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IT WAS NEAR midnight on the night of Feb. 27, 2020, and Jerry West was sitting in his automobile, parked exterior his Bel-Air residence. He was considering retirement.
“Generally,” West informed ESPN, “I really feel like I simply must work on myself.”
“Generally, I simply suppose not being concerned may be good for me.”
As sooner or later turned to the following, he added: “Generally, sufficient is sufficient.”
The topic would come up yearly, perhaps throughout the season, or maybe within the offseason. Nevertheless it arrived, with out fail, for many years, these near him say. There was a course of he’d work by means of. He’d declare this yr was his final, that he actually meant it this time, however then a brand new season would strategy, and West would take into consideration the problem of piecing collectively a puzzle to win all of it, of discovering the proper items that aligned simply so. His aggressive hearth would burn once more, and he’d return for an additional probability.
It grew to become one thing of a working joke, one particular person near him mentioned — right here was Jerry West speaking about retiring after almost six a long time within the NBA. However West wanted the sport, these round him mentioned. They believed the sport would restore some steadiness inside him, and that Jerry West could be again — as a result of Jerry West would all the time be again.
However, to these inside his inside circle, this era of anguish in 2020 was particularly pronounced for West, then an 81-year-old guide for the LA Clippers.
Again in his automobile, West continued. “Take a look at all of the tragedies daily that go on. You simply marvel, ‘Are you pushing your luck by placing a lot strain on your self to attempt to assist make a distinction?’ … And I like strain, however, after some time, I actually do not know if it is good for you. I actually do not — and significantly at this level in my life.”
It was nearly one month to the day after Los Angeles Lakers star Kobe Bryant, Bryant’s daughter, Gianna, and 7 others died in a helicopter crash.
Within the spring of 1996, West, then the Lakers’ normal supervisor, watched the 17-year-old Bryant’s pre-draft exercise with the Lakers and, after a couple of minutes, declared, “To hell with this. I’ve seen sufficient.”
West knew Bryant was particular, knew the Lakers needed to purchase him by any means vital and relentlessly pushed to make it occur. The 2 remained shut for many years, forging a relationship through which West thought of Bryant to be nothing in need of a son.
After Bryant retired in 2016, ending a 20-season Lakers profession, West admired Bryant’s efforts to construct a storytelling empire with books, TV exhibits, podcasts and movies, with Bryant even successful an Academy Award in 2018 for an animated quick movie titled “Pricey Basketball.”
Bryant’s sudden loss a month earlier, at age 41, marked a tragedy West had not absolutely grasped or accepted.
Bryant had focus and course past basketball, West mentioned, after which, he regarded inward.
“I do not know if I would even be certified to do anything,” West mentioned. “Perhaps dig a ditch, that is it.”
That feeling, West mentioned, was compounded when he checked out not solely Bryant but in addition LeBron James, Magic Johnson and an array of recent gamers who had been setting up media corporations, manufacturing corporations and investing in myriad ventures exterior the sport.
“These individuals have actually had a profession away from basketball,” West mentioned. “The one factor I’ve carried out in my complete life is to be concerned with groups.”
On Sunday, West can be inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Corridor of Fame as a contributor, honoring his government roles with the Lakers and Memphis Grizzlies and his guide roles with the Golden State Warriors and the Clippers.
It should mark a document third entry into the Corridor; West was inducted as a participant in 1980, then as a member of the 1960 U.S. Olympic gold medal crew in 2010. The ceremony will carry an undercurrent of sorrow; West died earlier this yr, on June 12, at age 86.
In a sequence of unpublished interviews with ESPN, West described reaching a crossroads in life and in work.
He had been deeply wounded, he mentioned, by occasions the earlier summer time and persevering with into that fall — ones that absolutely and eventually severed any remaining ties to the Lakers, the franchise he spent 40 years serving to to construct.
Throughout that tenure, first as a participant, then a coach, then an government, West had helped elevate the group to historic heights earlier than this coldest of wars. Within the years since, he had hoped for reconciliation. Then, in 2019, after his household grew to become concerned, probably the most well-known Lakers in historical past shared a once-unthinkable sentiment, one which he’d repeat privately and publicly within the years forward.
“I nearly want,” West informed ESPN, “that I had by no means performed or labored for them.”
SEVEN MONTHS EARLIER, on July 9, 2019, the Clippers despatched shockwaves by means of the NBA by touchdown Kawhi Leonard, the highest free agent available on the market who had simply led Toronto to a championship.
