Jerry West's Anguish (Part I)

Friends remain puzzled by Jerry West's anguish.

A public torment that is at once spectacular and unnerving. Over the years it has abated somewhat, and the man's wife reports that during the first three rounds her husband's stomach has not required its seasonal medical attention. This is a good sign, and you don't know how good.

Once, when he was still coaching the Los Angeles Lakers, he didn't speak to her for three weeks. It was their first year of marriage, and she was too scared to talk to anyone but her mother about it. Later he told her it was nothing personal. It was playoff time.

It used to be that after a Laker loss, his mood might require her to seek another ride home. But when a division rival pasted the Lakers and Magic Johnson went down and out with an ankle injury, the family retreated to a movie that he actually remembers seeing. ''He even spoke to us,'' says his wife. The occasion is remembered by everyone that attended because he didn’t seem preoccupied.

Yet his world remains clouded by a strange misery that neither friends nor success can lift, a cultivated gloom that, like his clutch play for 14 Laker seasons, is practically a work of art.

This is a man who left the Lakers to blaze new trails with the Memphis Grizzlies, only to leave the Grizzlies without accomplishing his primary goal, building a contender. This past spring, West found himself back in the City of Angels to present Mitch Kupchak with the Western Conference trophy--as tears of joy streamed down face. His beloved purple would not have to stand by idly while the hated green stormed off with yet another championship, as he had feared for much of the 2007-2008 regular season. Instead, the Lakers could put up a fight, and maybe even administer a beating of the kind his Laker teams used to receive from Boston during the 1960s.

Jerry West's Anguish (Part IV)

Let there be no mistake.

Jerry West reached the mountain top both as a player and as a GM.

His beloved Los Angeles Lakers had suffered so many times at the hands of the Boston Celtics, it seemed that once the purple got a little momentum behind them, they were going to ride it like a tsunami.

And that’s how most NBA fans remember the 1971-72 NBA season, as a tsunami of purple and gold.

The Lakers started the season 40-4.

In the middle they ran off a record 33 straight wins.

They finished the season with an unprecedented 69 wins against 13 losses.

They swept their way to the Eastern Conference Finals, making them 73-13.

Amazing.

Then they played Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and the Milwaukee Bucks.

Based on the Lakers history of losing one big game after another, most NBA insiders picked the Bucks to prevail. The Lakers, however, held the home-court advantage, and odds-makers made the purple 1 to 1.5 point favorites in the opening game.

Lakers fans and beat writers held their collective breath.

The purple were down only three at halftime, 37-34. Sadly for Jerry West and company, that was as close as it got. The Lakers were outscored 31-8 in the third quarter, and the sellout crowd at the Forum began to boo the home team for the rest of the game. The final score was 93-72 Bucks.

Chamberlain was 3-12 for 10 points, while Jerry West was 4-19 from the field. Gail Goodrich shot 2-14.

How’d Kareem do?

33 points on 14-26 shooting, while grabbing 18 boards and blocking 8 shots.

The Laker beat writers were outraged. A writer for the LA Times vowed not to watch another game, concluding that Jerry West and Wilt Chamberlain were done.

The sun had shined all season on the purple, and yet here they were back in familiar territory, on the verge of an historic humiliation.

Mr. Clutch would need to dig down deep to make this one right.

Jerry West's Anguish (Part II)

Who wouldn't want to be Jerry West , to achieve all that he has? Who would dare dream the life Jerry West has led? Not even Jerry West -- Zeke from Cabin Creek, dribbling a ball on the West Virginia dirt on winter nights 40 years ago, a country boy's solitaire -- could have created this life from his imagination. ''I was my own best friend,'' he says of those days. ''I was everything, actually. Player, coach, announcer, even the timekeeper. It was amazing to me how many times in those imaginary games there'd be one second left, my team one point down and me with the ball, and I'd miss and -- the really amazing part -- there would still be time for another shot, or 10.''

Not that many years later, the timekeeper no longer his best friend, he would make a 60-foot shot at the buzzer to send a 1970 NBA championship game into overtime. Not even his dreams, as fevered as they may have been in the Appalachian twilight, anticipated the glory of real life. Real life: West became one of the greatest guards to play the game, a perennial All-Star, a rich man, later a winning coach and, after a brief retirement to country-club life and a one handicap, the architect and curator of the 1980s' dominant professional sports franchise. Life's lottery winner.

