Jerry West, the Los Angeles Lakers and a simmering 20-year feud

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Jerry West, the Los Angeles Lakers and a simmering 20-year feud​

IT WAS NEAR midnight on the evening of Feb. 27, 2020, and Jerry West was sitting in his car, parked outside his Bel-Air home. He was contemplating retirement.
"Sometimes," West told ESPN, "I feel like I just need to work on myself."
"Sometimes, I just think not being involved might be good for me."
As one day turned to the next, he added: "Sometimes, enough is enough."

The subject would come up every year, maybe during the season, or perhaps in the offseason. But it arrived, without fail, for decades, those close to him say. There was a process he'd work through. He'd declare this year was his last, that he really meant it this time, but then a new season would approach, and West would think about the challenge of piecing together a puzzle to win it all, of finding the right pieces that aligned just so. His competitive fire would burn again, and he'd return for another chance. It became something of a running joke, one person close to him said -- here was Jerry West talking about retiring after nearly six decades in the NBA. But West needed the game, those around him said. They believed that the game would restore some balance within him, and that Jerry West would be back -- because Jerry West would always be back.

It was almost one month to the day after Los Angeles Lakers star Kobe Bryant, Bryant's daughter Gianna, and seven others died in a helicopter crash. In the spring of 1996, West, then the Lakers' general manager, watched 17-year-old Bryant's predraft workout with the Lakers and, after a few minutes, declared, "To hell with this. I've seen enough." West knew Bryant was special, knew the Lakers had to acquire him by any means necessary and relentlessly pushed to make it happen. The two remained close for decades, forging a relationship in which West considered Bryant to be nothing short of a son. During that tenure, first as a player, then a coach, then an executive, West had helped lift the organization to historic heights before this coldest of wars. In the years since, he had hoped for reconciliation. Then, in 2019, after his family became involved, one of the most famous Lakers in history shared a once-unthinkable sentiment, one he'd repeat privately and publicly in the years ahead

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NBA all-time great Jerry West dies at age 86
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Jerry West Said in 2019 He Wished He 'Never Played or Worked for' Lakers amid Feud​

Late Basketball Hall of Famer Jerry West once expressed regret about the decades he spent as a player, coach and executive for the Los Angeles Lakers. "I almost wish that I had never played or worked for them," West told ESPN in 2019, Baxter Holmes reported for the network. West, who died in June at age 86, recorded more than 25,000 points and won the 1972 NBA title with the Lakers as a player. He then returned to the franchise as a coach who guided the team on three playoff runs and an executive who built the Showtime dynasty that brought five rings to Los Angeles in the 1980s. At the end of the 1998-99 season, he told former Lakers owner Jerry Buss that the team should hire Phil Jackson as head coach over then-interim head coach Kurt Rambis, according to Holmes. That decision "sparked friction" within the organization, which was "compounded" by the relationship between Jackson and Jeanie Buss, Jerry's daughter and current team owner, Holmes wrote. Jackson and Buss were later engaged for four years. West departed from the Lakers in 2000, but he later told Lance Pugmire in a Q&A for The Los Angeles Times that he wished he had left sooner after Jackson was hired in 1999.

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