Speaker 1: We interrupt your usual stream of DP show content to
Speaker 1: bring you a special episode of a new podcast on
Speaker 1: the Dan Patrick Show Network. It's called Westward. Westward chronicles
Speaker 1: the history of basketball in the NBA and how the
Speaker 1: city of Los Angeles not only saved the fledgling league
Speaker 1: by bringing the Lakers from Minneapolis, but gave birth to
Speaker 1: the modern NBA. With showtime told through the lens of
Speaker 1: the great Cherry West, who helped build the dynasty of
Speaker 1: the Lakers. Westward now follows the former Hall of Famer
Speaker 1: as he attempts to build a dynasty with LA's other
Speaker 1: NBA team, the Clippers. Narrators are Keith David, tim Livingston,
Speaker 1: Bobby Glanton Smith. I hope you enjoy this is Westward.
Speaker 1: Westward is a production that Dan Patrick Podcast Network and iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: Episode three. Built on a fault line. The city of
Speaker 1: Los Angeles was built on ground that shifts, and in
Speaker 1: June of nineteen sixty, less than a week after the
Speaker 1: team formerly known as the Minneapolis Lakers arrived in Los Angeles,
Speaker 1: players would experience its first taste of West Coast living
Speaker 1: when a six pointz struck off the coast of California
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty emergers as the most disastrous earthquake year of
Speaker 1: modern times along the California coast. It sucked in at
Speaker 1: an angle, ripping coastal installations and causing heavy damage. But
Speaker 1: while the organization had to adjust to the ground moving
Speaker 1: beneath them on occasion, the NBA was amidst a much
Speaker 1: greater seismic shift, as the game's power had moved to
Speaker 1: the furthest franchise on the East Coast and settled in
Speaker 1: an arena built above the North Station where the Boston
Speaker 1: and Main railroads meant. It had originally been called Madison
Speaker 1: Square Garden, but it had been shortened to just the Garden.
Speaker 1: Just a decade into the new NBA, when every team
Speaker 1: in the league was basically just thinking about survival, there
Speaker 1: was one team and one coach who were only thinking
Speaker 1: about basketball, and that was Read Arbak and of course
Speaker 1: the Boston Celtics, because prior to the nineteen fifty sixth
Speaker 1: season the teammate three move that changed the course of
Speaker 1: history in the NBA. See Bill Russell maybe remember as
Speaker 1: the marquee pick in that draft, but he wasn't the
Speaker 1: Celtics first selection that year. It was Tommy Hinson Afford
Speaker 1: from Holy Cross. As part of an effort to generate
Speaker 1: fan interest in the fledgling NBA, the league instituted a
Speaker 1: special rule granting team's exclusive rights to claim locally based
Speaker 1: college players. That meant that Bill Russell, who was clearly
Speaker 1: the best player in the draft, would be next, and
Speaker 1: that's who Arback really wanted. And the problem was that
Speaker 1: Boston had the seventh pick and there was no way
Speaker 1: Russell's going to slide a seventh. But the Celtic coach
Speaker 1: had a plan. The Saint Louis Hawks always covered Celtic
Speaker 1: All star Ed mcaulay because he was from Saint Louis,
Speaker 1: so Arbach traded him for the number two pick. But
Speaker 1: that's still in guarantee Russell. So Arbach had to ensure
Speaker 1: that the Rochester Royals, who had the number one pick,
Speaker 1: would pass on Russell, and so he did something crazy.
Speaker 1: Throughout the nineteen forties and fifties, a group of arena
Speaker 1: owners had purchased a troop of dancing ice skaters and
Speaker 1: created a touring show called ice Capades. The show had
Speaker 1: proven hugely popular and more importantly, lucrative for any venue
Speaker 1: able to book them. Rochester Royal owner Lee Harrison was
Speaker 1: a fan and Boston Celtic owner Walter Brown just happened
Speaker 1: to be one of the Ice Capades owners. So Arbak
Speaker 1: has Brown called Harrison and offers him the Ice Capades
Speaker 1: for a week if they pass on Russell and with
Speaker 1: their top pick, the Rochester Rolls would draft a player
Speaker 1: by the name of Shugo Green out of Duquesne. The
Speaker 1: Celtics then scooped up Russell, and as a cherry on top,
Speaker 1: they also got Casey Jones in the second round in
Speaker 1: one singular draft red hour Backs. Celtics would acquire three
Speaker 1: future Hall of Famers, creating a dynasty the likes of
Speaker 1: which the NBA would never see, including eight consecutive NBA championships,
Speaker 1: the first of which would be against the Minneapolis Lakers
Speaker 1: and their rookie phenom Elgin Baylor. They had one player
Speaker 1: on their particular team that was just we could I
Speaker 1: do very much with it, and that was entirely leading Russell. Russell.
