The basketball world is reeling from the death of the iconic Jerry West on Wednesday, and many are still reacting to the news, including the legendary Michael Jordan.
“I am so deeply saddened at the news of Jerry’s passing,” Jordan said in a statement. “He was truly a friend and a mentor. Like an older brother to me. I valued his friendship and knowledge. I always wished I could’ve played against him as a competitor, but the more I came to know him, I wish I had been his teammate. I admired his basketball insights, and he and I shared many similarities to how we approached the game. He will be forever missed. My condolences to his wife Karen and his sons. Rest in peace, Logo.”
Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James, NBA commissioner Adam Silver and Arkansas head coach John Calipari were also among those to react to West’s death on social media:
West was immortalized as the silhouette used for the NBA logo in 1969. He won the 1972 NBA championship with the Lakers and went on to win eight more titles as an executive with the Lakers and Golden State Warriors.
West served as a consultant with the Los Angeles Clippers since 2017, and the team announced Wednesday that he “passed away peacefully” at the age of 86 with his wife by his side.
The former point guard had a lengthy list of achievements that included 14 All-Star selections, a scoring title and an NBA Finals MVP award. He ended his career with averages of 27.0 points, 6.7 assists and 5.8 rebounds over 932 games.
After retiring from his playing career in 1974, West served as head coach of the Lakers for three seasons from 1976 to 1979 before transitioning to the front office as the team’s general manager in 1982. He helped build a team that won six titles before his tenure ended in 2000, and he was instrumental in the franchise-altering deals that brought Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal to Los Angeles.
After serving as Memphis Grizzlies GM from 2002 to 2007, West joined the Warriors front office in 2011 as an executive board member and helped build a core that included future Hall of Famers Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green. The team won two titles in 2015 and 2017 with West helping run things.
West is already a two-time Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Famer as a player (1979) and a member of the gold-medal-winning 1960 United States Olympic team (2010), and he will be posthumously enshrined a third time for his work as an executive later this year.