Contained in the Clippers, there was jubilation. Contained in the Lakers, there was frustration. Each groups had competed for Leonard, who had expressed a want to return to his Southern California roots, however he spurned the Lakers to hitch the group they shared an enviornment with and one which, for many years, was principally well-known for its pronounced shedding.
The day after Leonard joined the Clippers, the crew traded for star swingman Paul George, immediately making them title contenders.
Later that month, on July 27, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reported that Jerry West’s son, Ryan, who had spent 10 years with the Lakers and final labored because the director of participant personnel, was leaving the group.
Workforce sources made clear Ryan wasn’t leaving on his personal accord. Two sources near the matter mentioned Ryan’s departure was tied to the idea of there being no room for development inside the franchise, as ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne reported.
Jerry noticed it in another way.
“They let him go due to me,” he mentioned one week after Ryan’s departure.
He thought of his son, who now works as a professional personnel scout for the Detroit Pistons, to be collateral injury in his conflict with members of Lakers’ management.
The Lakers declined to remark for this story.
West mentioned he apologized to Ryan, whom he described as “devastated.”
“It is like a cleaning soap opera,” a former longtime Lakers government mentioned. “There may be fallout, which is hurtful. Ryan, to me, it seems like he paid the worth for all this pettiness.”
THREE MONTHS LATER, on Oct. 26, 2019, West’s face contorted right into a grimace. He shook his head, pursed his lips and fidgeted in his seat. In entrance of him was an iPhone propped up in opposition to a desk centerpiece, broadcasting a Clippers sport with the Suns in Phoenix. The Clippers had been behind, making too many errors — too many turnovers, unhealthy passes, pointless fouls. It was the third sport of the season after the crew’s roster was overhauled with the additions of George and Leonard.
Seated beside his spouse, Karen, and a Clippers official, West was residing and dying (principally dying) by each possession, doing so from a front-row desk throughout the Jim Murray Memorial Basis twentieth Anniversary Gala, held in a ballroom on the J.W. Marriott in downtown Los Angeles. West was being honored with an award, which he acquired on the finish of the night.
Standing behind a lectern atop a stage, West thanked the occasion organizers and provided considerate, humorous remarks about Murray, the legendary Los Angeles Instances sports activities columnist whom West as soon as known as “The Michael Jordan of sportswriters.” As he closed out his five-minute speech, he paused and regarded throughout the ballroom at a handful of school college students from throughout the nation who had acquired scholarships from the muse.
“I do not know should you individuals prefer to learn,” he mentioned. “I hated faculty as a result of I did not need to learn. All I do is learn now, however I learn to be taught.”
He closed his speech a beat later, however West wasn’t precisely completed. His thoughts could not escape the newest episode, the newest grievance, in his longstanding feud with the Lakers.
It had been per week because the crew had severed the final remaining tie between the 2 events — and damaged a promise made by the franchise’s patriarch.
“Are you able to imagine they took my tickets away?” West requested quietly again at his desk. “I simply cannot imagine it.”
For the previous few weeks, West and his household had checked the mail for a supply that had arrived yearly throughout the preseason for nearly 20 years: 4 season tickets to all 41 Lakers residence video games at Staples Heart.
The seats themselves had been prime real-estate — part 101, row 8, seats 1-4, positioned alongside the aisle, behind the scorer’s desk and close to midcourt. They provided West and members of his household an excellent view of the crew he performed 14 All-Star seasons for starting in 1960 (successful a title in 1972) and later led as its normal supervisor for 18 years (throughout which they received 5 extra championships). They might take a look at the crew’s retired jerseys and see West’s No. 44.
“These had been all the time Jerry’s seats,” one longtime ex-Lakers staffer mentioned.
The tickets, West mentioned then, had been promised to him by Dr. Jerry Buss, the Lakers’ proprietor when he left the crew in 2000. West mentioned Buss particularly added that West would have the tickets for so long as the Buss household owned the crew. Buss died in February 2013. One particular person near the Buss household mentioned they weren’t conscious of that exact promise, however that it will’ve been in step with Buss’ needs.
“He all the time wished to verify Jerry was taken care of,” the particular person mentioned.
However with the season about to open on Oct. 22, and with the tickets nonetheless failing to reach, West started to suspect the worst.
After makes an attempt to achieve Tim Harris, the Lakers’ president of enterprise operations, West mentioned his household acquired an e-mail from Dan Grigsby, the Lakers’ normal counsel, that mentioned they had been welcome to request Lakers tickets game-by-game and that they’d be accommodated.
