Man, this is a bad week for Lakers fans. The great Jerry West passes away, still on bad terms with our franchise, just very unfortunate. Top that off with Hurley rejecting our offer or whatever the hell that was and the C Bags winning a title in 2 more games tops. RIP Jerry West, we owe him so much of the success the team, he was GM from 1982 through 2001, hell of a run of success, even when we weren’t winning titles during the 90’s our rebuilding teams were very fun, we had multiple all-stars aside from Kobe/Shaq, to me at least it always felt like the team would figure it out eventually, West inspired confidence (at least to my young self, I’m sure he had his flaws) when he was in the GM role.
I've said that same thing many times before. The day of the Pau trade was my 21st birthday. Cloud 9 times a milly.
Did we let our medical staff write our tribute to Jerry West? Is he 2 weeks away? WTF. How embarrassing. I don’t care what kind of terms the organization is with West. He’s been invaluable to this franchise and we need to acknowledge his passing in a much better statement.
Anyone out here in LB land if you saw Jerry’s stop on a dime and elevate for his J … try to copy that in your own game?
He did it with no wasted motion, no dancing with the rock on the perimeter, no slick AI crossovers or fancy dribbles. The whole floor was his spots. The only other guy who moved like that was Gervin. Jordan? He was just overpowering physically that went with his finely tuned game.
LOL … I prefer JJ …. just in case he’s the next …. ummm …. Del Harris …. no wait!! The next someone, your pick …. but who else of upper echelon NBA has he pissed off with past quotes? Probably some doozies yet to be discovered.
Rest easy Legend. Salute We've been blessed, with some of the very best to ever do it, as Laker fans. I wish some things, would have went differently The original hillbilly gunslinger loved the Purple and Gold. https://images.app.goo.gl/r7N65EzNPjf2Qbw97
(There's some Vitti quotes in the link) That's really unfortunate. It's one thing if an outsider was running things and had no attachment to the Lakers history and fumbled it this bad. But no, Jeanie is a lifer. Shame on her. And honestly an outsider (billionaire) would have the common sense or a PR team to know not to be this dumb and childish.
is there more in the la times piece in terms of what, specifically, gary is referencing? because it's not like we kicked west to the curb and he desperately wanted to come back. he trashed the franchise. i get that he just died and is a laker great, but you can't act like he played no role in the feud and the failure to reconcile. and if vitti is obliquely referencing our treatment of magic in there...he can take a walk. the brief elevation of magic to a decision maker was absolutely disastrous. if anything, he was treated too well in ascending to that position. we also allowed him to step down instead of being deservedly fired, and we didn't push back on him trashing the organization for like, a full year.
I am with abeer on that one. Yes, it's a Lakers great who passed. But he was far from innocent in all of this. Now, do I think we, as an org, should have honored him better than that? Sure. Was he a d*** to us for the last 3 - 5 years? Absolutely.
i don't blame west for holding a grudge. i don't know exactly what jerry said/did in regards to jeannie's relationship with phil, but for her to blacklist him from the organization completely after all he had done through the years was BS i've heard he also wasn't very happy when dr. buss gave magic an ownership stake back in the early 90s but not him. likely a deciding factor in him leaving after the 2000 season
We were d***s to him first. Blowing him off when he volunteered to help us after Jeanie fired Jimbo and hired Magic and Rob. Shouldn't turn your back on the logo. I thought that was a really bad look and we could have definitely benefited from his help versus the Rambii. I'm not exonerating him for acting like an a** to us afterwards but I get it. He was a guy who felt scorned and he was our greatest architect in terms of the FO. Arguably the GOAT NBA front office exec. I still don't get why we snubbed him. I thought it was stupid at the time and still do.
true: but going with Magic and Pelinka and not giving West even an advisory role. I mean what sane business would do that? I know in the modern political climate, there is this idea that you can run roughshod over a good corporate governance structure and practices but man the Lakers really push the boundaries here. Yep you said it better then me this is really insane when you think about: depending on the Rambii when you had freakin Jerry West ready to go.
Jeanie left Jerry off of her 5 Most Important Lakers of all Time list, so..seems to me she was holding a grudge. LeBron was and is not more important to this franchise than Jerry. She also put Phil Jackson on the list, who, yes won 5 titles, but West probably contributed to more. That’s a grudge to me, not showing appreciation despite your personal differences.