Speaker 1: Russell was Russell was just unbelievable because Russell was the
Speaker 1: best I mean defensive player you will find. I mean,
Speaker 1: it was very difficult, but in the summer of nineteen sixty,
Speaker 1: Elgin Baylor and the Lakers would add a player who
Speaker 1: would help turn that ten years of hell pain into
Speaker 1: a furious, decade long struggle that would not only rest
Speaker 1: basketball supremacy from the East Coast stronghold of the Boston Celtics,
Speaker 1: but would sow the seeds of a bitter coastal rivalry
Speaker 1: that still exists today. The nineteen sixty NBA Draft was
Speaker 1: arguably the richest draft in league history. Four Hall of
Speaker 1: famers in the first ten picks, and one of those
Speaker 1: picks was a lanky sharpshooter from the Sticks of West Virginia.
Speaker 1: When I first came into league, I wasn't even sure
Speaker 1: I was good enough to play, but you know, I
Speaker 1: could run and jump like crazy, had a very big
Speaker 1: vertical and that's before they even started to pay attention
Speaker 1: to stuff like that, and then extremely long arms, and
Speaker 1: it was always really funny to me that they would
Speaker 1: put that I was sixty two and when the actually
Speaker 1: over sixty four, and you know, with the forty en sleevelank,
Speaker 1: it makes you a lot bigger. And you know, if
Speaker 1: it's a physical part of it caught up with a
Speaker 1: mental part of it. And that was the most difficult
Speaker 1: transition for me. A mental part of it. He had
Speaker 1: to feel confidence and the confidence to God were you
Speaker 1: got from playing against these people. West would be the
Speaker 1: Laker's first pick in Los Angeles and the number two
Speaker 1: overall behind Cincinnati's Oscar Robertson, but signing the All American
Speaker 1: from West Virginia would prove difficult, as another Ohio area team,
Speaker 1: the ABL's Cleveland Pipers, also had their eyes on West.
Speaker 1: The Pipers were owned by a brash and brilliant young
Speaker 1: businessman who was educated at MIT and entered the world
Speaker 1: of sports franchises against his father's wishes. His name was
Speaker 1: George Steinbrenner. My dad had a fight trying to get
Speaker 1: Jerry West, and Steinbrenner was offering Jerry a chance to
Speaker 1: play at almost the same level as he would play
Speaker 1: in the NBA. And he didn't have a poctupis in
Speaker 1: as you would expect from a guy who just gets
Speaker 1: out of West Virginia in that era. So George wanted
Speaker 1: to see me, and I visited with him. At that
Speaker 1: point in time, I think all young kids, if you're
Speaker 1: any good, and particularly if you know you had higher
Speaker 1: aspiration when somebody talking about something had been around for
Speaker 1: a while, but not forever, the NBA. That was always
Speaker 1: kind of a dream of mine because I'd watched, you know,
Speaker 1: some of the great great players had played in that era.
Speaker 1: And also I felt that if I were going to
Speaker 1: do something, and the most important thing to be the
Speaker 1: most competitive person I could be, but to play against
Speaker 1: better players. Not only did Steinbrenner offer West NBA money,
Speaker 1: he also offered him something most NBA players of that
Speaker 1: era needed during the off season, a job. He was
Speaker 1: really pressing me pretty hard about doing this. If father
Speaker 1: was in a ship building business and I'm going to
Speaker 1: be an insurance salesman again, coming from West Virginia, I
Speaker 1: can't imagine me selling any a piece of candy must
Speaker 1: or less an insurance pology someone. As Steinbrenner pushed Jerry West.
