The great Jerry West is perhaps the definitive Laker -- a legend with a hand in building almost all of that franchise's glory. However, in his latter years, West developed a bit of a feud with Lakers management. The seeds of that beef were planted many years prior, but took a while to fully blossom. All told, it's a fascinating but pretty typical story for a franchise that ranks among history's greatest *and* among history's most complicated.
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00For one of the NBA's most successful franchises,
00:04the Los Angeles Lakers have quite a lot of drama
00:07and palace intrigue in their history.
00:10Jerry West is perhaps the definitive L.A. Laker,
00:14a multi-decade, multi-level contributor
00:17to so much of that success.
00:20West is also, in his own words,
00:22rebellious, defiant, obsessive, and enigmatic.
00:28In 2022, West did an interview
00:30with the Athletics' Sam Amick.
00:33The occasion was the NBA's 75th anniversary team,
00:36of which West was an obvious member.
00:39West didn't take the opportunity
00:41to celebrate his career in L.A., though.
00:44Instead, he said all this.
00:48Yeah, 60 years into their mutual history,
00:52the connection between a brilliant, complicated franchise
00:56and its brilliant, complicated star,
00:58the one with a statue outside the arena, was beef.
01:06Jerry West probably isn't the best Laker ever,
01:10but he might be the most Laker ever.
01:13He played with Elgin and Wilt, he coached Kareem,
01:16built around Magic, signed Shaq, traded for Kobe.
01:20West's story is intertwined
01:22with nearly every glorious chapter of Lakers history.
01:26For most of that history,
01:28the Lakers were owned by one family, that of Jerry Buss.
01:32But West's Laker tenure actually predates the Busses'.
01:36His relationship with the prior team owner,
01:38Jack Kent Cook, previews our beef in several ways.
01:42Even though he was an incredibly productive,
01:45celebrated player, Jerry West regretted
01:48that he only won one championship late in his career,
01:51losing seven NBA finals, almost all of them to the Celtics,
01:55before he finally got that ring in 1972.
01:59In his autobiography, released in 2011,
02:02West says he felt some resentment for Cook,
02:04the Lakers' owner, because of disrespectful things
02:07he'd said and done during those defeats,
02:09as well as growing disconnect over issues
02:12like money and West's health.
02:15The point is, West retired as a player in 1974
02:18on pretty bad terms with his boss.
02:22When West agreed to come back and coach the Lakers in 76,
02:26it was only after settling a lawsuit with Cook
02:28over whether the Lakers owed West a permanent job.
02:32This is all peculiar, but so are the Lakers,
02:35and so is Jerry West.
02:38That lawsuit surfaced an important
02:40conceptual component of our beef.
02:42Jerry West, Laker for life.
02:46A couple years into West's coaching tenure, 1979,
02:49Jerry bought the Lakers, Jerry Buss.
02:52Even when he tired of coaching,
02:54West stayed with the Lakers as a consultant and scout.
02:57He enjoyed working for the new, ambitious team owner.
03:01When Buss tried to convince West to be head coach again,
03:05West instead passed that job to his old teammate, Pat Riley,
03:09and took over in yet another role, LA's general manager.
03:13In that position, West would finally lead LA
03:16to sustained glory.
03:18He had a hand in building both the Showtime Lakers
03:22and the Shaq-Kobe Lakers,
03:24rosters that collected a lot more rings
03:26than West won as a player.
03:29Throughout their decades of success,
03:31Buss and West clashed over several personnel decisions,
03:34and even over money, but they moved on.
03:37That dynamic is worth noting
03:39because it changed around the late 1990s.
03:42West was assembling the team
03:44that would eventually win three straight titles
03:46around Shaq and Kobe,
03:49but he didn't stick around to see it through
03:50because the process destroyed him emotionally.
03:54West has been open about his lifelong experience
03:57with depression.
03:58He writes in detail about his mental health
04:01and past trauma in the autobiography.
04:04And he was pretty open at the time, too,
04:06about how work was weighing on him.
04:09As early as the 97-98 season,
04:12West went on the record with candid descriptions
04:14of career burnout,
04:16stuff that kinda alarmed the people who were listening.
04:19Already, there was talk of West's second-in-command,
04:22Mitch Kupchak, stepping up to replace him.
04:25After settling some scores with Buss,
04:28West did sign a contract extension and remain in his posts,
04:32but the work only hit him harder.
04:34In 99, it was the addition of Dennis Rodman,
04:38an absurd failure of a roster move
04:41that Buss pushed despite West's reservations.
