In the hit TV show, Winning Time, Jerry West was portrayed as an anxious, obsessive ball of nerves whose extreme reactions were matched only by his care for winning basketball games. Between handfuls of antacids, West spent the duration of the show ping-ponging between a depressive spiral and the highs of winning elation.
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While West found the portrayal disrespectful and untrue, there was some truth to it. It was probably most evident in West’s pursuit of Shaquille O’Neal in 1996.
Despite what the rest of his post-career life would say, Shaq insists that his priorities in life and basketball did not stem from money. Every NBA player becomes a millionaire the moment they are drafted. The minimum salary for a player with zero years of NBA experience is just over $1.1 million. And to take every amount of money available to you is not evil or stupid.
It is just the normal thing to do. O’Neal also very clearly valued his financial compensation, and he fueled the bidding war between the Orlando Magic and Los Angeles Lakers, eventually pushing for the record-setting seven-year, $120 million deal. These negotiations got so insane that West had to be hospitalized.
Between the pursuit of O’Neal and trade negotiations chasing teenager Kobe Bryant before the draft, West’s AFib, or atrial fibrillation, got bad enough that he needed serious medical attention. But he got both players.
Monetizing one’s passions is a dream, but it can simultaneously be a curse. Shaq detailed how he got around in a 2023 interview, where he claimed he would have taken $120,000 for seven years back in 1996. All for the love of the game.
“When you have the love and passion to do something, you take everything that comes with it — good and bad. I would have played basketball for $120,000 for 7 years rather than $120 million, because I loved to play basketball,” said Shaq.
“Yes, there was a lot that came with the game — the commercials, all of that. I focused on playing basketball because I loved the game and everything that came with it,” O’Neal continued. “I never said to myself that I would only play basketball if they pay me $100 million — I played basketball because I loved basketball.“
A year or so after Shaq’s interview, West also commented on the way he managed to bag that historic deal, getting Shaq and Bryant on the Lakers roster.
“I didn’t think there was any way we could get Kobe Bryant along with Shaquille O’Neal, but you have to have a wishlist in life, and if you’re competitive, you’re going to try and go out and achieve that,” West said while appearing on the JAXXON podcast in 2024.
“And so all of a sudden, I was talking to Jerry Buss at that time, who was the owner of the Lakers, and I said, ‘Jerry, we have to make this trade.’ And I said starting center, and I said, ‘If we don’t get Shaquille O’Neal, there’s Mutombo.’ Mutombo was out there, who is a very good defensive player, and so he was our fall guy,” West added.
Later in his career, Shaq took a pay cut to chase a title with the Miami Heat. It’s likely that Shaq did it because he clearly loved playing basketball and wanted to win, too.
“Pat Riley came in and said, ‘Shaq, I love you. I can give you the whole $120,000,000, and we can have nobody, or I can give you $100,000,000. Get UD some more money. I can bring in Posey. I can bring in GP, and I can bring in all (of) them guys’,” Shaq told The OGs podcast.
It was Pat Riley’s pleas (funny enough, another character in Winning Time) that convinced the big man to take the cut, and it paid off with a title in 2006. While Riley was West’s protégé as a coach before moving to Miami, the two were far too competitive to congratulate each other.