Speaker 1: Laker owner Bob Short pulled, even hiring his former college
Speaker 1: coach Fred Schausse to take over the team, But ultimately
Speaker 1: it was West's drive that me the decision. The money
Speaker 1: had nothing to do with it. I just wanted to
Speaker 1: play against it what I felt was the best competition.
Speaker 1: And obviously I think I made you right in to
Speaker 1: see the kid who grew up in the foothills of
Speaker 1: the Alleghany Mountains, not far from places with names like Gunstock.
Speaker 1: Knob was now moving to Los Angeles, the home of
Speaker 1: Beverly Hills and Hollywood. You know, I hadn't traveled hardly
Speaker 1: any at all when I was a kid, as to say,
Speaker 1: we had no means of transportation, so I was kind
Speaker 1: of a I shut in in terms of expanding the
Speaker 1: knowledge I had about other cities and the way the
Speaker 1: people conducted themselves in other cities. He compared to very
Speaker 1: really rule small play that I grew up in, and
Speaker 1: it was a complete a learning experience me first time
Speaker 1: I came out here, and I was kind of awe struck.
Speaker 1: I would never never forget. We stayed at the old
Speaker 1: Ambassador Hotel and Wiltshire Boulevard, and that's where Robert Kennedy
Speaker 1: got killed. I was twenty one. They took us to
Speaker 1: the nightclub, to Coconut Grove, the nightclub these old hill
Speaker 1: buildings from West Virginia, and so we went there and
Speaker 1: the thing I noticed that you could just walk right
Speaker 1: across the street. You didn't have to eaven walk across,
Speaker 1: and at that point in time, traffic stopped and let
Speaker 1: you go. I was amaze why the streets were and
Speaker 1: we spent our time there, and really it was an
Speaker 1: eye opening for me in a sense, very relaxed attitude.
Speaker 1: Bob Short, the lakers quiet Midwest owner, had somehow managed
Speaker 1: to outduel his audacious East Coast counterpart. The Los Angeles
Speaker 1: Lakers had it's man and Elgin Baylor wouldn't get a sidekick,
Speaker 1: he would get a side arm. But Laker head coach
Speaker 1: Fred Shaws would keep Jerry West holstered for much of
Speaker 1: his rookie season. I played for him in colleague for
Speaker 1: three years. He helped recruit me, but when I got
Speaker 1: to Los Angeles here it was completely different. He would
Speaker 1: not I did not play a whole lot the first
Speaker 1: half of my rookie season. And when I say a
Speaker 1: whole lot, I don't think I ever played more than
Speaker 1: twenty minutes a game. And yet I felt like I
Speaker 1: was making progress. But he would tell the sports writer,
Speaker 1: as well, you know, he's he's going to get hurt.
Speaker 1: He's he's not very big and there only about one
Speaker 1: hundred and seventy eight pounds, and well, I never missed
Speaker 1: a game in college, so it was It was a
Speaker 1: huge adjustment for me. For Jerry West's education, he would
Speaker 1: have to look no further than Elgin Baylor. Having Elgin
Speaker 1: Baylor and to be alongside of him and to be
Speaker 1: around him how he treated me. He treated me like
Speaker 1: an equal when for a while I wasn't close to
Speaker 1: his equal. But he helped me become a better player
Speaker 1: by just watching him. There was no doubt that once
Speaker 1: Jerry West joined the Lakers in Los Angeles, it was
Speaker 1: like a wanting bell had gone off to the rest
Speaker 1: of the league that this team was going to be special.
Speaker 1: But the bell that Laker owner Bob Short really wanted
Speaker 1: to ring was the one in his Laker cash register.
Speaker 1: As the team still struggled to make ends meet. Bob
Speaker 1: Short invested a ton of money into this team, and
Speaker 1: this is really the first quality product that he produced.
Speaker 1: Now we just need more people to watch him. So
Speaker 1: I think my dad recognized that people money to see stars,
Speaker 1: whether they're on the court like Elgin Baylor, Jerry West,
Speaker 1: Gel Goodrich, or they're sitting in the stands. By the
Speaker 1: early nineteen sixties, Doris Marianne Kappelhoff had become a household name.
