American basketball says goodbye to Jerry West: the legendary player, coach and executive of the Lakers was 86 years old
World sport, in particular the world of basketball, says goodbye to one of the most important characters in history. On Wednesday 12 June, at the age of 86, he passed away Jerry West. Legendary career as a player, equally successful as a manager, for one of the greatest exponents of the NBA.
It is very sad news that spread a couple of days ago and announced the death of one of the greatest American sports figures of recent decades. Last Wednesday, at the age of 86, the legendary Jerry West passed away player, coach and General Manager of the Los Angeles Lakers.
Born in 1938 in Chelyan in the state of Virginia, Jerome Alan Westbetter known as Jerry, after all his school and university career, landed in the NBA, the highest American basketball championship, at the beginning of the 1960 season. He was selected by the Los Angeles Lakerswith whom he played for 14 seasons until 1974, when he officially retired.
With the yellow and purple he doesn’t have it on the parquet never won the NBA title, albeit obtaining a myriad of individual awards. Just to name a few, he was selected 14 consecutive times to play in the All Star Games, 12 times in the All NBA team and 5 times in the NBA All Defensive team. He was the league’s best scorer in 1970 and best assister in 1972. In 1969 he won the best player of the finals award, the only one to do so despite the defeat.
From 1976 to 1979 he had a brief interlude from trainerand then began the most successful part of his career, the one from general managerin which he won by 7 times NBA title and for 2x Executive of the Year Award. He built the quintets with Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in the 80s and Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal between the 90s and 2000s.
Also nicknamed “Mr Logo”for appearing in the NBA logo, was included in Basketball Hall of Fame in 1980.
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