In a series of unpublished interviews with ESPN, West described reaching a crossroads in life and in work.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
Jerry West is one of the most pivotal figures in the History of the NBA, player, coach, general manager is no slouch and to be successful at every one is astonishing to say the least it’s disrespectful as hell that the way he was treated when it came in those final years in the Lakers organization. I hope he found some peace in the afterlife, after what he endured in his 86 years. (Yap session concluded)