Jerry West, NBA legend and league's logo silhouette, dies at 86 (2024)

By Alex Andrejev, Marcus Thompson II and Law Murray

Jerry West, the iconic Los Angeles Lakers guard who inspired the NBA’s silhouetted logo and later built one of basketball’s greatest dynasties, has died. He was 86 years old.

The LA Clippers said West passed away peacefully Wednesday with his wife, Karen, by his side. No further details were provided.

West spent his 14-year NBA playing career with the Los Angeles Lakers, scoring 25,192 points — a number that trails only Kobe Bryant’s 33,643 for the most in team history. He made the All-Star Game every season of his career, was All-NBA First Team 10 times, won NBA Finals MVP in 1969 — in a series his team lost — and captured a championship in 1972.

Honoring the legendary Jerry West pic.twitter.com/vN9gzMPVMc

— Los Angeles Lakers (@Lakers) June 12, 2024

West also coached the Lakers from 1976 to 1979. As an executive, West’s name became synonymous with the Lakers’ most dominant era, as he helped craft the franchise’s “Showtime” dynasty. The Lakers won five championships in the 1980s with West as general manager and a team led by Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and James Worthy. In the following decade, he was instrumental in bringing Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O’Neal and Phil Jackson to the Lakers, laying the foundation for another run of titles.

He won a sixth championship as a Lakers executive in 2000, and later won two more in 2015 and 2017 while a team executive with the Golden State Warriors. West, who also served as general manager of the Memphis Grizzlies from 2002 to 2007, joined the Clippers as a consultant in 2017.

West is set to be inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame for a third time this year as a contributor. He had already earned induction to the hall in 1980 as a player and in 2010 as a member of the storied 1960 Olympic Team, which captured a gold medal in Rome. In addition to the Hall of Fame, West was named to three NBA legacy teams: the 35th Anniversary Team, NBA at 50 and the 75th Anniversary Team.

“Jerry West was a basketball genius and a defining figure in our league for more than 60 years,” NBA commissioner Adam Silver said in a statement. “He distinguished himself not only as an NBA champion and an All-Star in all 14 of his playing seasons, but also as a consummate competitor who embraced the biggest moments. He was the league’s first Finals MVP and made rising to the occasion his signature quality, earning him the nickname ‘Mr. Clutch.’”

“I valued my friendship with Jerry and the knowledge he shared with me over many years about basketball and life,” Silver added. “On behalf of the NBA, we send our deepest condolences to Jerry’s wife, Karen, his family and his many friends in the NBA community.”

West was born on May 28, 1938, in Chelyan, W. Va., and attended nearby East Bank High, where he separated himself as one of the best players in the state and honed what would become his trademark midrange jump shot. Despite widespread college interest, West chose to stay in state and play for West Virginia. He led the Mountaineers to the national championship game in 1959, where they lost 71-70 to the University of California, and was named the Final Four’s Most Outstanding Player.

With the No. 2 pick in the 1960 NBA Draft, the Minneapolis Lakers — soon to relocate to Los Angeles — selected the 6-foot-3 guard. There, West would reunite with his West Virginia coach, Fred Schaus, and teamed with Hall of Famer Elgin Baylor to form a potent duo.

But before he played his first NBA game, West teamed with future Hall of Famers Oscar Robertson, Walt Bellamy and Jerry Lucas to lead the United States to a gold medal at the 1960 Olympic Games in Rome, crushing opponents by an average of 42.4 points per game.

West began stacking NBA accolades with an All-Star appearance in his rookie season. In his second season, he averaged 30.8 points per game and led the Lakers to the NBA Finals, where they fell to Bill Russell, Tom Heinsohn, Bob Cousy and the Boston Celtics in seven games.

Winning the NBA Finals would prove elusive. West and the Lakers lost in the championship round seven times — six to the Celtics — before defeating the New York Knicks to win the championship in 1972. Four of those series losses came in seven games.

West is still the only player to win NBA Finals MVP on a losing team, an award he earned for averaging 37.9 points and 7.4 assists in the 1969 finals against Boston. His abilities spurred the nickname “Mr. Clutch,” and the NBA named its Clutch Player of the Year Award after West in 2022.

And in 1969, a photo of West, taken by Wen Roberts for Sport Magazine, caught the attention of Alan Siegel, the branding executive tasked with designing the NBA’s logo.

“I always admired him, but I liked the picture because it was a nice vertical and had this motion to it,” Siegel told NBA.com in 2020. “I was a fan of his and he was one of those people who had an important history in the NBA. But in designing the logo, I never mentioned it was based on a picture of him. It was just discovered years later.”

Two years after winning his lone title as a player, West retired at age 36 in 1974 during training camp for the upcoming season, announcing his decision at an emotional news conference at The Forum in Los Angeles.