West thought of the canceling of the season tickets to be private — “That is about as little as you’ll be able to go,” he later mentioned.
Some Lakers executives had been shocked once they realized in regards to the state of affairs, which started circling by means of the group.
“You do not simply take one thing away with no clarification — given who they did it to,” one crew supply mentioned then.
West wished the story to go public — and components of it did. However, on the time, those that knew West and the Lakers’ inner politics thought of it a petty however in the end innocent flip within the decades-long feud between West and members of the Lakers’ hierarchy.
To West, it represented one thing extra.
THOSE WHO HAVE labored contained in the Lakers and stay near the franchise say the unhealthy blood dates again almost 30 years.
Kurt Rambis, a participant on the Eighties Showtime period groups that West helped assemble, had served because the crew’s interim head coach within the lockout-shortened 1998-99 season. He’d posted a 24-13 document after taking on for a fired Del Harris, and the Lakers reached the Western Convention semifinals.
Rambis had turned down different head teaching alternatives, believing he was in line to change into the Lakers’ head coach.
However West, then the crew’s normal supervisor, pushed Dr. Buss to rent Phil Jackson, a choice that will come to outline a complete period of Lakers dominance. A number of staffers current on the time mentioned the choice to rent Jackson over Rambis sparked friction between Rambis and West in addition to between West and Rambis’ spouse, Linda, the Lakers’ government director of particular tasks who’s an in depth buddy and confidant of Jeanie Buss, now the crew’s governor.
Within the ensuing months, a second factor compounded the stress: the romantic relationship between Jeanie and Jackson, a partnership West was uncomfortable with and one about which he privately voiced his considerations to confidants. Phrase of his displeasure finally reached Jeanie.
The connection between West and the crew’s management started to splinter much more, with West more and more iced out of the one NBA group he’d ever recognized. In 2000, after the crew received its sixth title with him in an government position, he retired. “I felt underappreciated by management, and management is possession,” West informed the L.A. Instances. “As we left the Discussion board to Staples Heart, I would say, ‘What am I doing right here? What am I doing to myself?’ Harmful emotions, a special drama daily. Leaving was the most important aid of my life.”
Two years later, West joined the Grizzlies as their normal supervisor, then the Warriors in 2011 as a guide. All through, although, he privately rooted for the Lakers, sources near him mentioned. Then, in 2017, West started to hope not just for reconciliation but in addition for a reunion. That February, the Lakers overhauled their entrance workplace in dramatic vogue, with Jeanie firing her brother, Jim, and longtime normal supervisor Mitch Kupchak.
West, who was nonetheless with the Warriors, hoped the Lakers would name, however they by no means did.
“Generally I assumed in my life that may be one thing that I can revisit, or they might need me to revisit,” West informed “The Dan Patrick Present” in June 2017. “However that did not occur. At occasions, I would not say I used to be dissatisfied. Nevertheless it sort of despatched me a message.”
One supply near West mentioned, “I do know for a proven fact that [Jerry] would’ve preferred to return again, however there was no approach they had been going to convey him again.”
As an alternative, that spring, the Lakers employed Rob Pelinka, who had beforehand served as Bryant’s agent, and Magic Johnson, who led the Lakers Eighties Showtime groups. In June, West joined L.A.’s different NBA crew, the Clippers. In his introductory information convention, West appeared to take a dig on the Lakers, saying, “My final cease alongside the best way, [I want] to be related to people who find themselves actually basketball individuals, individuals I’ve respect for and, extra importantly, I feel, an unimaginable proprietor.”
The remark rankled Lakers’ management, one supply with direct data mentioned.
From his new place, West continued to watch the Lakers, expressing dismay to confidants a couple of franchise he thought of to be missing management and course. Linda Rambis and Jeanie Buss would hear his criticisms by means of the grapevine, sources mentioned, and regarded West painfully bitter, even mean-spirited.
The toxicity of his relationship with the Lakers now underscored West’s each dialog, those that knew him effectively mentioned. It doesn’t matter what the topic was, it all the time got here up. Stated one former colleague: “Jerry was a tortured soul.”
BACK INSIDE HIS automobile, in February 2020, West talked about how a lot he took the sport residence with him — all of the successful and shedding, the strain to proceed the previous and stave off the latter, this infinite cycle.
“It makes me so loopy once you need a crew to win so badly,” West mentioned.
His routine was ingrained. At Clippers video games, West would sit behind the basket nearest to the Clippers’ bench, not removed from proprietor Steve Ballmer, who sat alongside the baseline.
The dichotomy of the 2 males was putting: Ballmer entrance and middle, pumping his fists and gesturing wildly in pleasure; West stoic, nearly obscured from view. Generally, Ballmer would stroll over to him and search his opinion.
West all the time had data to share, Ballmer informed ESPN. It may be one thing small. “He’d take a look at anyone’s taking pictures,” Ballmer mentioned, “and he’d say, ‘Oh s—, that man’s obtained to maneuver his thumb 1 / 4 of an inch.’ Or perhaps he’d speak about somebody’s defensive effort. ‘God, he is not working onerous. God, he missed the angle, God, he missed this project.'”
He was blunt, the aggressive hearth nonetheless burning by means of his veins at 81.
Generally at halftime, West would enterprise into the proprietor’s room reverse the Clippers locker room to seek the advice of with Ballmer. Different occasions he’d be so upset he stayed away. Whatever the end result, West would depart earlier than the ultimate buzzer, slipping out into the closest tunnel together with his head down, as if ducking out of the rain. Close by followers would shout “Brand!” However West not often slowed his decided stride.
He’d go away the world the place his statue — unveiled in 2011 — stands exterior, then he’d start the almost 17-mile drive from downtown Los Angeles to his Bel Air residence, the place he would evaluation the field scores from that night’s video games and skim tales from across the league.
West by no means slept effectively, whilst a toddler, all the time possessed by a seemingly infinite reservoir of vitality and restlessness. In mattress, the sport did not stray. Concepts, questions and reminiscences poured in, preserving him awake for hours. “Even now, I dream of video games,” he mentioned in February 2020.
That nightly cycle performed out for many years, however he discovered reprieve in studying. Rising up, he liked Subject & Stream journal and books on big-game looking in Africa. Then, in 1951, his older brother David died within the Korean Warfare in what grew to become a defining second in West’s life. He discovered solace by taking pictures hoops with David’s basketball, however he additionally sought solutions in books about conflict, generals, leaders and dictators. He examine Lincoln, Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin and Hitler, the cartels in Mexico and Colombia, the newest historic tome from David Halberstam, something from Joan Didion and John McPhee, from Joseph Campbell and Bernard Malamud.
“As you progress alongside in your life I feel it is horrible to be ill-informed about lots of issues and extra importantly historical past,” he mentioned. “I’ve all the time been inquisitive about every thing in my life. I imply actually every thing.”
He would learn 10 books a month, he mentioned, typically three in per week, both hardcopy or on his iPad. “He learn voraciously — a biography of so-and-so – [and he’d say], ‘What about this?’ Or, ‘Hey, I simply realized that.’ Very thought-provoking,” Ballmer mentioned.
However the ache he felt from a lot of his life by no means strayed. In his Bel Air workplace, West mentioned he saved a Christmas card on his desk. It was the cardboard the Bryant household gave him in December 2019, one month earlier than Bryant died. West noticed that card every morning as he learn the newspaper, the smiling faces of Bryant and his household, trying again at him, the ache following him like a shadow.
“The toughest components of my life,” he informed ESPN, “I have been attempting to erase these reminiscences. I nonetheless have not. I nonetheless have not. I will not.”
WEST COULDN’T HAVE recognized how the world would change only a few weeks later.
Quickly after he was speaking about attempting to go away the sport, the NBA suspended its season after Utah Jazz middle Rudy Gobert examined constructive for COVID-19 earlier than a sport in opposition to the Oklahoma City Thunder. West nonetheless talked with the Clippers’ management every day, however nobody knew when video games would restart, or what the world would seem like once they did. The time away, West mentioned, helped him really feel rejuvenated.
“Actually, this has in all probability been an eye-opener for me,” West mentioned. When requested how he felt about attempting to go away the sport, he mentioned, “, I used to be pondering yet one more yr would not harm me.” He wished to see the Clippers win a championship. “That may be an unimaginable technique to go away the sport,” he mentioned.
He was enthusiastic about their plans for a brand new enviornment. “It is going to be particular,” he mentioned. He provided effusive reward for Ballmer. “He’s only a nice man. And he is so philanthropic, and his spouse is rather like him. They’re such givers.” He would sit with Ballmer and it reminded him of time with Dr. Buss, when the 2 would discuss for hours about attempting to construct the Lakers into one thing particular.
“He is identical to Jerry Buss,” West mentioned. “Besides he is rather a lot wealthier.”
