Celtics, while mustering a 1-2 Finals record against the New York Knicks.
Quite frankly, there is probably nobody more ingrained in Lakers history than West was.
He was an NBA All-Star for all fourteen years he played, every one of them for Los Angeles. Only twice did he fail to make an All-NBA team, ten times on the first team, twice on the second team.
In his three years as Lakers coach, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s first three seasons as a Laker, West took them to the playoffs every season, once winning a division title, twice making it to the second round or further.
As an executive, West engineered eight Lakers teams who made the NBA Finals, winning four titles in the process (he would also be a part of three championships with Golden State), responsible for the Showtime Lakers and the deals that brought Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal to L.A.
Prior to his departure in 2000, West was responsible for the first title of what would be a Lakers three-peat but remained in the city to orchestrate the Lob City Clippers and later bring aboard Kawhi Leonard and Paul George in between his service to the early Steph Curry-era Golden State Warriors.
West, too, has an important place in New York Knicks history in more ways than one.
In his first matchup against New York in the 1970 Finals, West hoisted a 60-footer to force overtime in Game 3, a contest the Lakers would eventually lose, four games prior to Willis Reed’s heroics in Game 7 at Madison Square Garden.
West, having scored the most points in NBA Finals history (1,679 to Lebron James’s 1,652), averaged 24.2 points, 3.5 rebounds, and 7.0 assists across 17 games and three series against New York.
His best effort came in the seven-game battle in 1970, whereby he averaged 31.3 points, 3.4 rebounds, and 7.7 assists, losing the Finals MVP to Reed despite compiling better numbers than New York’s big man, who averaged 23.0 points, 10.5 rebounds, and 2.8 assists, though Reed was severely limited in Game 7 and did not play in Game 6.
While many fans can point to the successes of Wilt Chamberlain, Elgin Baylor, Willis Reed, and Walt Frazier in those Knicks/Lakers matchups, debating the merit of Michael Jordan and Lebron James as the greatest of all-time, Jerry West remains the face of those series and the league’s history whose impact—both grand and small—can be difficult to truly measure and conceptualize.
In the words of Magic Johnson, who took to X (formerly Twitter) to mourn the loss of West, the Laker great proclaimed, “Jerry West was more than a general manager, he was a great friend and confidante. He was there in my highest moments, winning 5 NBA Championships, and in my lowest moment when I announced my HIV diagnosis and we cried together for hours in his office.”
From Bill Simmons’s The Book of Basketball, The Ringer founder wrote, “During the ’69 Finals, Larry Siegfried was talking to Deford about the good fortune of West’s hamstring injury—West had scored 197 points in the first five games before pulling his hamstring late in Game 5—and explained, ‘[West] is the master. They can talk about the others, build them up, but he is the one. He is the only guard … His tribute is what the players think of him. We’ve played at about the same time but, if we hadn’t, the one player I’d most like to see win a championship is Jerry West.’ After the soul-crushing Game 7 defeat, John Havlicek told Terry Pluto, ‘The guy I felt terrible for in those playoffs was Jerry West. He was so great, and he was absolutely devastated. As we came off the court, I went up to Jerry and told him, ‘I love you and I just hope you get a championship. You deserve it as much as anyone who has ever played this game!’ He was too emotionally spent to say anything, but you could feel his absolute and total dejection over losing.’”
Often endeared as Mr. Clutch, West is Mr. Basketball, quantified by his marks of becoming the first high school basketball player in West Virginia state history to amass 900 points, leading East Bank High to a state championship on the strength of 32.3 points per game.
He rolled that success towards great heights at West Virginia University, where he was a two-time All-American, scoring 24.2 points per game, taking the Mountaineers to the 1959 NCAA title game, becoming one of only three players—alongside Magic Johnson and Hakeem Olajuwon—to win a Finals MVP, earn the NCAA Tournament’s Most Outstanding Player, and take home an Olympic gold medal.
In the pursuit of re-signing Isaiah Hartenstein this past offseason, the Knicks faced great opposition from the likes of Oklahoma City and Philadelphia, two teams in desperate need of a big man, either to start or spell Joel Embiid respectively. Prior to his Knicks’ tenure, Hartenstein was given a shot with West’s Clippers in 2021 after bouncing around with three teams across three seasons—Houston, Denver, and Cleveland—signing with L.A. that year to a one-year, $1.7 million contract that he could potentially parlay into a massive deal after two successful seasons in New York.
Mourning the loss of West, Hartenstein took to Instagram, saying, “RIP to ‘the Logo.’ Wouldn’t be where I’m at in my career without you. All love.”
Like many legends of the game, Jerry West’s impact will reverberate for as long as the game is played. When you look at the league’s logo, you will see him. When you see Hartenstein suit up for what will hopefully be his return to the Knicks, you will see him.
When, in August, Steven Ballmer opens the doors to the Clippers’ innovative Intuit Dome, a “basketball palazzo,” in the owner’s words, you will see him.
Even in the most recent NBA Finals, when Luka Doncic takes the ball inside and out, when Kyrie Irving pulls up for a midrange jumper over two or three towering Celtics, you will see him.
In many ways, the roots of the game practically begin and end with him, a sharpshooter and ambassador without peer.
