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Two Years After Kobe’s Death, Jerry West About the ‘Shock and Sadness’
West, the former Lakers icon and general manager, said the losses of Bryant and his friend Elgin Baylor, who died last year, have made him more introspective.
Jerry West spent a lifetime becoming one of the most decorated figures in N.B.A. history as a player and an executive, but these days, his routine includes daily workouts, coronavirus testing and a regular gin rummy game with some friends.
West, 83, is also a consultant with the Los Angeles Clippers and likes to stay current on today’s N.B.A. game, evaluating players just as he used to when he was a team executive.
In the past two years, West has faced the deaths of two close friends in Elgin Baylor, a Hall of Fame player who became his mentor when the Lakers drafted West, and Kobe Bryant, whom West traded for as general manager of the Lakers shortly after Bryant was drafted by the Charlotte Hornets in 1996. Baylor, 86, died of natural causes in March 2021, and Bryant, 41, was killed in a helicopter crash in January 2020.
West recently spoke to The New York Times about working through his grief, struggling to tell people he loves them and appreciating a former roommate for “saving my life.”
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
In the past two years, two of your close friends in the basketball world have died: Elgin Baylor, whom you starred with on the Lakers in the early 1960s, and Kobe Bryant. What has been the hardest part about dealing with your grief?
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