Speaker 1: She went by Doris Day. Doris Day was the original
Speaker 1: La Lakers celebrity. Bob Short leave her two tickets to
Speaker 1: every single game because Short knew that having Doris Day
Speaker 1: at his games was good for business. It was from
Speaker 1: that moment that the Lakers had a direct connection with Hollywood.
Speaker 1: Fellow A listers like Dean Martin, Jack Lemon, and Walter
Speaker 1: Matho would follow Day with superstars like Elgin Baylor and
Speaker 1: Jerry West on the Laker court and a burgeoning celebrity
Speaker 1: fan base in the stands. Bob Short's big move finally
Speaker 1: began to pay off, and the seats at the Memorial
Speaker 1: Sports Arena on South Fiedaroa Street slowly began to fill up.
Speaker 1: This was the real birth of Showtime, which, of course
Speaker 1: Jerry Buss would later be credited for. But Bob Short
Speaker 1: tried everything. He even tried cheerleaders for the first time,
Speaker 1: long before the Laker Girls, but according to Debbie Danielson,
Speaker 1: who was one of those original Laker cheerleaders, it didn't
Speaker 1: go over too well. My mother was a choreographer and
Speaker 1: she taught dancing all through the fifties, and she started
Speaker 1: a high school dance line at St. Louis Park high school.
Speaker 1: We were the first in the league to have cheerleaders.
Speaker 1: A general manager for the Lakers lived in Saint Louis
Speaker 1: Park and he may have seen us perform and maybe
Speaker 1: got the idea that the Lakers needed something to liven
Speaker 1: up the games. So I believe he had contacted my mother,
Speaker 1: and that's how the Lakers got started. So us six
Speaker 1: little high school girls with our nineteen fifties attire on
Speaker 1: got out there and we would jump out and do
Speaker 1: a few cheers at the time out. It was kind
Speaker 1: of sketchy as to how we were accepted to begin with.
Speaker 1: And one thing I remember, Unbidley is the Boston Celtics
Speaker 1: were in town and Red Arbot was the coach, and
Speaker 1: we got out on the floor during a time out
Speaker 1: and he screamed, get those god damned girls off the floor.
Speaker 1: You are listening to Westward on the Dan Patrick podcast Network.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back. The Lakers dynamic duo of Baylor
Speaker 1: and west proved to be the most lethal in the
Speaker 1: NBA's Western Conference, and in just their second year playing together,
Speaker 1: the pair would have their first opportunity to dethrone the
Speaker 1: mighty Boston Celtics. The nineteen sixty one sixty two NBA
Speaker 1: Championship would go a complete series, needing an overtime in
Speaker 1: Game seven to be decided. But while the Celtics may
Speaker 1: have prevailed, it was the fiery Lakers whose salvo would
Speaker 1: be remembered as Elgin Baylor and Jerry West would combine
Speaker 1: for over five hundred points. Game five of the series
Speaker 1: would also see Baylor erupt for sixty one points, an
Speaker 1: NBA Final record that still stands to this day, but
Speaker 1: it was still no consolation for his second loss to
Speaker 1: the Celtics. The loss to the Celtics would be Jerry
Speaker 1: West's first. That's going back a long way. I just
Speaker 1: think probably a saying that how thrilled. I think that
Speaker 1: was a seven game series, and I just felt that
Speaker 1: that's when the Lakers had turned a corner with the fans.
Speaker 1: There was the games were sold out. Yes, a young
Speaker 1: player trying to win something very special which is elusive
Speaker 1: and everyone can't get there. If anything, the Lakers would
Speaker 1: improve the following season, finishing with the best record in
Speaker 1: the Western Conference. The Lakers would cruise through the playoffs,
Speaker 1: only to be ousted once again by the Boston Celtics,
Speaker 1: this time in only six games. As a result of
Speaker 1: these losses, Moving toward the sixty four sixty five season,
Speaker 1: Laker owner Bob Shart felt that both his investment and
Speaker 1: his team had plateaued. He made plans to sell the
Speaker 1: team a third time for the franchise since entering the league.
