Here you go.

go. Oh. The logo. That's the nothing personal word of the day. It is Thursday, June 13th,

2004, and Jerry West has passed away.

86 years old, famous for maybe being the NBA logo.

I've been thinking most of yesterday

since it was announced that he had passed away. The first thing that struck me of course is that the

clippers announced it. The thing about when an athlete dies, there is a discussion about who gets

to announce it. the general rule is the current organization

announces the death and the previous organizations add statements to it.

That's the rule of thumb. I disagree with that. I think that the

organization, it should be like the Hall of Fame hat the organization

that someone is associated with should be the one to make the announcement.

I mean who would make an announcement it would be like having a baseball team

announced the Muhammad Ali died it's absurd you can comment after you can give

some sort of remarks but you don't announce it. Jerry West will be always associated with the Lakers. I spent a lot of the

day thinking about Jerry West because when I started with the NBA in the middle 70s I didn't see Jerry West play and I knew

Jerry West I knew about him I knew about him as an executive. He was the one who worked with

Pat Riley during Showtime Lakers, won all those titles with Magic. I knew that he had gone

on to the Grizzlies, the Warriors, the clippers, the last version of him that so many people had was with that great show winning time where Jerry West was portrayed in a way that made Jerry West and his family

uncomfortable. When you are around the game, which I've been lucky enough to be around for so long.

Jerry West had a reputation. I'm very careful about how I judge

reputations only because my reputation is so often wrong when I was an executive and it was so often made by people who didn't know me.

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