Maybe if he hadn't allegedly been underhanded in helping to sign Snake with alleged under the table stuff offered by a guy he brought in allegedly to help with the deal, while Snake strung us along, and hadn't called the Lakers a s*** show back in that same time frame .... he'd still be in good graces with Jeanie and the organization. (no idea why now this year they are revoking the season tickets, actually, but just saying "maybe"). Agree with @432J above.
The perpetual frown etched onto his face in most of the photographs of him now seems to bear this out.
this is sort of my area of expertise, and yeah, west's personality is obviously grating. i'm not saying he's wrong about everything. he probably deserved more respect than phil within our organization, but he also didn't seem to work to remedy that and instead participated in turning it into a thing. you can be really good at things and also be...kind of a lot. i think that's the book on rick carlisle, too. anyway, pretty sure west is talking about the rambii as the couple over here (i think that word choice was telling and not accidental), and i agree with him: they seem to be a scourge on house lakers.
I'm not going to try to psycho-analyze the Logo, and I agree with several posts above that he could have been a bigger man in all this. But, he did pour his heart and soul into this franchise and believes he was disrespected by the franchise after doing so. If Doc Buss promised him lifetime tickets and someone in the FO recently took them back, then he has a point. More than that, the decision to go back on Doc Buss' promise is as much a disrespect to him as it is the Logo. Now, I really want to know who made that decision.
West was a great player for the Lakers, he was a great executive too. He even talked Kobe out of joining him with the Clippers. It was rather petty to revoke the man's lifetime season tickets IMO. It's rather sad how the relationship ended.
Yeah sure, i bet he would he happier playing for Cavs or Braves back then. Grumpy old man, that's it.
I think he was also mad that Jeanie Buss didn't think he was a top 5 laker of all time. Jeanie included Lebron in the top 5 just FYI.
Mind bottling. Jerry West was a HOF player and HOF Executive. He also wasn't a bad coach. Led the Lakers to the WCF in 1977. Jerry West is in the top 3 Lakers of all time. You can put either West, Magic or Kobe in any order and it would be legit.
west was absolutely underpaid all those years as GM. i recall that he was being paid 3 million a year and when phil was hired his contract was worth 6 mil a year. that no doubt played a role in his departure and can't blame him for being pissed about it after all he had done for the organization but remember, hiring phil was pretty much shaq's idea. and of course dr. buss was going to do whatever he could to keep his superstar happy
Are you excluding Kareem because he wasn’t drafted by by them? Otherwise how does he not bump West out? As a player and rings? Or because of his other roles in the organization that Jerry had, I guess?
If Jerry wanted to come back as a consultant at the same time as Magic replaced Jim with Rob soon to follow, in addition to I imagine Jeanie probably still harboring ill feelings about how West felt about what she chose to do in her personal life, and made it a thing in his head ….. I wonder if Magic ever harbored any resentment about Doc Buss having to override Jerry who strongly wanted to draft Moncrieff instead? At the very least one might imagine Magic wanted to call the shots on personnel without needing to listen to West being given the power he had in GS. At that particular point in time, let alone having been an opponent for all those years after leaving.
i think this is the biggest factor in west's bitterness towards the lakers in recent years. but you really can't blame jeanie for not wanting him back based on how jerry tried getting in between her relationship with phil but like i said earlier, jerry was already unhappy with the lakers over his salary long before he left the organization. phil coming in and immediately getting paid more was just the nail in the coffin. i'm sure dr. buss selling magic shares in the team instead of him way back in the 90s played a role too. could the organization have done better by jerry? absolutely. but when so many years have gone by, it's really not a good look to open your mouth like this as often as jerry has. i just find it interesting how he's only started doing this since he joined the clippers. their stink really does get to a person
i imagine that there's some frustration in clipperland that they haven't been able to be more competitive with us as a franchise. they have a better ownership group (with so much money to burn), the same geographical advantages, and many would say they've outmaneuvered us on several occasions. but it hasn't yielded much on or off the court, really. jerry probably figured he'd bury us there and has realized that's not going to happen.
This is a weird one: Jeannie having a relationship with Phil was not a great look and yes it's personal life yada yada yada but having the future queen in a relationship with coach was not a great idea. There is a definite reason that companies have no dating policies in the workplace Also that led to West who clearly is one of the best executives of all time (he's probably ranked higher on the executive list than the player list and the dude is the freaking logo). Not being able to bring him back into the fold and instead going thru Magic and the Rambii - not a great look. I'm a huge Lebron fan and clearly outside of the pop psychology (wanting a father figure always), making movies, I think he saw for better or worse a franchise he would have much more influence on after getting sick of being under the Dan Gilbert's of the world. Saved the franchise in a lot of ways but the franchise wouldn't have needed saving most likely if West was in the fold.
Phil was disrespectful to Jerry West, and told him to get out of his locker room when it was full of players. The team backed Phil. IMHO, that was the beginning of the end.
Probably because Jerry was tight with Shaq and Kobe and didn't want the Al Davis effect. The other thing with Phil, he always seemed to not like people after a while. Just how he is. Jerry West is a sensitive guy.
Time to sell. On Silver Screen and Roll podcast, they said tax implications played a role in potential trades we didn't pull the trigger on as well. I'm sick of this family business, penny pinching bull s***! If we balked at that, we know how the buy out market is going to go. Can't run this like a mom and pop shop. Had this discussion with a friend today... what Jeanie should do is sell off all but 5% of her stake in the team. I get she doesn't want to let go of her dad's business. But would he rather see us succeed or her run the team and name into the Dollar Store dumpster? We need a vast influx of cash. The team would sell for record numbers and create a bidding war in Hollywood. Groups containing some of the biggest names in the world would be part of some of these investment groups. We can't compete with billionaire owners. One of the pillars of the league can't go on like this. Keep 5% and enjoy seeing the team thrive under better leadership. Because she and the Rambii are going to sink us.