Speaker 1: My dad originally became interested in the Minneapolis Lakers in
Speaker 1: order to try to save the franchise for Minneapolis. It
Speaker 1: was more of an attempt at frankly civic boosterism because
Speaker 1: they believe to having a professional franchise in Minneapolis made
Speaker 1: Minneapolis a world class city. But he was never going
Speaker 1: to be a long term owner in Los Angeles. My
Speaker 1: dad was a young business guy at the time. He
Speaker 1: had seven kids under the age of eleven and needed
Speaker 1: to focus his attention on his growing business in the
Speaker 1: trucking business that was based in the Twin Cities. So
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty five, the same year that Marvin Cratter,
Speaker 1: why is the best team in the NBA the Celtics
Speaker 1: for three million dollars, Bob short puts a price tag
Speaker 1: on the Lakers for five million dollars, which was absurd.
Speaker 1: There wasn't a business person in America who was going
Speaker 1: to pay anywhere close to that. There wasn't, but there
Speaker 1: would be one in Canada. As his son, John Kent
Speaker 1: Cook remembers, my father heard about it and became interested.
Speaker 1: He told me that he could see how popular is
Speaker 1: going to be, particularly in Los Angeles, so it's just
Speaker 1: a matter of time. And he was obviously very right.
Speaker 1: Jack Kent Cook was born and raised in Ontario, Canada,
Speaker 1: and as a boy sold Encyclopedia's door to door. Born
Speaker 1: with a knack for business and a love for sports,
Speaker 1: Cook went into media in his twenties and built an empire.
Speaker 1: But having been told that nearly a quarter million Canadian
Speaker 1: expatriates had moved to southern California, Cook envisioned the unthinkable,
Speaker 1: a professional hockey team in Los Angeles. As a step
Speaker 1: towards this, he would purchase the Los Angeles Lakers, despite
Speaker 1: never having seen an NBA game. Well, I think that
Speaker 1: that is. I don't know if he never saw a
Speaker 1: basketball game, but he certainly was unfamiliar with basketball. You see,
Speaker 1: he as I am, was born and raised in Toronto, Canada,
Speaker 1: and he was born in Hamilton, Canada, and up in Canada,
Speaker 1: there's only one sport. It's called hockey. Basketball was the
Speaker 1: low curling up there in popularity. My dad was not
Speaker 1: a rich man. My grandfather was a fireman. He was
Speaker 1: in the trucking business, but it was a small business,
Speaker 1: and so I remember him being so proud. They sold
Speaker 1: the team for what was the highest price at the
Speaker 1: time ever paid for a sports franchise. There were many
Speaker 1: lasting legacies of the Bob Short owned Lakers, Minneapolis bred
Speaker 1: and owned. The team had been pulled from the brink
Speaker 1: of bankruptcy, survived a plane crash, and proved that professional
Speaker 1: basketball could flourish in Los Angeles. While his team had
Speaker 1: never won an NBA title under his ownership, Bob Short
Speaker 1: had laid the foundation of a championship franchise. My dad is,
Speaker 1: I considered, on the positive side, would be more akin
Speaker 1: to what I think of a Jerry Jones kind of owner,
Speaker 1: where he is involved in his players and considered them
Speaker 1: to be friends. But either the real interest in the
Speaker 1: lives of these young men. My dad will continued to
Speaker 1: listen to games after we sold them, continued to have contact,
Speaker 1: I think, with some of the players, especially the players
Speaker 1: in Minneapolis. In nineteen sixty five, just months before Bob
Speaker 1: Shorts Lakers were sold to Jack Kent Cook. The team
Speaker 1: would express their gratitude by reaching the NBA Finals once again,
Speaker 1: only to lose to the Boston Celtics. You are listening
Speaker 1: to Westward on the Dan Patrick podcast Network. We'll be
Speaker 1: right back. For a community to embrace a sports team fully,
Speaker 1: they need a cent of their mutual history and a
Speaker 1: sense of place. Bob Short and the Minneapolis team gave
Speaker 1: theres a sense of history, but it would be Jack
Speaker 1: Kent Cook who would give the Lakers and the city
Speaker 1: of Los Angeles their sense of place. The Lakers were
Speaker 1: playing in the sports in Los Angeles. The NHL wanted
Speaker 1: to have an expansion, particularly to the West coast in
Speaker 1: the United States, and so they said that they were
Speaker 1: interested in offers from different sportsman and Dad was one
Speaker 1: of them. Dan Reeves, who owned the La Rams at
Speaker 1: that time and who also owned the minor league hockey
Speaker 1: club that played in the Sports Rear, was also one
Speaker 1: of the NHL franchise the Sports Arena. However, being a
Speaker 1: public Kennedy said that Jack Kent Cook, as who got
Speaker 1: the franchise, couldn't play in the sports in Los Angeles. Well,
Speaker 1: at that point, my father said I'll build my own arena.
