The Golden Age of Basketball-Chapter 577 - 4 Enjoying This Kind of Life
Even today, when I watch television, I spend as much time on the Discovery Channel and National Geographic as I do watching basketball games.
Why? Why at my age do I remain so curious about animals?
Why do I sit here, wondering who would win in a fight between a coyote and a pit bull, or which is stronger, a tiger or a lion?
I love zoos and watching animals that, despite being caged, still exude the wildness of nature.
That reminds me of how I felt in the locker room, like a wild beast in a cage, sweat dripping off me, occasionally vomiting.
But as soon as the cage door opened, I would rush out to fight, ready for the game.
It was perhaps not until 1967 when the Lakers moved to the Great Western Forum that I truly considered myself a gladiator, because of the Colosseum-like appearance of the arena and owner Cook’s insistence that the hostesses wear Roman-style robes.
But it might have been even earlier, back to when I participated in the Rome Olympics, or possibly before then, when I played ball at the Mountaineers Gymnasium.
I’ve always been intrigued by the fact that basketball players used to play in large iron cages.
In 1989, when I resigned from the position of General Manager of the Lakers, I refused many visits and persuasions from friends, wanting to be alone to clear my mind of several issues.
I often thought about how meaningful my life would have been if I had not left the mountains of West Virginia but instead stayed to continue climbing.
I also considered another thing: if my family life had been like Norman Rockwell’s paintings, it probably wouldn’t have been as interesting.
If I had grown up in a big city, I would have missed out on many of the things I described earlier.
Or, if I had played for the Knicks, the Bullets, or another team instead of the Lakers, my life would certainly have been different.
Alone with these thoughts, I indulged in wild fantasies, solitary.
Even today, there’s always a loner side to me that people don’t see.
But I believe that only in solitude does one’s true nature reveal itself, the person he truly is.
The mountains I climbed were not just mountains; they were my sanctuary, just like basketball.
They were a refuge from the coming storms, and I never knew when those storms would hit.
According to Campbell, a hero’s world is made up of pain, boredom, and neurosis; for me, pain and anger are the most visceral experiences of my growth, the cornerstone hidden beneath the abyss of my emotions.
I always tried to predict when my father would explode, tiptoeing around, hoping to avoid any bad situations.
This made it difficult for me to express my feelings directly, good or bad, turning me into a maddening master of indirect expression.
In my family growing up, you wouldn’t hear "I love you," which greatly explains why I find it hard to utter the same words or to fully comprehend their meaning.
Those damn three words, I struggled viciously with them.
As for neuroses, I don’t think it fits me. 𝑓𝓇𝘦ℯ𝘸𝘦𝑏𝓃𝑜𝘷ℯ𝑙.𝑐𝑜𝓂
Yes, I’m superstitious, a bit quirky, and have gone through pain and hardship.
But neurotic? No, I don’t think so, I’m not Woody Allen.
Nonetheless, I am quite excitable, and I do my best to hide it, keeping a cool facade that reveals nothing.
Yet, when I stepped onto the court, I was like a Bengal Tiger entering an arena, my hunting instincts rapidly awakening.
As early as high school, I felt I might be special because I could predict the course of a game before it even started.
On the court, I could read the eyes and body movements of players, knowing what they wanted to do, which direction they would go, where they liked to move, and where they did not.
I could foresee everything, which allowed me to block and steal with ease.
After entering the NBA, I soon realized that there were others like me, such as Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, and Oscar Robertson.
I still remember the embarrassing moment when Russell blocked my shot, because anyone, including my kids, can watch that scene on YouTube.
It was this combination of foresight and intuition that was of immense help to me while managing the Lakers.
I could anticipate the team’s needs before they became apparent. I knew which player was in good form this year, but unlikely to maintain the same performance the next season. I knew who could help us, who was the missing piece of the puzzle. I was prepared for external criticism and denial, but I could stick to my beliefs.
The only person I couldn’t foresee was Ah Gan, or maybe I had a premonition, but I was powerless to change things.
I brooded alone in my cave over these issues, until Nicholson pulled me out.
He told me about a crazy plan: to become the general manager in Portland, and then bring Ah Gan back to Los Angeles three years later.
I thought he must be at least partly out of his mind after his success in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest," and what’s crazier is that I actually thought the plan wasn’t bad, although I wouldn’t admit it verbally.
One reason was that in 1989 the Lakers beat the Trail Blazers in the Western Conference Finals, and had we lost, I would never have considered going to Portland.
Nicholson arranged for me, Tang Jianguo, and Ah Gan to play golf at Bel-Air Country Club; this was the first time I met Ah Gan in private.
There was a lot of media about him, but I never watched it. I felt it would interfere with my judgment of him, so I only watched his performance on the court.
Basketball giants tend to be problematic off the court; Wilt and Karim were both difficult. Ah Gan, with his exceptional talent and recklessness, wrestled, elbowed, and beat up anyone who dared to provoke him, single-handedly altering the ecology of the NBA.
He drove Rambis to the brink of mental collapse, rendered Pat Riley dazed and confused enough to resign, and he was the reason I was ousted from the position of Lakers’ general manager.
I thought he was the next Bill Russell; arrogant, cold-hearted, adept at manipulating opponents, and pursuing victory to the extreme yet aloof from it, because for him it was too easy.
As it turned out, my prediction was not wrong; he was indeed like Bill, but only on the court. Off the court, he was more like Wilt.
I realized this when he argued with me in the golf cart about who was more formidable, the tiger or the lion.
We mostly discussed topics related to animals; he had an astonishing wealth of knowledge, which makes me suspect he started using the internet in 1988 because I saw many of the same facts online later.
He didn’t like golf, but he enjoyed playing it. I spent many years trying to learn how to swing the club, adjust the angle, and calculate the wind speed, striving to hit each ball accurately.
He would just clunk the ball far away, and in the end, he always had a way to get the ball in the hole; I was quite certain he had the potential to go pro in golf.
He wasn’t the kind of person who caused a stir in crowds deliberately, like an attention-seeking showboat. Like Wilt, he was destined to be the center of attention wherever he stood, but at the same time, he didn’t overtly steal the limelight or pose and dictate as the master of the place.
He was very natural, which made me think of the vast Pacific Ocean. I know an ancient Chinese saying goes, "A person of the highest virtue is like water."
I am afraid of water; I nearly drowned as a child, and to this day, I dare not swim, and I am afraid whenever I am near water.
Ah Gan once made me afraid, but I thought, if he were my player, would I still need to be afraid?
This possibly crazy thought bombarded my brain; when I retired in 1974, I wondered more than once what it would have been like if I had gone to another team like Oscar Robertson.
Now another possibility lay before me.
After the game, we went for Chinese food, and Ah Gan never tried to persuade me to go to Portland from beginning to end. He was just very curious and chatted about everything. He had a breadth of knowledge and depth of insight, possessing both Irving’s carefree joy and Karim’s deep introspection, while I continuously fantasized about building a championship team around him.
That season they were about to welcome both Sabonis and Petrović, and there would be a considerable scope for maneuvering.
Ah Gan said, "My goal is not just to win championships, but to build a real dynasty."
I asked if it was for the joy of victory or to avoid the pain of defeat, and he said, "I just like such a life."
At that moment, I decided to go to Portland.
— Excerpt from the 2011 autobiography "West by West" by Jerry West.
