NBA great Jerry West died on Wednesday — but his legacy lives on as his likeness appears on the basketball league’s iconic logo.
West, 86, was an undoubted legend. Known as “Mr Clutch,” he was not only a 14-time All-Star, a co-captain of the 1960 gold-medal-winning US Olympic team, and a coach, but his silhouette also became a symbol of the NBA.
Alan Siegel designed the logo in 1969, according to a 2010 Los Angeles Times article. The logo depicts an all-white silhouette of a player in motion, dribbling a basketball surrounded by red-and-blue color blocks.
Siegel told the outlet that West was one of his favorite players.
Although he may have been partial to West when he came across a Wen Roberts photograph of the Lakers superstar dribbling down the court, he said that’s not why he ultimately chose the image.
He told the Times: “It had a nice flavor to it…so I took that picture and we traced it. It was perfect. It was vertical and it had a sense of movement. It was just one of those things that clicked.”
When the outlet asked the NBA to confirm whether it was in fact West on the logo, a spokesperson replied: “There’s no record of it here.”
Seeing as his employer didn’t link him to the image, West told the outlet he thought it was “awkward” to claim it was his own likeness. Instead, he told the outlet that he remembered thinking when he first saw the logo: “That looks like somebody familiar.”
Years later, in 2017, he admitted outright on ESPN’s “The Jump”: “I know it is me.”
The then-Golden State Warriors executive board member said: “I wish that it had never gotten out that I’m the logo, I really do.”
Although he called it “flattering,” the basketball legend said, “I don’t like to do anything to call attention to myself … that’s just not who I am, period. If they would want to change it, I wish they would. In many ways, I wish they would.”
Despite his calls for change, the logo has remained the same over the years. West also holds another unchanging title: he has the league record for the highest number of average points per game in a playoff series with 46.3.
West played for the Lakers for 14 years, starting in 1960. Two years after he retired from the team, he became their coach.
In 1991, he was inducted into the Hall of Fame for his alma mater West Virginia University.
West’s competitor and Boston Celtics star Bill Russell said at the time: “As you all know, Jerry is the logo man, but to us [players], Jerry was not a silhouette. He was a man with a soul.”