Speaker 1: The Laker year, of course, was marked for the opening
Speaker 1: of their new home, the Fabulous Forum and engle Wood,
Speaker 1: and the first Lakers game. On July first, nineteen sixty six,
Speaker 1: Jack Kent Cook broke ground on the Los Angeles Forum.
Speaker 1: The arena would be a state of the art structure
Speaker 1: and was brought to life by engineers Carl Johnson and
Speaker 1: Spen Nielsen. When finished, it would be the only arena
Speaker 1: of its size in the world that would have no
Speaker 1: major support pillars. It was designed by Charles Luck and
Speaker 1: the first wandering looked like a birthday cake, the stretchful,
Speaker 1: and my brother said to him that he wanted something
Speaker 1: classier than that, something like the Form. But as Jack
Speaker 1: Kent Cook would build the Laker's new home, his team
Speaker 1: would take a step backwards. The nucleus of that team
Speaker 1: had been the three finals in five years. Eldon Baylor
Speaker 1: had been before, and even though they had a great
Speaker 1: corror and they were so much fun to watch, the
Speaker 1: team had been built on a fall line. They had
Speaker 1: no big man, and every time they went to the
Speaker 1: finals against the Celtics, Bill Russell just destroyed them. In
Speaker 1: an attempt to shake up his team and push it
Speaker 1: over the edge. Cook would move head coach Fred Schauss
Speaker 1: to the front office and hand the reins to a
Speaker 1: fiery college coach for Montclair, New Jersey named Butch van Brettakoff.
Speaker 1: Because I liked Bill van Brettakoff away from the court.
Speaker 1: I liked him away from the court, and he expected
Speaker 1: certain things. He thought basketball was a beautiful canvas and
Speaker 1: everyone could paint a beautiful picture. Well, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of pictures that people don't think are very beautiful, and
Speaker 1: they still are people like them because of different taste.
Speaker 1: The Princeton educated Van Brettakoff had never coached at the
Speaker 1: professional level, but was neither phased by the bright lights
Speaker 1: of Tinseltown nor the Lakers star studded Rosta. Even without
Speaker 1: a center of the lay, were still the best in
Speaker 1: the West, but they had a coaching problem. Van Breda
Speaker 1: coff wasn't the answer. He had three future Hall of
Speaker 1: Famers and good Rich West and Baylor and all those
Speaker 1: guys like to run Van Breida golf like a very
Speaker 1: structured half court offense. So there was a huge disconnect
Speaker 1: between the talent and the coach. And it's the coach's
Speaker 1: job to adjust, and Van breda coolf just couldn't. Jack
Speaker 1: Kent Cook's dream was to finish construction on the Forum
Speaker 1: within a year and christen it with a champion, and
Speaker 1: he would achieve booth in the winter of nineteen sixty eight.
Speaker 1: It's the deciding game of Basketball's World Series as Boston
Speaker 1: leaves the Lakers three games to two in the Los
Speaker 1: Angeles Farm. The Los Angeles Lakers played their first game
Speaker 1: in the newly built Los Angeles Farum as owner Jack
Speaker 1: Kent Cook hadn't vision. The Lakers finally had roots in
Speaker 1: their own home, and on Thursday May second, nineteen sixty eight,
Speaker 1: his fabulous Forum would indeed christen its first champion. Placheck
Speaker 1: drives around a triple screen and another say dive. Boston
Speaker 1: team wins the world's professional basketball crown one twenty four
Speaker 1: to one O nine in the final against Los Angeles.
Speaker 1: Our fitting climax to the converse cavalcade what it's like
Speaker 1: to be on the losing in not one time, but
Speaker 1: numerous times against the Celtics, and it just was not
Speaker 1: something that that was a feeling to have to endure that,
Speaker 1: and unfortunately all of us did you know, you get
Speaker 1: there and have high expectations and at the end of
Speaker 1: the day you go home frustrated and really down. Those
Speaker 1: things take stole, and they certainly took the stall on me.
