In a series of unpublished interviews with ESPN, West described reaching a crossroads in life and in work.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