For Kurt Rambis it all started in the most unthinkable way.
The first time he ever spoke to Jerry West, the NBA legend was trying to recruit Rambis to join the Lakers in training camp. But the squad was crowded, his future was uncertain and the option didn’t look that promising.
So he listened, declined and hung up. Why try and waste time, Rambis thought, when he could just return to his team in Greece and carve out a career in Europe.
As soon as Rambis hung up, he knew what he had done was completely insane.
“I just told Jerry West I wasn’t interested,” Rambis recalled Wednesday.
Read more: Jerry West, Lakers legend and architect of the ‘Showtime’ era, dies at 86
Of course, Rambis would give in, joining the Lakers and changing his entire life by becoming a beloved member of Showtime and an NBA lifer. Following West’s death Tuesday at the age of 86, Rambis remembered the iconic former Lakers star and manager.
“His drive, his competitiveness, his obsession with winning, I mean, you felt it,” Rambis told The Times. “You felt the good competitive pressure he put on himself and the osmosis, in many ways, of how he behaved and the things he said. And you know, the fear with which he watched games and how relieved he was when you won, all of that culminated in helping the Lakers develop this competitive winning culture.
That culture still exists, with West’s mark on Los Angeles basketball permanently tattooed on the players and people who worked with him.
When the Lakers acquired Byron Scott from the San Diego Clippers for Norm Nixon in 1983, it wasn’t a very popular decision.
Nixon had won two NBA championships with the Lakers and was well liked by his teammates and the press core that covered the team.
Jerry West was the Lakers general manager who made the move because he thought a backcourt with Magic Johnson at point guard and Scott at shooting guard was the right pairing instead of Johnson and Nixon sharing point guard duties.
Scott recalled how a local television sportscaster criticized the deal, saying West “got this wrong and is kind of losing it.”
Scott looked at the anchor’s reaction and thought, “Man.”
West called Scott to his office about a week later to discuss the negative comment.
West acknowledged the heat that came with closing the deal, but was confident that everyone would “eat their words in a few years.”
“He said, ‘… Let me tell you something. We’re going to win more championships with you than we ever would have won with Norm,'” Scott recalled.
Scott won three championships with the Lakers in the ’80s, and his sweet shooting was a big part of Showtime.
Read more: Plaschke: Laker legend Jerry West’s final legacy unfortunately includes Lakers alienation
“As I left his office that day, all I could think was, ‘I will never let this man down,’” Scott said. “This man believed in me when no one else did. And it’s true.
“So, like I’ve been telling people for years. I have two dads: my dad and my basketball dad. Jerry is my basketball dad. So it was a tough day this morning.”
Michael Cooper attended Pasadena High and Pasadena City College before transferring to New New Mexico, so he knew Jerry West’s greatness as a player.
Cooper was part of the Showtime Lakers that won five NBA championships in the 1980s. When he was selected to be part of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame 2024 class, Cooper was thrilled because he was going with West, the man who drafted him with the 60th overall pick in the third round of the 1978 draft and the icon who was inducted into the Hall Of Fame for the third time – as a player, member of the 1960 US Olympic basketball team and as a contributor.
Read more: Lakers great Michael Cooper elected to Basketball Hall of Fame
“And that’s what hurts,” Cooper said. “When I found out [Wednesday,] man, i started crying because i would really enjoy that. Like I said, our stuff goes back to 1973. That man has been in my life all these years. …Jerry was always there, man, always there. He’d say, ‘Michael, you’ve got to stop this madness.’ He was just always there to help me along the path. He never gave up on me.”
One of the biggest stars of the Showtime era, Magic Johnson had a lifelong bond with Jerry West.
As a 20-year-old rookie, Johnson said, he was in awe that West would pull him aside once a week to critique his play.
The two of them sat on chairs not far from the famous Forum Club and chatted about Johnson’s previous three or four games.
Read more: Eye for talent ‘unparalleled’: Magic Johnson shares memories of Jerry West
“He was just giving notes,” Johnson said. “He said, ‘Okay, you’ve got to do this or you’re going to run out of shots.’ Whatever it was. “If you had probably made that decision, it probably wouldn’t have been a turnover. You had too much turnover.’
“So he just helped me. He loved it because it was his idea. ‘Let’s meet. I just want to help you.’ I loved it because I get this knowledge from the great Jerry West. So I needed that.”
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This story originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times.