Speaker 1: The Fabulous Forum would be home to the Los Angeles
Speaker 1: Lakers for over three decades and for years after the
Speaker 1: team left. The dated arena wasn't unlike one of the
Speaker 1: old ruins of Rome, of which it was named, but
Speaker 1: in a case of mythical storytelling that could only happen
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles, the lakers old home has been bought
Speaker 1: and now being resurrected, and done so by their current fold.
Speaker 1: There could be a big shift coming to Inglewood, the Forum,
Speaker 1: obviously historic home of the Lakers. According to ESPN dot Com,
Speaker 1: Clippers owner Steve Balmer is in negotiations to buy the Forum,
Speaker 1: and once again the home of his old employer is
Speaker 1: now owned by Jerry West's new employer, Clipper owner Steve
Speaker 1: Bamber Steve Bomber. In many ways, it is very much
Speaker 1: like Jerry Buss, and he's got enormous wealth you never
Speaker 1: know he had. He's a man of the people, you
Speaker 1: never know he had it. But he is unbelievably philanthropic.
Speaker 1: He's going to get a building built where people thinking
Speaker 1: that he will get a building built, it will be
Speaker 1: the best building in Los Angeles and he doesn't have
Speaker 1: to That will be the Clippers building, not the Lakers building,
Speaker 1: and I think that will be a great start to
Speaker 1: trying to level the playing field in terms of creating
Speaker 1: your own fans. According to cultural historian DJ Wolde, there
Speaker 1: is a third aspect to a city embracing the franchise.
Speaker 1: I think for a community to embrace the sports team fully,
Speaker 1: they need a sense of their mutual history, a sense
Speaker 1: of place, and a willingness to forgive. Sure, we all
Speaker 1: love a winner, and we all want our hometown team
Speaker 1: to come out on topic. House can't happen. There will
Speaker 1: be winning seasons and there will be a losing season,
Speaker 1: But to maintain that identity in good seasons and in
Speaker 1: bad seasons. In sports and competition, there isn't a lot
Speaker 1: of room for forgiveness. Franchises moved, teams lose, loyalties shift,
Speaker 1: but rarely do they all happen in the same city.
Speaker 1: I've learned more by failing than I have by winning
Speaker 1: a lot more. You know, people always talk about getting
Speaker 1: to the top of the mountain. What's okay? Because you
Speaker 1: sometimes you get halfway up and you can't make it
Speaker 1: any farther. Sometimes you get three quarters away up, you
Speaker 1: can't make any farther. Going forward, I've always taken that
Speaker 1: as a motivation to try to do everything better in
Speaker 1: my life, to try to treat people better, to try
Speaker 1: to give more, try to be a better person. There's
Speaker 1: not one person smart enough to do this alone. And
Speaker 1: life is too short to be lived alone anyway, By
Speaker 1: the way, and that's what makes teams so special, when
Speaker 1: you have all these ingredients that are necessary to win
Speaker 1: at the very highest level. On October twenty second, twenty nineteen,
Speaker 1: a nexus of these moving parts would play out on
Speaker 1: the NBA's opening night in Los Angeles. He falls around
Speaker 1: the steeple centering times how mar Friend Jewels have been
Speaker 1: building all day and hitting a twist end up with
Speaker 1: as much antenticipated season open earth with a new lineup
Speaker 1: and a sense of history, Los Angeles's other teams would
Speaker 1: land the first blows out, came into the free that
Speaker 1: will be up, but Clippers win round on the city's
Speaker 1: two professional franchises have become polar opposites. One waits for
Speaker 1: a sense of place in the future, until then they
Speaker 1: run from their past, while the other run towards it,
Speaker 1: embracing the former glory of an empire that once belonged
Speaker 1: to them. One man knows this better than anyone, because
Speaker 1: he is a part of both. What would a championship
Speaker 1: meant to Clippers fans? Oh my God, to be involved
Speaker 1: and a team that wins special But here in Los Angeles,
Speaker 1: which is my home, where I grew up here and
Speaker 1: so many people here. I think it would be great
Speaker 1: for the Lakers too also, even though they probably wouldn't
Speaker 1: want to talk about it, but I think it would
Speaker 1: be great for them in a sense. You know, we
Speaker 1: got to do more, and so it creates the ultimate
Speaker 1: competition within a city. Can you imagine it would mean
Speaker 1: everything to me? It really would. The city of Los
Speaker 1: Angeles was built on ground that shifts so two at times.