“The major reason for my retirement is because I have set high standards for myself that I’m not willing to compromise,” he said, according to The New York Times. “I have seen other players play longer than I thought they should have. I did not want to do that.”

Now 25th on the NBA’s all-time scoring list, West’s 25,192 ranked third when he retired, trailing only Wilt Chamberlain (31,419) and Robertson (26,710) at the time.

A three-year stint as the Lakers’ coach ended with West’s resignation in 1979, less than a month after Jerry Buss purchased the team. But he didn’t stray far, working as a scout for three years before taking over as general manager in 1982 — just as the “Showtime” Lakers were hitting their peak. He would spend 18 years in that position, departing in 2000 after the first of three titles won by the team led by Jackson, O’Neal and Bryant.

“Jerry West was more than a general manager, he was a great friend and confidante,” Magic Johnson said in a statement on X. “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.

“Every time I achieved a goal or crossed a milestone, one of the first calls I received was from Jerry West. … Beyond his basketball accolades as a basketball player and NBA executive, Jerry West was a great man, a leader of men, fiercely loved his family and friends, and despite holding jobs with other franchises, he was a Lakers fan for life.”

I met Jerry West for the first time in 1979 at the Forum where he introduced me to Bill Sharman, Chick Hearn, and then Laker owner Jack Kent Cooke. My father, agent and I negotiated over lunch then Jerry took me to the locker room to show me my Lakers jersey. I started to cry and… pic.twitter.com/o9xMDu50Wv

— Earvin Magic Johnson (@MagicJohnson) June 12, 2024

West’s influence on the next generation of players was widely felt in the NBA community, including by Michael Jordan, who called West “a friend and mentor” who was “like an older brother.”

“I valued his friendship and knowledge,” Jordan said in a statement Wednesday. “I always wished I could have played against him as a competitor, but the more I came to know him, I wish I had been his teammate.

“I admired his basketball insights and he and I shared many similarities to how we approached the game. He will be forever missed! My condolences to his wife, Karen, and his sons. RIP, Logo.”

In May 2011, just under a year after purchasing the Warriors, Joe Lacob added Jerry West to the team’s executive board. West was instrumental in the early moves that built the Warriors dynasty. He was a presence of credibility and a sounding board of expertise in the infant stages of the remaking of Golden State.

One of his first big influences early on was the drafting of Klay Thompson a month later. West was then a major voice in the organization for keeping Thompson as the Warriors considered trading him for All-Star forward Kevin Love. He helped in the recruiting of Kevin Durant, one of the biggest free agent coups in NBA history.

“Jerry had a profound and immense impact on our franchise and was instrumental in our recent decade of success,” Lacob said in a statement. “Personally, as a child, despite growing up a Celtics fan in Massachusetts, Jerry was my idol and I loved him. To me, hewas basketball. He was not just about the actual game, but he personified competitiveness. He was the most competitive individual I have ever met, settling for nothing short of greatness.”

West left the Warriors in 2017 after their second championship and joined the Clippers as a consultant, where he still had an effect on the players on the team. Nicolas Batum, who joined the Clippers in 2020 after being waived by the Charlotte Hornets, said West came up to him on his first day of practice to tell him he was a big fan — and that he would have loved to have a teammate like him as a player.

“It meant the world to me at that moment,” Batum said.

By the time West reached the Clippers, he had nine NBA championships to his name. But the one as a player will always be special for how challenging it was to obtain.

In the joyous locker room following their 114-100 win over the Knicks in Game 5 to clinch their first title in Los Angeles, West, who had lost all seven previous NBA Finals series, was elated.

“It’s an unbelievable feeling … something I always wanted to experience,” West told the Los Angeles Times in 1972. “Now, I know what it feels to be a champion.”

But West was also not one who lacked introspection, even at his highest moments.

“I’ve been in this locker room so many times and it’s been so quiet,” West said in ’72. “What an amazing feeling now. It may take me a day to fully realize what happened. All of those things that happened in the past — maybe this will make up for it.”

In the locker room, a steady stream of well-wishers — then-Lakers owner Jack Kent Cooke and Knicks guard Jerry Lucas, West’s 1960 Olympic teammate, and Dave DeBusschere — offered their congratulations.

Then, there was one more familiar face in the Lakers’ locker room: Russell, the Celtics great. The 11-time NBA champ, who was there as a commentator for ABC, won seven of those rings against the Lakers and six of those against West.

In the scrum, Russell reached out and put his hand on West’s shoulder. According to the Los Angeles Times, they exchanged a glance that old foes could understand.

“Congratulations,” Russell said.

“I know now how you felt all those times,” West said.

As Russell turned away and readied for his TV duties, someone asked him how he felt for West.

“I’m just glad,” Russell said, “to see this finally happen to him.”

(Photo: Brian Rothmuller / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)