But Jerry West is naturally distrustful of success, and he is always surprised, but never pleased enough, when it comes his way. He was a two-time All-America at West Virginia, the only college player you could mention in the same breath with Oscar Robertson, but he was astonished when the Lakers, just then picking up to move from Minneapolis to Los Angeles, drafted him in the first round in 1960. ''I didn't think I was good enough to play in the NBA,'' he says. ''No, really.'' Then, after a bad game during the Olympic trials that year, he almost gave up on the Olympics, too. Pete Newell, the U.S. coach, had to explain to him that if West wasn't on the team, neither was he. ''But that was Jerry,'' says Newell. "Even the tiniest setback can be seen as catastrophic to Jerry."

It's unclear when this started, but clearly much of his angst can be traced to failure at the Finals in the 1960s.

1962
CELTICS 4 LAKERS 3

With the series tied 2-2, Baylor scored 61 points -- then a playoff record -- as the Lakers won in Boston and moved within one victory of slaying the Celtics. ``We'll win it now,'' Lakers coach Fred Schaus said. Sorry, Fred. In Game 6, the Celtics' Sam Jones scored 35 points as Boston won by 14 in Los Angeles. For Game 7, PFC Elgin Baylor, an Army reservist, was granted a second special pass from Seattle's Fort Lewis to play. He scored 41 points, Jerry West added 35 and the Celtics had big foul trouble. The Lakers' Frank Selvy took a jumper at the end of regulation that would have won it. The ball rimmed out. The Celtics prevailed by three points in overtime. Bill Russell had 40 rebounds and 30 points.

1963
CELTICS 4 LAKERS 2

The Lakers lost Game 4 in Los Angeles to trail the series 3-1, and the focus afterward was on one play. With 51/2minutes left and the Lakers down by five, Baylor collided inside with Russell. He hit a short hook shot on the play, but referee Richie Powers called Baylor for an offensive foul.It sapped the steam from the Lakers. Baylor finished with 31 points and 19rebounds. Heinsohn countered with 35 points. The Lakers fought off elimination in Game 5, with Baylor's 43 points, but Boston won Game 6 on the road. ``Los Angeles isn't the basketball capital of the world yet,'' Auerbach gloated afterward.

1965
CELTICS 4 LAKERS 1

With Baylor out for the series with a broken kneecap, Boston won the opener at home by 32 points -- scoring 142points, topping their own record by two. The Lakers won the third game but in Game 4, Sam Jones had 37points for the Celtics, who took a 13-point win and a 3-1 series lead. Back in the Garden for Game 5, West had 33points. But Boston opened the fourth quarter with 10 straight field goals and held L.A. scoreless for five minutes. The Celtics won the game by 33 points. Russell had 30 rebounds and 22 points.

1966
CELTICS 4 LAKERS 3

West had 41 points and Baylor had 36in the Lakers' Game 1 victory, but the Celtics won the next three games. The Lakers rebounded and won Game 5 when West broke a 115-all tie on a jumper with 35 seconds left. The Lakers then forced a seventh game with an eight-point victory at home, but in the decisive game in Boston, the Celtics won their eighth consecutive title. Down by 16 points entering the fourth quarter, the Lakers outscored Boston 33-19 in the final 12 minutes but it wasn't enough. West had 36points, but Russell created his usual havoc with 25 points and 32 rebounds.

1968
CELTICS 4 LAKERS 2

The Lakers evened the series with a Game 4 victory in Los Angeles. West scored 38 points, but he left with 44seconds to go after spraining his ankle in a collision with John Havlicek. Don Nelson, who had been waived by the Lakers in 1965, scored 26 points to help Boston to a 120-117 OT win in Game 5. Boston won Game 6 in L.A., and thus the series, in a rout. West, limping up and down court, scored 22 points. Havlicek had 40 points for the Celtics, who led by as many as 21 points in the fourth quarter before settling for a 15-point victory.

1969
CELTICS 4 LAKERS 3

The Lakers acquired Wilt Chamberlain before the season started, and were hailed all season long as basketball's next dynasty. The Lakers took a 2-0 lead in the series, and put themselves on the verge of a championship with a Game 5 victory in Los Angeles. They took advantage of Russell (seven points, 13 boards) being in foul trouble in the second half. West had 28 of his 39 points in the second half, but he pulled a hamstring muscle late in the game, which would hurt the Lakers later on. Wilt Chamberlain had 31 rebounds. The Lakers lost Game 6 by nine points but, anticipating the end of the Celtics' hex in Game 7, Lakers owner Jack Kent Cooke had balloons tied to the Forum's rafters and arranged for the USC marching band to play ``Happy Days Are Here Again.'' The band was never needed. In the third quarter, the Lakers missed 15 straight field goals and Boston led, 91-76, and cruised to victory. ``What are they going to do with all those ... balloons now?'' Auerbach said. ``And all that champagne?'' ``I still have nightmares about that game,'' West in 2006. ``We should have beaten the Celtics. But we didn't. That one hurt the most because it was the final time we had a chance to beat Bill Russell.''

