Mystery NBA Owner’s Blunder Stopped Jerry West From Becoming NBA’s First Million Dollar Player

Jerry West aka. Mr. Clutch is someone with many unraveled and untold stories. As we remember him in such a grave time, there’s another one coming out of the pipeline. You might have to time travel with us as we look at an incident that happened in 1974, his 14th season in the league. We can hear it directly from West himself, from his podcast interview with Paul George last year. As he spoke about the pressures of the game and his mental health, there was an important aspect of why he left the Lakers as an active player when he did.

For someone who had signed a $300,000 contract at the time, and was soon going to get a million dollars worth of contract, what changed? Well, as it turns out, it was a fight for principles, honesty, and morals for Jerry West. This was a time when he was severely suffering from a broken nose and groin injuries. All of that halted his career trajectory, which was still going upward when he was 37. From an archived interview by New York Times back when there were no digital publications, we found this statement by West:

“The major reason for my retirement is because I have set high standards for myself that I’m not willing to compromise. I have seen other players play longer than I thought they should have. I did not want to do that.” He said all of this as he choked, struggling to hide his tears.

What went wrong with the Lakers and Jerry West?

The moralistic man that he was, he never revealed the true reason back then. And even when speaking on Podcast P with Paul George, he had still not revealed the name of the person. But he did leave plenty of room for anyone to do the guesswork. “It was my 14th year, and I had a holdout the season before, that someone did not tell me the truth. You can’t do that with me, you can’t. Tell me the truth, I’m fine with whatever you say. Just tell me the truth.”

In 1974, he could barely play around 28 games that season. He was found sitting out the majority of his games. Medical supervisors did tape his groin so it could not move, to help it heal, yet it was in a terrible state. After this came the bad news for West. He just decided to step down from the Lakers, despite leading them to a glorious stage many times. (Real) Reason? Well, in the podcast interview, West said, “Because the owner said I did it on purpose, I did it on purpose, I didn’t want to play.”

Even after scoring 19 points at the time against the Trail Blazers, West stepped down all because of a blunder. West left the team as the third-highest scorer in NBA history with 25,192. He kept bringing up the fact that he did not want to compromise on his standards. At the time, he even said, “Perhaps I expect too much.” Probably nobody read between the lines.

In a book published in 2006, The Show: The Inside Story of the Spectacular Los Angeles Lakers in the Words of Those Who Lived It- by Roland Lazenby, there’s something even more interesting that can corroborate this story. As per this book, Jerry West actually retired because of the many disagreements he had with Jack Kent Cooke over his contract. He even filed a suit to get his unpaid wages back then. West was passionate about the sport. He never wanted to retire. He was willing to talk it out and re-negotiate his contract, but Cooke had other plans. And in the words of West, Cooke “basically told my agent to go to hell. I felt I was deceived. When you feel that you’re deceived you don’t want any part of the organization that deceived you. I could’ve played another very good year. Every athlete says that. But I could’ve, and I knew I could’ve. But I could never have played for the Lakers again, and I wasn’t going to play for anybody else.”

In his head, West only wanted to be associated with the Lakers. It was not just a basketball team for him; it was his home. He belonged there. He would have been the first player in history to bag a million-dollar contract, but politics took over. Already suffering from too much in his personal life with a saddened childhood, he did not take this defeat well. All he would do was sit by himself, alone, and stare into a void.

There have been many grand players in the NBA, but nobody has been like West – an excellent player and a great executive. He was a rare prodigy. Without him, the silhouette of the NBA logo will forever be incomplete.