Jeanie Buss is fairly in the crosshairs of Jerry West at the moment. The 14-time All-Star and Lakers legend has taken exception to her list of top 5 Lakers.
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West was a guest with Peter Vecsey on the Hoop Du Jour Podcast a few days ago. Logo West got a chance to call out Jeanie Buss for leaving him off her list of top 5 Lakers on ‘All the Smoke’:
“I saw the other day Jeanie Buss made a statement, the five most important Lakers, one of the most offensive things I’ve ever heard in my life. I was there a lot of times, had a lot of success. Be curious to know if they would have had that success if I hadn’t been there.”
“And I don’t ever take credit for stuff, I don’t. When I was around, maybe I was just a good luck charm. But I do know, that when this thing fell apart, there was a lot of years where they weren’t very good.”
What exactly did Jeanie Buss say on ‘All the Smoke’? Does Jerry West have reason to be affronted?
When you look at the clip in particular, it seems Jeanie is really struggling to make any sort of headway on an accurate list. She was getting copious number of hints from Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson, who were obviously just naming names to help her along.
“You have start with Kareem. And Kobe. And LeBron… Magic might be number one. No, Kareem. I don’t know. It’s so hard. Does he (Phil Jackson) count as a Laker? Then Phil.”
It wasn’t a well thought-out answer all in all, so perhaps it didn’t deserve all the attention it got. But there definitely is scope for some Lakers legends to feel affronted, especially given their legacies in LA.
Shaq appeared to take it better, though he’s been also known to be prickly at imagined slights. Jerry West perhaps has more going for him than Shaq as a top 5 Laker in quite a few aspects. Perhaps you can’t reasonably expect their reactions to be proportionate.