04:45West was so worked up by April of that season
04:48that his wife Karen wrote a letter to Buss
04:50raising alarms about his employees' state of mind.
04:54The following season,
04:55the Lakers moved from the Forum in Inglewood
04:58to a new downtown arena, then known as the Staples Center.
05:02Jerry Buss visited his franchise
05:04less often in their new office.
05:06He was busy, I guess.
05:08And West writes that he once again
05:10felt a growing disconnect from his boss,
05:13and in that vacuum of communication,
05:15he felt underappreciated.
05:17The disconnect played out
05:19in one particularly humiliating incident.
05:22The prior season, the Lakers had traded
05:24for a big-time scorer, Glenn Rice.
05:27Rice was worried at the time that a diminished role
05:30beside Shaq and Kobe might hurt his value.
05:33West soothed that concern by promising
05:36LA would decline an upcoming contract option
05:39and allow Rice to hit free agency.
05:42But come summertime, Jerry Buss said,
05:45"'Nah, we're picking up that option.
05:46"'Rice is locked into his salary next season.'"
05:49Buss wasn't the one who made the promise
05:51and had no qualms about breaking it, to West's dismay.
05:56And in October of 99, at a meeting in Santa Barbara,
06:00West confronted Buss right in front of Rice and his agent.
06:04It was tense.
06:05In retrospect, West described this display
06:08of LA's, quote, distressing lack of communication
06:12as the moment he started to sour
06:14on the franchise he had loved for 40 years.
06:18It wasn't just Jerry and Jerry, though.
06:21Two of Buss' adult children, Jeannie and Jim,
06:24had joined the family business.
06:26Jeannie followed her father's footsteps
06:28on the money side of things,
06:30taking over as the Lakers' VP of business ops.
06:33That would eventually matter, beef-wise,
06:35and so would this.
06:37The Lakers made an outside hire in 99.
06:40Phil Jackson, former Finals rival of Jerry West,
06:44recent coach of the dynastic Chicago Bulls.
06:47Just like in Chicago, Phil helped the Lakers win titles.
06:51Just like in Chicago, Phil bristled at management.
06:55West tells of Jackson throwing him out of the locker room
06:58and generally being cold and disrespectful.
07:01Unlike in Chicago, Phil was dating an executive.
07:05He and Jeannie Buss became boyfriend-girlfriend
07:09during that first season as coworkers.
07:11Jerry Buss didn't mind.
07:14Jerry West did.
07:16So here you had a precarious love-and-beef arrangement,
07:20the technical term is beef-sauci-lease,
07:23that only deepened the misery of West's work days.
07:27And then there's the other Buss kid in the office.
07:29Jim Buss was less about business, more about team-building.
07:34Jim's dad tasked West and Kupchak
07:36with mentoring his son in the ways of basketball ops.
07:40Jim Buss was a bit of a noob, but by all accounts,
07:44West took the mentorship seriously enough
07:46that whenever he was ready to step down,
07:49both Kupchak and Jim could take over team management.
07:53That day came in August 2000,
07:56soon after the first Shaq-Kobe title.
07:59The pressure had become unbearable,
08:01and West writes that he was tired
08:03of being the sore spot in the brain trust.
08:06It wasn't a terrible shock,
08:08given how Jerry had been talking for a couple years.
08:11And West didn't go far.
08:12He hung around as a consultant to Kupchak and Jim Buss.
08:17This was the shock.
08:19In 2002, West got hired as lead executive
08:23of the Memphis Grizzlies.
08:25Instead of fading into the background as a Laker for life,
08:29West re-entered the spotlight
08:31for a hopeful conference rival.
08:34L.A. tipped their caps to the departing legend,
08:37but it felt really weird.
08:40Years passed at a distance.
08:42West won an award for building
08:44the lowly Grizzlies into a real team.
08:47Genie remained in charge of L.A.'s business.
08:50Jim handled more and more of the basketball,
08:52receiving a title promotion in 05.
08:55Meanwhile, the Lakers stalled out in the 04 finals,
08:59fell apart, and then endured
09:01three straight seasons of mediocrity.
09:04By 2007, Kobe Bryant was openly angling for West
09:09to come back and help run the Lakers again, or else.
09:13West didn't want to undermine
09:15his old friends Jim and Mitch, though.
09:17He left Memphis, laid low for a few years,
09:20then took another Western Conference resurrection job
09:23with the Golden State Warriors.
09:24That one turned out pretty well.
09:26But even while working elsewhere,
09:28West retained personal connections to the Lakers.
09:32For one thing, his son, Ryan West,
09:34had risen up the ranks of the Laker scouting department.