1984
CELTICS 4 LAKERS 3

From the Lakers' perspective, no loss to the Celtics has been more crushing. The Lakers lead in the final minute of games 1-4, and come away with only two wins. A Gerald Henderson steal and a Kevin McHale clothesline still replay themselves in the minds of both West, and his Captain Ahab, Jerry West. The Lakers go on to lose the series in seven games, with West and Riley blaming defeat on hotel pranks, lack of air conditioning, and suspicious bus drivers. Riley is so paranoid that before game 7 he orders all of the team's water coolers emptied and inspected. Nothing suspicous was found.

"Those seven losses in the Finals haunted Jerry," said West's backcourt mate, Gail Goodrich. Even after the Lakers won two championships by defeating the Celtics in 1985 and 1987, West was still was not happy.

"I saw West being interviewed during the summer of 1987," John Havlicek once told Sports Illustrated, "and he was still saying how much he disliked the Celtics. We had the utmost respect for them, as players. I was surprised the enmity they still held for us. For the longest time, Jerry wouldn't go into the Boston Garden, even when he was a chief executive of the Lakers. He wouldn't even attend game 6 of the 1985 NBA Finals--which the Lakers won--because he was so spooked by the building."

When asked about the team's success in the 1980s, all West could say was "I was so used to being on the other side, I didn't know what to think or how to feel. It never seemed to matter how well we played, they always won. It was almost like fate wasn't going to let you win."

Before the 2008 Finals began, West was still expressing angst.

"You may not want to think about it, but it's impossible for me not to think about it," West said in early June. "When you've competed at a high level, and had a great measure of success like we did, you feel the hurt of losing even more."

"The pain of knowing we should have won at least a couple of those series (in the 1960s) against the Celtics still hurts," West said. "When it's happened again and again, it's not real fun to relive it. I know we always felt scarred by that. I know I did."

Will the Anguish Return for Jerry West?

PART I

Friends remain puzzled by Jerry West's anguish.

A public torment that is at once spectacular and unnerving. Over the years it has abated somewhat, and the man's wife reports that during the first three rounds her husband's stomach has not required its seasonal medical attention. This is a good sign, and you don't know how good.

Once, when he was still coaching the Los Angeles Lakers, he didn't speak to her for three weeks. It was their first year of marriage, and she was too scared to talk to anyone but her mother about it. Later he told her it was nothing personal. It was playoff time.

It used to be that after a Laker loss, his mood might require her to seek another ride home. But when a division rival pasted the Lakers and Magic Johnson went down and out with an ankle injury, the family retreated to a movie that he actually remembers seeing. ''He even spoke to us,'' says his wife. The occasion is remembered by everyone that attended because he didn’t seem preoccupied.

Yet his world remains clouded by a strange misery that neither friends nor success can lift, a cultivated gloom that, like his clutch play for 14 Laker seasons, is practically a work of art.

This is a man who left the Lakers to blaze new trails with the Memphis Grizzlies, only to leave the Grizzlies without accomplishing his primary goal, building a contender. This past spring, West found himself back in the City of Angels to present Mitch Kupchak with the Western Conference trophy--as tears of joy streamed down face. His beloved purple would not have to stand by idly while the hated green stormed off with yet another championship, as he had feared for much of the 2007-2008 regular season. Instead, the Lakers could put up a fight, and maybe even administer a beating of the kind his Laker teams used to receive from Boston during the 1960s.

originally posted by Lex before the 2008 NBA Finals

Jerry West's Anguish (part III)

People often wonder why former Laker great Jerry West was chosen as the image for the red, white, and blue NBA logo. No one is exactly sure, but friends of his assume that the honor was given to West as an anti-dote for all the pain he had suffered at the hands of the Boston Celtics.

Six times his Lakers lost to the Celtics in the Finals while West was a player, once they lost while West was a general manager, and once (in 2008) they lost while West was as an interested onlooker.