Speaker 1: Does its loyalties, history, place, forgiveness all a part of
Speaker 1: the moving bedrock beneath two teams both trying to find
Speaker 1: a way to coexist while winning next time on Westward,
Speaker 1: while the Laker franchise would once again try to heal
Speaker 1: after their sixth loss to the Celtics in the finals.
Speaker 1: Outside the Fabulous Forum, the city of Los Angeles was
Speaker 1: still healing from another wound, this one much larger. It
Speaker 1: began a police and rioters flash I'm gonna hot Wednesday night,
Speaker 1: but within a matter of hours it was completely out
Speaker 1: of hand. The Watts Rebellion would be a flashpoint not
Speaker 1: just for Los Angeles but for the game of basketball.
Speaker 1: With fifty percent of NBA rosters comprising of black players,
Speaker 1: the league was widely perceived as an African American sport. Hillistically,
Speaker 1: the game had evolved from the old four bounced passes
Speaker 1: and a layup to a high flying, above the rim,
Speaker 1: fast paced game. I don't try to think that I'm
Speaker 1: many difference in anyone regards to what RACEIO are, Okay,
Speaker 1: I looked at myself as a competitor. The Minneapolis Lakers
Speaker 1: had sent five championship banners to LA when the franchise
Speaker 1: moved in nineteen sixty, and though they would during the
Speaker 1: walls of the Forum, they were more akin to relics.
Speaker 1: Tradition had belonged to them. What they needed was achievement.
Speaker 1: Elgin was in his tenth year. Jerry had been hampered
Speaker 1: by injuries, so Cook faced the classic team building dilemma,
Speaker 1: either tweaked the engine to get over the top or
Speaker 1: blow the whole thing up. Cook then made the trade
Speaker 1: that changed the NBA. Wilt wanted to play in LA
Speaker 1: for two reasons. One he would win there and two
Speaker 1: pretty much the same reason as everyone show business. On
Speaker 1: July twelfth, nineteen sixty nine, under a newspaper headline usually
Speaker 1: reserved for declarations of war or election results, the Los
Speaker 1: Angeles Times announced Wilt signs five year contract with Lakers
Speaker 1: for one million dollars. Best team ever predicted for coming season.
Speaker 1: But that fairy tale movie they were hoping for it
Speaker 1: turned into a horror flick. Wru is that the easiest
Speaker 1: guy in Wold who played with you know, because Will
Speaker 1: wants to fix set in control of everything. I felt
Speaker 1: horrible for Will and it was like, you know, who
Speaker 1: do you side with? Has to say it was an
Speaker 1: uncomfortable time for all of us. Westward is a production
Speaker 1: of the Dan Patrick podcast network, iHeart Radio and Joy
Speaker 1: Road Entertainment in association with Workhouse Media and Sugar twenty three.
Speaker 1: Executive produced by Paul Anderson and Nick Pinella for Workhouse
Speaker 1: Media and by Michael Sugar and Mike Mayo for Sugar
Speaker 1: twenty three. Joy Road Entertainment is PG Coucieri, Jim Young,
Speaker 1: Matthew Hatchett, Tim Livingston, and I'm Bobby Glanton Smith, produced
Speaker 1: by Casey Whalen and edited by Charlie Magdaleno, Michael Keane
Speaker 1: and Sarah Bukinski at Whyland Productions Associate producers. Colocascio Westward
Speaker 1: is narrated by Emmy Award winner Keith David. Producers would
Speaker 1: like to thank Chris Lloyd, George Lopez, Harold Gifford, and
Speaker 1: NPRS DJ Waldy for their contributions. Our most sincere gratitude
Speaker 1: also goes to the family of Bob Short, DJ Waldy,
Speaker 1: Debbie Danielson, Eric Niswanger, Brian Short, the late Elgin Baylor,
Speaker 1: and the good people of Carol, Iowa, and of course,
Speaker 1: the great Jerry West. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening.