Unbearable: West an Ex-Laker

Jerry West, the only NBA logo most basketball fans have ever known, has resigned his $1 million-a-year consulting job with the Lakers to become president of the Memphis Grizzlies.

The announcement will be made at a Memphis hotel today, ending a four-decade relationship between the Lakers and West, a Hall of Fame guard and builder of two championship eras in Los Angeles.

He departs on friendly terms with team owner Jerry Buss, the two having met as recently as two weeks ago as West considered a return to the game full time after his resignation from the team in August 2000.

“Jerry West is part of our legacy,” Jeanie Buss, a club vice president and the owner’s daughter, said Monday. “We consider him royalty.”

West was unavailable for comment, maintaining the low profile he adopted quickly when several teams began courting him. Early on, he would say only that he had begun to feel competitive urges again, but he insisted to friends that he would consider only the perfect job in the perfect situation.

Apparently, that was in Memphis. Sources said Monday that West turned down larger offers by other organizations for the chance to run the Grizzlies, a 1995 expansion team that moved from Vancouver last summer and won 23 games this season.

He decided this weekend to accept a multiyear, multimillion-dollar offer by Grizzly owner Michael Heisley, and to resume a career that appeared over when health concerns prompted his resignation shortly after the Lakers’ first NBA title in 12 years. A source in Memphis said the deal included an ownership stake in the team, but that was unconfirmed.

“This is not about the money,” said an NBA source. “He’s just ready to go back.”

Content in retirement in his first year away, West, 63, gradually felt another tug from the NBA, and recently stopped resisting. As a consultant who reported to his replacement and protege, Mitch Kupchak, West scouted a draft camp in Virginia earlier this month, and had attended most of the Laker home games in the second half of the season.

On Sunday, he telephoned Magic Johnson, a longtime friend and Laker vice president, saying that he would leave the Lakers for the Grizzlies. They spoke for a long time, Johnson said, and the conversation occasionally got emotional.

“You know he wrestled with this,” said Johnson, also a Laker legend and also considering a more active part in the game. “This is a Laker guy. Through and through, this is a Laker man. We almost cried together when he actually told me. He wanted me to know before it got out. It was one of those special moments that I’ve had. I’ve only had two--when [Coach Pat] Riley was telling me he was leaving and now this. It hurts. It hurts in terms of him not being around. I love talking basketball with Jerry West.”

Although he had taken a secondary role in the organization, West remained an advisor to Kupchak. The game has plenty who evaluate talent, but few have been able to put the right players onto the right teams better than West.

“He has such great instincts for players and what they are going to be,” said Laker special consultant Bill Sharman. “In my days as a general manager, I relied almost totally on his opinions. That worked out pretty well.”

In one summer six years ago, West added Shaquille O’Neal, Kobe Bryant and Derek Fisher to a roster that needed an overhaul. Midway through the next season, Robert Horry was acquired from Phoenix. Rick Fox signed the next summer.

Those five players have made up the core of the Lakers’ last two championship teams and, indeed, were on the floor together Sunday when the Lakers, seeking their third consecutive title, eliminated the Portland Trail Blazers in the first round.

“You can’t replace a Jerry West,” Johnson said. “It means more than basketball, more than anybody could ever know. Because, he’s not only the greatest executive, the best that’s ever done it, but also he’s a passionate, caring man, and about more than your basketball career.

“He cried at every retirement. He cried at every trade he made, because he really cared about guys. That’s hard to find. Most people in this business really don’t care. You just come and do your job, and they never get to know you as Earvin the person, or Shaquille, the man. I’m talking about really caring. If somebody were sick or had died in your family, he’s the first one calling, the first one over to the house, wondering what he could do. And he actually does it. He doesn’t just say he’s going to do something.”

West’s decision surprised many who had seen him consider retirement, then reconsider. He’d thought before about other jobs but, ultimately, could not leave Los Angeles, the only place he’d earned a regular paycheck, or the Lakers, the only professional basketball he’d known. It appears that West will live in Memphis most of the time but he’s not selling his house in Bel Air.

“I’m surprised he’s leaving L.A., but not surprised he’s getting back into basketball,” Johnson said. “That’s what he is. He’s going to be like George Young was to the Giants, Red Auerbach to the Celtics. His legacy--he’ll die being a basketball man, making moves. Besides his wife and his family, that’s what makes him get up every morning. After them, it’s basketball. When Karen gave him the nod that she approved, that’s all it took.

“Taking the challenge didn’t surprise anybody. He loves challenges. When everybody said he couldn’t make it big in the NBA, when everybody said he couldn’t make it as a great executive, he showed everybody. And now everybody probably will say that he can’t do this, and he’s going to show everybody again.

“You can’t hold him back. He wanted to have his own situation, his own organization. He got that. He wanted to go where he could work with young guys and build an organization. He got that. He wanted another owner who was about winning. You don’t leave Dr. Buss if the other organization is not about winning. He would have never taken this job unless [Heisley] said, ‘I’m going to open my wallet, and you’ve got full control. And I want to win.’”

In Memphis, West is expected to retain former president Dick Versace, who will serve out his three-year contract as general manager, and Coach Sidney Lowe.

Gary Colson, former basketball coach at Pepperdine, New Mexico and Fresno State, has been hired by the Grizzlies to assist West. A longtime friend of West, Colson has been an associate athletic director at UC Santa Barbara for the last six years.

Is there room in Memphis for Johnson too? It’s not out of the question.

“Am I going to go?” Johnson said, repeating the question.

He laughed for several seconds.

“He hasn’t talked to me about that yet,” Johnson said. “Again, I want to be involved with the NBA.... If there’s anybody in basketball I’d love to work for, it would be Jerry, because we’ve got the same mind-set ... to outwork people. The thing that sets Jerry apart, he can look at a guy and see what he’s going to be like three years from now.”

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Making of a Dynasty

Key Laker draft selections, signings, trades or changes made when Jerry West was general manager/executive vice president from 1982-2000. West is expected to be introduced today as the head of basketball operations for the Memphis Grizzlies:

*--* 1982: Drafted James Worthy with first overall pick 1983: Acquired Swen Nater and Byron Scott from San Diego for Norm Nixon and Eddie Jordan 1985: Drafted A.C. Green in the first round, with the 23rd overall pick. Acquired Maurice Lucas from Phoenix for two second-round draft choices 1987: Acquired Mychal Thompson from San Antonio for Petur Gudmundsson, Frank Brickowski, two draft choices and cash 1989: Drafted Vlade Divac in the first round, with the 26th overall pick 1990: Drafted Elden Campbell in the first round, with the 27th overall pick. Signed free agent Sam Perkins 1993: Drafted Nick Van Exel in the second round, with the 37th overall pick 1994: Drafted Eddie Jones in the first round, with the 10th overall pick. Acquired Cedric Ceballos from Phoenix for a first-round draft choice 1996: Drafted Derek Fisher in first round, with 24th overall pick. Acquired Kobe Bryant from Charlotte for Vlade Divac. Signed free agent Shaquille O’Neal 1997: Acquired Robert Horry and Joe Kleine from Phoenix for Cedric Ceballos and Rumeal Robinson. Signed free agent Rick Fox 1999: Signed free agent Dennis Rodman. Fired coach Del Harris. Acquired Glen Rice, J.R. Reid and B.J. Armstrong from Charlotte for Eddie Jones and Elden Campbell Before 1999-2000 season: Signed Phil Jackson as coach. Signed free agents Ron Harper and Brian Shaw

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