As the losses to Boston piled up, West got to the point where he couldn’t stand the sight of anything colored green. He wouldn’t wear anything green, and any furniture or belongings he owned of that color were thrown away or put in storage. “After the loss at the Forum in the 1969 Finals,” West said, “the rivalry began to dominate my every thought, and they weren’t exactly healthy thoughts.”

The first five times his Lakers lost to the Green, the Celtics were favored. In the 1969 Finals, however, the Lakers enjoyed home-court advantage, they had Wilt Chamberlain, and the Boston Celtics were an aging, injured group of players on the downsides of their careers. There was every reason to believe the Lakers would win.

But they didn't.

Still, West played so well he won the Finals MVP, the only player ever to do so for a losing team. Already inconsolable, his mood turned bleak when he saw the car that came with the award.

It was a brand new Cadillac.

Color?

Bright green.

--Roland Lazenby

Will the Anguish Return for Jerry West?

PART 2

Who wouldn't want to be Jerry West , to achieve all that he has? Who would dare dream the life Jerry West has led? Not even Jerry West -- Zeke from Cabin Creek, dribbling a ball on the West Virginia dirt on winter nights 40 years ago, a country boy's solitaire -- could have created this life from his imagination. ''I was my own best friend,'' he says of those days. ''I was everything, actually. Player, coach, announcer, even the timekeeper. It was amazing to me how many times in those imaginary games there'd be one second left, my team one point down and me with the ball, and I'd miss and -- the really amazing part -- there would still be time for another shot, or 10.''

Not that many years later, the timekeeper no longer his best friend, he would make a 60-foot shot at the buzzer to send a 1970 NBA championship game into overtime. Not even his dreams, as fevered as they may have been in the Appalachian twilight, anticipated the glory of real life. Real life: West became one of the greatest guards to play the game, a perennial All-Star, a rich man, later a winning coach and, after a brief retirement to country-club life and a one handicap, the architect and curator of the 1980s' dominant professional sports franchise. Life's lottery winner.

But Jerry West is naturally distrustful of success, and he is always surprised, but never pleased enough, when it comes his way. He was a two-time All-America at West Virginia, the only college player you could mention in the same breath with Oscar Robertson, but he was astonished when the Lakers, just then picking up to move from Minneapolis to Los Angeles, drafted him in the first round in 1960. ''I didn't think I was good enough to play in the NBA,'' he says. ''No, really.'' Then, after a bad game during the Olympic trials that year, he almost gave up on the Olympics, too. Pete Newell, the U.S. coach, had to explain to him that if West wasn't on the team, neither was he. ''But that was Jerry,'' says Newell. "Even the tiniest setback can be seen as catastrophic to Jerry."

It's unclear when this started, but clearly much of his angst can be traced to failure at the Finals in the 1960s.

1962
CELTICS 4 LAKERS 3

With the series tied 2-2, Baylor scored 61 points -- then a playoff record -- as the Lakers won in Boston and moved within one victory of slaying the Celtics. ``We'll win it now,'' Lakers coach Fred Schaus said. Sorry, Fred. In Game 6, the Celtics' Sam Jones scored 35 points as Boston won by 14 in Los Angeles. For Game 7, PFC Elgin Baylor, an Army reservist, was granted a second special pass from Seattle's Fort Lewis to play. He scored 41 points, Jerry West added 35 and the Celtics had big foul trouble. The Lakers' Frank Selvy took a jumper at the end of regulation that would have won it. The ball rimmed out. The Celtics prevailed by three points in overtime. Bill Russell had 40 rebounds and 30 points.

1963
CELTICS 4 LAKERS 2

The Lakers lost Game 4 in Los Angeles to trail the series 3-1, and the focus afterward was on one play. With 51/2minutes left and the Lakers down by five, Baylor collided inside with Russell. He hit a short hook shot on the play, but referee Richie Powers called Baylor for an offensive foul.It sapped the steam from the Lakers. Baylor finished with 31 points and 19rebounds. Heinsohn countered with 35 points. The Lakers fought off elimination in Game 5, with Baylor's 43 points, but Boston won Game 6 on the road. ``Los Angeles isn't the basketball capital of the world yet,'' Auerbach gloated afterward.

