Written by Lee Jenkins at SI.com
In the second half of the second game of the Western Conference finals, Jerry West sat in the basketball ops suite at Oracle Arena, plotting his escape. It was a familiar impulse. As general manager of the Lakers, West was famous for fleeing the Forum and driving aimlessly around Inglewood, often finding a movie theater where he could hide from televisions and radios broadcasting the games. That was back in the 1980s, when the Showtime Lakers rarely lost but West was still too nervous to watch or listen. Now he works for the Warriors, advising their owners. He is immensely proud of his new team, four megastars lighting up one hoop constellation, and he raves about Kevin Durant in the same tones once reserved for Kobe Bryant. But the reason he wanted to bail on Game 2 against the Spurs is not that he was uptight. It’s that he was unenthused.
“I don’t like parity,” West says. “I don’t like the word parity. Parity is average, and I like to see excellence. But I also like competition. I read the newspaper cover to cover every morning, and even though I don’t bet, I look at the lines in Las Vegas. We were underdogs in one game this year. We were favored in Game 2 of the conference finals by 15 points. That is insane. It’s not what anybody wants to see. At the end of the third quarter [when the Warriors led 106–75], I almost felt bad for San Antonio, but I also felt bad for our fans. Because if you’re a real fan at a playoff game, you want to see a hard-fought battle, back and forth, and at the end somebody wins by a point and you go home worn out. You’re charged. You’re edgy. But we’re up by 30-something, and I’m thinking, ‘Hmm, I’d like to leave here if I could.’ It’s the weirdest thing. I’ve never felt that way before.”
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