Jerry West’s legend was so well established when he retired from the Los Angeles Lakers in 1974 that he’d already been the inspiration for the NBA’s logo. Half a century later, West remains seventh all-time in points per game and holds the points-per-game record for a playoff series, numbers even more remarkable because he did it without the three-point shot.
But, of course, West wasn’t done. As a scout and general manager, he was a key architect of the Showtime Lakers teams of the 1980s and later acquired both Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal to build another dynasty. West also was an executive for the Golden State Warriors in their heyday, providing crucial advice on player personnel.
Through it all, however, West struggled with depression and a sense of self-loathing, and had trouble with intimacy, much of it a by-product of a hardscrabble childhood in West Virginia with a domineering father.
That dichotomy, his outer success and inner turmoil, are the heart of “Jerry West: The Logo,” a new documentary for Prime Video, from “black-ish” creator Kenya Barris, directing his first documentary.
“I’m from L.A. and was a fan of the Showtime Lakers growing up,” Barris says, so he put his name in for the project figuring he’d at least get to meet a hero. “But we immediately hit it off and I felt a kinship with him.”
That ability to connect was part of West’s magic, as attested to by the string of NBA legends who pay tribute to him in the documentary, including Lakers such as Magic Johnson, James Worthy, Pat Riley and O’Neal, along with Steph Curry and Michael Jordan.
Vlade Divac was traded by West to secure the rights to Bryant, but he selected West to introduce him at his Hall of Fame induction. In a recent phone interview, Divac praised West as “a father figure when you needed it and a friend when you needed it. He was very honest and he cared about people and helped you achieve your goals. He's one of the best guys I ever met. Period.”
Barris, who did extensive interviews with West before the Laker icon died in 2024, spoke by video recently about making the documentary, which also includes NBA Commissioner Adam Silver acknowledging for the first time that West was the sport's logo. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Read more:Jerry West, Lakers legend and architect of 'Showtime' era, dies at 86
Jerry had already opened up about his life in his memoir, "West by West," but do you think this was still cathartic for him?
His book really drew me to doing the documentary because it was so honest. I think the idea of him actually saying these things out loud in front of a camera with his kids and his grandkids around was a catharsis for him.
Did he feel he was nearing the end?
Jerry would say, "I feel like I'm in God's waiting room." He didn't like getting old because he was so much in touch with his body as an athlete — he could jump higher and run farther than his friends. When I first met him, he was on the treadmill and jogging with weights. He was in his 80s but was saying, "I used to be able to jog with more weights."
He was feeling old but I don't think that he thought he was about to pass.
Was he annoyed by his depiction in HBO’s Lakers series “Winning Time,” which generated controversy in 2022?
The show was entertaining, but it really bothered him and he didn’t think it was fair. I think that series might've pushed him into wanting to do this, if I'm being completely honest.
He and his family talk openly on camera about his mental health issues. Was it hard to balance that tonally with his great accomplishments in basketball?
I did not want to make something that was morose or a melodrama. But it would not be complete if he didn't talk about the struggles. When I first met him, he was just coming out of a depression and anyone who's ever been through that understands that it is actually a struggle. So forming a whole picture of who this character was was really important. And also it was important for his family because they lived through this with him as well. They were sad to see him suffer, but they had suffered through it too.
We wanted to really talk about who this character was and what formed him. Most of who we are is formed between the ages of 0 and 12 and in those years, Jerry saw a lot and went through a lot of stuff.
Read more:How Jerry West vs. HBO became TV's biggest feud in years
When his older brother was killed in Korea and his father put the casket by the Christmas tree …
That was crazy. If we could get the audience to understand who this man was, it would give them empathy for everything after.
As a GM [general manager], he was a white guy in this predominantly Black sport, but he came in with a chip on his shoulder, too, and he saw these young players who hadn’t had strong father figures and came from socioeconomically deprived places like he did and he was able to build real relationships with them.
He didn't want to talk about it a lot in the doc, but he did a lot for civil rights and for players' advocacy of the NBA, for the Black players, who didn’t have the same voice that he had. But he did it quietly.
One thing the documentary avoids is the contentious relationship with Phil Jackson — who isn’t even mentioned — and the cause of West’s departure from the Lakers right after he built that dynasty. Did he not want to discuss it?
We spoke about it. You can't have that long a career and not rack up some controversial things. But I did not want this to be a salacious look at the negative accounts. I got in there the idea of a strain with the Lakers, but I wanted to make sure to not defile that relationship based upon certain things that I wasn't going to dig into. It was not a gotcha sort of documentary. It was more of a tribute to him.
People have wondered if he had stayed on, whether he could have stopped the relationship between Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal from going south, and I would have been interested to know what he thought.
We did talk about that. He believes that he could have got them to stay together and he said that he believes they could have gone on and won four or five more championships.
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