1965
CELTICS 4 LAKERS 1

With Baylor out for the series with a broken kneecap, Boston won the opener at home by 32 points -- scoring 142points, topping their own record by two. The Lakers won the third game but in Game 4, Sam Jones had 37points for the Celtics, who took a 13-point win and a 3-1 series lead. Back in the Garden for Game 5, West had 33points. But Boston opened the fourth quarter with 10 straight field goals and held L.A. scoreless for five minutes. The Celtics won the game by 33 points. Russell had 30 rebounds and 22 points.

1966
CELTICS 4 LAKERS 3

West had 41 points and Baylor had 36in the Lakers' Game 1 victory, but the Celtics won the next three games. The Lakers rebounded and won Game 5 when West broke a 115-all tie on a jumper with 35 seconds left. The Lakers then forced a seventh game with an eight-point victory at home, but in the decisive game in Boston, the Celtics won their eighth consecutive title. Down by 16 points entering the fourth quarter, the Lakers outscored Boston 33-19 in the final 12 minutes but it wasn't enough. West had 36points, but Russell created his usual havoc with 25 points and 32 rebounds.

1968
CELTICS 4 LAKERS 2

The Lakers evened the series with a Game 4 victory in Los Angeles. West scored 38 points, but he left with 44seconds to go after spraining his ankle in a collision with John Havlicek. Don Nelson, who had been waived by the Lakers in 1965, scored 26 points to help Boston to a 120-117 OT win in Game 5. Boston won Game 6 in L.A., and thus the series, in a rout. West, limping up and down court, scored 22 points. Havlicek had 40 points for the Celtics, who led by as many as 21 points in the fourth quarter before settling for a 15-point victory.

1969
CELTICS 4 LAKERS 3

The Lakers acquired Wilt Chamberlain before the season started, and were hailed all season long as basketball's next dynasty. The Lakers took a 2-0 lead in the series, and put themselves on the verge of a championship with a Game 5 victory in Los Angeles. They took advantage of Russell (seven points, 13 boards) being in foul trouble in the second half. West had 28 of his 39 points in the second half, but he pulled a hamstring muscle late in the game, which would hurt the Lakers later on. Wilt Chamberlain had 31 rebounds. The Lakers lost Game 6 by nine points but, anticipating the end of the Celtics' hex in Game 7, Lakers owner Jack Kent Cooke had balloons tied to the Forum's rafters and arranged for the USC marching band to play ``Happy Days Are Here Again.'' The band was never needed. In the third quarter, the Lakers missed 15 straight field goals and Boston led, 91-76, and cruised to victory. ``What are they going to do with all those ... balloons now?'' Auerbach said. ``And all that champagne?'' ``I still have nightmares about that game,'' West in 2006. ``We should have beaten the Celtics. But we didn't. That one hurt the most because it was the final time we had a chance to beat Bill Russell.''

1984
CELTICS 4 LAKERS 3

From the Lakers' perspective, no loss to the Celtics has been more crushing. The Lakers lead in the final minute of games 1-4, and come away with only two wins. A Gerald Henderson steal and a Kevin McHale clothesline still replay themselves in the minds of both West, and his Captain Ahab, Jerry West. The Lakers go on to lose the series in seven games, with West and Riley blaming defeat on hotel pranks, lack of air conditioning, and suspicious bus drivers. Riley is so paranoid that before game 7 he orders all of the team's water coolers emptied and inspected. Nothing suspicous was found.

"Those seven losses in the Finals haunted Jerry," said West's backcourt mate, Gail Goodrich. Even after the Lakers won two championships by defeating the Celtics in 1985 and 1987, West was still was not happy.

"I saw West being interviewed during the summer of 1987," John Havlicek once told Sports Illustrated, "and he was still saying how much he disliked the Celtics. We had the utmost respect for them, as players. I was surprised the enmity they still held for us. For the longest time, Jerry wouldn't go into the Boston Garden, even when he was a chief executive of the Lakers. He wouldn't even attend game 6 of the 1985 NBA Finals--which the Lakers won--because he was so spooked by the building."

When asked about the team's success in the 1980s, all West could say was "I was so used to being on the other side, I didn't know what to think or how to feel. It never seemed to matter how well we played, they always won. It was almost like fate wasn't going to let you win."

Before the 2008 Finals began, West was still expressing angst.

"You may not want to think about it, but it's impossible for me not to think about it," West said in early June. "When you've competed at a high level, and had a great measure of success like we did, you feel the hurt of losing even more."

"The pain of knowing we should have won at least a couple of those series (in the 1960s) against the Celtics still hurts," West said. "When it's happened again and again, it's not real fun to relive it. I know we always felt scarred by that. I know I did."