Jerry West, basketball legend and NBA logo silhouette, dies at the age of 86 | Basketball News

West was one of the greatest players in NBA history and redefined the modern shooting guard position in basketball.

Jerry West, a legendary Los Angeles Lakers star guard from the 1960s who inspired the NBA logo, died Wednesday at the age of 86, the Los Angeles Clippers announced.

West played for the Lakers from 1960 to 1974, won his only NBA title in 1972, and was co-captain of the U.S. basketball team that won the gold medal at the 1960 Olympic Games in Rome.

In later years, West served as an executive with several NBA clubs, most recently the Clippers.

Thanks to his impressive speed and reaction time as well as his skillful shooting touch, West was nicknamed “Mr. Clutch” due to his skillful shooting technique under pressure.

In the 1969 NBA finals against arch-rivals Boston Celtics, he received the Most Valuable Player award, even though the Celtics challenged the Lakers for the title.

West was a 14-time NBA All-Star and the league’s leading scorer in 1970. His jersey number 44 was retired by the Lakers and he was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1980.

In 1969, the NBA designed its current logo, which features a silhouette of West dribbling a basketball. The image was inspired by a photograph of West during a game.

Over the course of his career, West averaged 27.0 points, 5.8 rebounds and 6.7 assists per game.

West, who coached the Lakers from 1976 to 1979, won eight titles as an NBA executive, five of them with the Lakers in the “Showtime” era of the 1980s with Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

He also served as manager for the NBA champions Lakers in 2000 and Golden State in 2015 and 2017 before joining the Clippers.

In 2022, West was honored as a member of the NBA 75th Anniversary Team during the 71st NBA All-Star Game in Cleveland, Ohio.

From a basketball perspective, West will be remembered as the player who redefined the talent standard for the original two-guard – or shooting guard – for the modern game.

The originality of his game and the beauty of his long-range jump shot served as a prototype for shooting guards for decades to come, and NBA legends like Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant pointed to West’s stylistic influence in their own games.