In a series of unpublished interviews with ESPN, West described reaching a crossroads in life and in work.
He had been deeply wounded, he said, by events the previous summer and continuing into that fall – ones that fully and finally severed any remaining ties to the Lakers, the franchise he spent 40 years helping to build.
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 that he’d repeat privately and publicly in the years ahead.
“I almost wish,” West told ESPN, “that I had never played or worked for them.”
https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/41698701/jerry-west-los-angeles-lakers-simmering-20-year-feud
Tbf the first 20 years of that there were like 9 teams
Did the top 8 still make the playoffs back then too? Ha!
Yeah the Knicks even managed to squeeze in a championship or two in there
Who did we beat in the finals twice again?
Probably the Lakers, poverty ass franchise