West loved his time away, however that acquainted itch returned.
On Might 22, 2020, West mentioned he knew he was coming again.
“I am nonetheless succesful,” West mentioned, “and I am nonetheless performing. I do know after I’m not performing. Nobody has to inform me. I simply love successful. However extra importantly, I really like the method of serving to and being concerned with attempting to construct a crew that may be there yearly.”
“I will know when it is time for me to say goodbye,” West mentioned. “Belief me, I’ll.”
He continued with the Clippers, however the divide with the Lakers grew.
In December 2020, a year-old voicemail emerged through which West could possibly be heard telling a confidant that the Lakers had been a “s— present.” In an April 2021 podcast look with ex-NBA gamers Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson, Jeanie Buss named her 5 most vital Lakers and cited Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Kobe Bryant, Magic Johnson, LeBron James and Phil Jackson. One month later, throughout a podcast with journalist Peter Vescey, West known as the omission from Buss “probably the most offensive issues I’ve ever heard in my life.”
Some individuals near West downplayed her feedback. She hadn’t even named her father as among the many high 5 most vital Lakers ever. However for West, it marked one more slight.
In 2022, West informed The Athletic, concerning his profession, “One disappointing factor is that my relationship with the Lakers is horrible. I nonetheless do not know why. And on the finish of the day, after I look again, I say, ‘Effectively, perhaps I ought to have performed someplace else as a substitute of with the Lakers, the place somebody would have no less than appreciated how a lot you give, how a lot you cared.'”
Reconciliation by no means got here.
At 7:27 a.m. on June 12, the Clippers introduced West had died, noting that his spouse, Karen, was by his aspect. The Clippers then launched private statements from the crew, Ballmer, Clippers’ head coach Tyronn Lue and Lawrence Frank, the crew’s president of basketball operations.
Quickly after, Jeanie Buss issued a press release on Instagram.
“Right now is a tough day for all Laker followers,” she wrote. “I do know that if my father had been right here, he would say that Jerry West was on the coronary heart of all that made the Lakers nice. He was an icon to all — however he was additionally a hero to our household. All of us ship our sympathies to Karen and the West household.”
West’s presence can nonetheless be seen throughout the Lakers group.
His No. 44 strains the wall of the crew’s observe facility. Earlier than tipoff on the Lakers’ first preseason sport on Oct. 4 in Palm Desert, the crew acknowledged West’s achievements and held a second of silence. The Lakers will put on a commemorative No. 44 band on the left shoulder of their uniforms this season. On opening night time, an Oct. 22 matchup in opposition to the Minnesota Timberwolves, the Lakers will maintain an in-game celebration of West’s legacy whereas gifting a No. 44 jersey to all Lakers followers in attendance. And this Sunday, the crew plans to carry gatherings on the Corridor of Fame to honor West and former Lakers guard Michael Cooper, who can be being inducted.
Two weeks after West’s dying, Clippers entrance workplace personnel gathered inside a convention room on the crew’s observe facility in Playa Vista, California. The NBA draft — an occasion that had lengthy been one in every of West’s favorites — was about to begin. Once they’d interview draft prospects, West would inform every participant one thing he noticed of their sport that wanted to enhance — and would by no means mince phrases. On the mix, West and Ballmer would sit aspect by aspect, and West would provide insights on every thing he’d seen.
However throughout the draft in late June, contained in the room the place choices had been being made, Clippers executives noticed solely an empty seat, which the crew reserved for West in tribute.
On the again of the chair, they hung a jacket akin to these West all the time wore. On the desk in entrance, they positioned an NBA ball — that includes the brand of West’s dribbling silhouette — and a white hat with all-caps blue-and-white lettering studying “LOGO.” Subsequent to these tokens was a small placard with a quote:
“I get pleasure from successful, however extra importantly, I benefit from the individuals I am round. – Jerry West.”
A FEW MONTHS later, on a Friday afternoon in early September, Ballmer sat in his second-floor workplace on the new Intuit Dome in Inglewood, California. On the speaker telephone in entrance of him, he was requested for his reminiscences of bringing West aboard in 2017. Ballmer’s detail-rich reply stretched seven and a half minutes.
He started together with his first assembly with West in July 2014, two months after Ballmer purchased the Clippers for $2 billion. Ballmer had traveled to Las Vegas for the NBA’s annual summer time league showcase, and through one of many many conferences held there between crew and league officers, he noticed West, who was nonetheless with the Warriors.
“You paid an excessive amount of for the crew,” West informed him, giving Ballmer a mild ribbing.
