It’s difficult to identify a true contemporary to Jerry West. 

He’s the man who spent 14 consecutive years as an All Star for the Los Angeles Lakers. The guy who helped engineer and sustain not one, but two dynasties with the team. A figure whose silhouette literally loomed above the league as the NBA’s logo.

So when the news broke last week of his death, at the age of 86, it marked the passing of a giant.

Today, Jeremy Schaap memorializes the great Laker. He explains West’s West Virginia origins, explores his life and legacy with the Lakers and across the NBA, and tells us how, in spite of all of his great accomplishments, the harshest critic of Jerry West was always Jerry West.
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