09:37And Jerry kept in touch with Jim Buss,
09:39even writing him a letter of encouragement
09:41during tough times.
09:42He really had his former mentees back.
09:46In 2011, the Lakers put up a statue in Jerry West's honor.
09:50At this point, you might rightfully ask,
09:52beef over?
09:53Did it even begin?
09:56Whatever problems Jerry West had
09:58with Jerry Buss and the Lakers' organization
10:00sure look resolved in photos like these.
10:03And West has written about resolving differences
10:05with his old boss.
10:07For tensions to inflame anew between West and the Lakers,
10:11the franchise needed a new boss, and new in-house beef.
10:16In 2012, LA's brain trust, Jim Buss among them,
10:20strongly considered hiring Phil Jackson
10:22as coach for a third time,
10:24and then shockingly pivoted to Mike D'Antoni.
10:27Didn't go well.
10:29Jeannie, who was still dating Phil at the time,
10:31felt stabbed in the back by her own brother.
10:35In 2013, Lakers patriarch Jerry Buss died at the age of 80.
10:40Six Buss children inherited equal shares in the team.
10:44And on top of her ownership stake,
10:47Jeannie succeeded her father as team governor,
10:50meaning she had ultimate oversight
10:53of business and basketball.
10:55And the team was struggling,
10:58which is to say Jeannie became Jim's boss,
11:00and Jim's department was in kind of bad shape.
11:03Four losing years later, Jeannie fired her brother.
11:08There was a lawsuit.
11:09There was a restraining order, an attempted coup.
11:11It was very ugly.
11:14Jeannie replaced Jim with a front office
11:16of Magic Johnson and Rob Polenka.
11:19West didn't get a call ostensibly
11:21since he was still with Golden State.
11:24However, West left the Warriors in 2017
11:27and wished he'd had the opportunity
11:29to return to Los Angeles,
11:30which he actually did with the LA Clippers.
11:34Awkward.
11:35In 2019, Magic abruptly resigned as Lakers executive.
11:39Again, there was a push to bring back Jerry.
11:41Again, Jeannie Buss didn't even contact him.
11:44This time, West said he wasn't interested anyway.
11:48West insisted he didn't dislike the team,
11:51but he detected some hostility from the other side.
11:54Before that summer of 2019,
11:57you could chalk up any animus to old stuff.
12:00Maybe West's history with Phil and Jeannie,
12:02who had since separated.
12:04Maybe West's closeness with Jim Buss,
12:06who Jeannie had alienated.
12:08That may have been enough beef for Jeannie
12:11to keep a supposed Laker for life at arm's length.
12:15Either way, in July 2019, Jerry put one more coal
12:19in the fire that we didn't learn about until later.
12:22That summer, Jeannie's Lakers and Jerry's Clippers
12:26pursued free agent superstar and LA native Kawhi Leonard.
12:30Jerry's team won the recruiting battle,
12:32and in its aftermath, West got sued by someone
12:36who said they helped broker Kawhi's Clipper deal.
12:39During those legal proceedings in late 2020,
12:42this voicemail found its way to TMZ.
12:44I heard this morning that everyone over in the Lakers camp
12:49thinks they're gonna get him.
12:52I just find it hard to believe
12:56that he would want to go to that shit show.
12:59The voice in that clip,
13:00allegedly calling the Lakers a shit show,
13:03allegedly sounds a lot like Jerry West.
13:07Jeannie Buss never returned fire at that insult,
13:09but it didn't feel to Jerry like a coincidence
13:12when his son's career in the Lakers scouting department
13:15hit a dead end that same year.
13:17Nor did it feel like a coincidence
13:19when his wife received a text out of the blue
13:22saying their family would no longer
13:23have reserved seats at Laker games.
13:26Nor when Jeannie, challenged on a podcast
13:29to name the top five Lakers ever, left Jerry off her list.
13:33West was very, very offended by that omission.
13:37Which brings us to that 2022 interview.
13:40Over 60 years into his NBA career,
13:43a supposed Laker for life with a statue outside their arena
13:47said he felt like a piece of trash,
13:50that he had a horrible relationship with the team,
13:53and that maybe he should have played somewhere else
13:55where he was more appreciated.
13:57It's a shame that such an important individual
14:00in Lakers history could feel so at odds with the franchise.
14:04But maybe it makes perfect sense.
14:06For all their glory,
14:08the Lakers have been a pretty messy franchise.
14:11It stands to reason that a guy who helped engineer
14:14that glory would also be a big part of the mess.
14:18Maybe in Laker land, you can't have one without the other.