Ballmer laughed. However as Ballmer settled into his position, his school roommate Dennis Wong — a former Warriors minority proprietor who grew to become a Clippers minority proprietor — provided recommendation: “We want a man like Jerry West.” They kicked round some names however got here up empty. Then, three years later, in the summertime of 2017, West’s time with the Warriors got here to an finish.
“How about Jerry West?” Ballmer and Wong mentioned to one another.
West and Ballmer met in a collection on the Peninsula Resort in Beverly Hills and talked in regards to the crew, their targets, one another. “It felt proper,” Ballmer mentioned. “The chemistry felt good.” They hammered out a deal for West to change into a guide, and that was what West wished — to be eliminated, to be a voice however not the voice.
Ballmer may all the time see the immense, unrelenting strain that West placed on himself to assist them win season after season. “If I am not of worth, you let me know,” West would inform him.
However in West, Ballmer discovered a kindred spirit.
“Each of us had been in a bit of little bit of a bizarre place,” Ballmer mentioned. “I used to run Microsoft, and I used to be within the combine. Daily, I used to be like a participant, if you’ll. And now with the Clippers, I am not within the day-to-day combine. I approve budgets and massive trades — no person’s going to make a blockbuster commerce [without me weighing in] — however I am not within the combine daily. So, I am not precisely a guide like Jerry was, however I am a bit of nearer to that than a man who’s within the combine daily. And Jerry, no less than with us as a guide, he was right here on a regular basis, however it’s not the identical for him as both being the GM or being the coach or being a participant. We each had a job that was perhaps alien to us, and but we nonetheless introduced the identical hearth to excel within the roles we may play.”
As Ballmer shared tales about West, he slipped between current and previous tense. At occasions, Ballmer took lengthy pauses to regain management of his feelings, his voice breaking usually. However he continued on, attempting to convey how a lot West meant to him. “I liked working with Jerry — liked, liked, liked working with Jerry,” Ballmer mentioned. “Simply actually a particular, particular, particular human being to me.”
Ballmer considered how he wished to recollect West — and the way he hoped others would keep in mind him. The idea of West’s legacy had weighed on many who knew him effectively. They knew West could possibly be sophisticated, that he may have good days and unhealthy. His latest portrayal within the “Profitable Time” HBO sequence deeply irritated many in his inside circle, particularly West, depicting him as a raging caricature throughout the Lakers’ Showtime period. These round him imagine it missed his generosity, his humor, his heat. Greater than that, it represented one other wound for a person already scarred from so many others.
Ballmer noticed West in another way. Sure, he was a legend who had solid arguably probably the most storied profession within the historical past of basketball, however he additionally was a buddy, one who may all the time make him chortle.
When information broke that West was going to be inducted into the Corridor of Fame for the third time, Ballmer congratulated him, however West shrugged it off, saying he wasn’t even certain what he was being inducted for this time.
Trying again, Ballmer mentioned he harbored two regrets. “Remorse primary,” Ballmer mentioned, “Jerry and I all the time talked about taking part in some golf, and we by no means did. And remorse quantity two, Jerry thought I wasn’t a really snazzy dresser. He introduced me shirts one time, and he threatened to get me a swimsuit as a result of he did not suppose I dressed effectively sufficient. My remorse is, we by no means obtained that carried out. We by no means obtained that swimsuit.” As he recounted the reminiscence, his physique shook with laughter, however then his voice broke onerous, caught in his throat. He took one other lengthy second to collect himself.
Ballmer mentioned the crew’s behavior of asking, “What do you suppose Jerry would say about this one?” will final for a while. West all the time mentioned he wished the Clippers to win as a result of he liked the individuals there, and since it will imply a lot to their longtime followers, to town of Los Angeles and to Ballmer.
The Clippers offered West with a house when he misplaced the one he had with the Lakers, made him really feel wished at a time when he wanted it most. “It isn’t straightforward being rejected,” West mentioned in February 2020. “And I have been rejected alongside the best way.” He tried, as greatest as he may, to look forward. There was all the time one other season.
On June 2, he and Ballmer spoke in regards to the coming season whereas Ballmer drove by means of Seattle, the place he lives. It was a sunny and delightful day, Ballmer mentioned. “I keep in mind it very vividly.” West shared particularly excellent news: His well being was bettering. “I obtained this factor,” he informed Ballmer. “I am coming again.”
West was excited. He deliberate to be there for opening night time, as soon as once more.
Ten days later, he was gone.
