WEBVTT - Westward: Built on Fault Line 0:00:00.280 --> 0:00:03.440 We interrupt your usual stream of DP show content to 0:00:03.480 --> 0:00:06.480 bring you a special episode of a new podcast on 0:00:06.519 --> 0:00:10.960 the Dan Patrick Show Network. It's called Westward. Westward chronicles 0:00:11.000 --> 0:00:13.160 the history of basketball in the NBA and how the 0:00:13.240 --> 0:00:16.320 city of Los Angeles not only saved the fledgling league 0:00:16.360 --> 0:00:19.639 by bringing the Lakers from Minneapolis, but gave birth to 0:00:19.680 --> 0:00:24.000 the modern NBA. With showtime told through the lens of 0:00:24.040 --> 0:00:26.799 the great Cherry West, who helped build the dynasty of 0:00:26.800 --> 0:00:30.400 the Lakers. Westward now follows the former Hall of Famer 0:00:30.480 --> 0:00:33.280 as he attempts to build a dynasty with LA's other 0:00:33.440 --> 0:00:38.400 NBA team, the Clippers. Narrators are Keith David, tim Livingston, 0:00:38.880 --> 0:00:43.360 Bobby Glanton Smith. I hope you enjoy this is Westward. 0:00:45.000 --> 0:00:49.080 Westward is a production that Dan Patrick Podcast Network and iHeartRadio. 0:00:49.560 --> 0:01:07.480 Episode three. Built on a fault line. The city of 0:01:07.520 --> 0:01:12.039 Los Angeles was built on ground that shifts, and in 0:01:12.160 --> 0:01:15.480 June of nineteen sixty, less than a week after the 0:01:15.520 --> 0:01:19.600 team formerly known as the Minneapolis Lakers arrived in Los Angeles, 0:01:20.360 --> 0:01:24.040 players would experience its first taste of West Coast living 0:01:24.240 --> 0:01:28.920 when a six pointz struck off the coast of California 0:01:30.360 --> 0:01:33.760 nineteen sixty emergers as the most disastrous earthquake year of 0:01:33.880 --> 0:01:37.240 modern times along the California coast. It sucked in at 0:01:37.280 --> 0:01:42.039 an angle, ripping coastal installations and causing heavy damage. But 0:01:42.200 --> 0:01:45.000 while the organization had to adjust to the ground moving 0:01:45.040 --> 0:01:48.880 beneath them on occasion, the NBA was amidst a much 0:01:49.000 --> 0:01:52.800 greater seismic shift, as the game's power had moved to 0:01:52.840 --> 0:01:56.680 the furthest franchise on the East Coast and settled in 0:01:56.760 --> 0:02:00.760 an arena built above the North Station where the Boston 0:02:00.840 --> 0:02:05.360 and Main railroads meant. It had originally been called Madison 0:02:05.480 --> 0:02:10.240 Square Garden, but it had been shortened to just the Garden. 0:02:11.280 --> 0:02:14.320 Just a decade into the new NBA, when every team 0:02:14.320 --> 0:02:17.239 in the league was basically just thinking about survival, there 0:02:17.320 --> 0:02:20.240 was one team and one coach who were only thinking 0:02:20.280 --> 0:02:22.920 about basketball, and that was Read Arbak and of course 0:02:22.960 --> 0:02:26.120 the Boston Celtics, because prior to the nineteen fifty sixth 0:02:26.120 --> 0:02:28.880 season the teammate three move that changed the course of 0:02:29.000 --> 0:02:32.360 history in the NBA. See Bill Russell maybe remember as 0:02:32.400 --> 0:02:35.040 the marquee pick in that draft, but he wasn't the 0:02:35.080 --> 0:02:38.160 Celtics first selection that year. It was Tommy Hinson Afford 0:02:38.160 --> 0:02:41.520 from Holy Cross. As part of an effort to generate 0:02:41.600 --> 0:02:45.560 fan interest in the fledgling NBA, the league instituted a 0:02:45.639 --> 0:02:50.720 special rule granting team's exclusive rights to claim locally based 0:02:50.800 --> 0:02:55.120 college players. That meant that Bill Russell, who was clearly 0:02:55.120 --> 0:02:57.360 the best player in the draft, would be next, and 0:02:57.400 --> 0:03:00.160 that's who Arback really wanted. And the problem was that 0:03:00.200 --> 0:03:02.840 Boston had the seventh pick and there was no way 0:03:02.919 --> 0:03:07.040 Russell's going to slide a seventh. But the Celtic coach 0:03:07.680 --> 0:03:11.200 had a plan. The Saint Louis Hawks always covered Celtic 0:03:11.240 --> 0:03:13.880 All star Ed mcaulay because he was from Saint Louis, 0:03:14.200 --> 0:03:17.080 so Arbach traded him for the number two pick. But 0:03:17.120 --> 0:03:20.400 that's still in guarantee Russell. So Arbach had to ensure 0:03:20.400 --> 0:03:22.680 that the Rochester Royals, who had the number one pick, 0:03:22.919 --> 0:03:31.120 would pass on Russell, and so he did something crazy. 0:03:33.840 --> 0:03:37.280 Throughout the nineteen forties and fifties, a group of arena 0:03:37.320 --> 0:03:41.160 owners had purchased a troop of dancing ice skaters and 0:03:41.360 --> 0:03:45.960 created a touring show called ice Capades. The show had 0:03:46.000 --> 0:03:50.560 proven hugely popular and more importantly, lucrative for any venue 0:03:50.600 --> 0:03:55.160 able to book them. Rochester Royal owner Lee Harrison was 0:03:55.200 --> 0:03:59.800 a fan and Boston Celtic owner Walter Brown just happened 0:03:59.800 --> 0:04:11.520 to be one of the Ice Capades owners. So Arbak 0:04:11.600 --> 0:04:14.720 has Brown called Harrison and offers him the Ice Capades 0:04:14.760 --> 0:04:17.359 for a week if they pass on Russell and with 0:04:17.440 --> 0:04:20.359 their top pick, the Rochester Rolls would draft a player 0:04:20.360 --> 0:04:23.560 by the name of Shugo Green out of Duquesne. The 0:04:23.640 --> 0:04:26.599 Celtics then scooped up Russell, and as a cherry on top, 0:04:26.880 --> 0:04:30.479 they also got Casey Jones in the second round in 0:04:30.600 --> 0:04:35.720 one singular draft red hour Backs. Celtics would acquire three 0:04:35.880 --> 0:04:39.960 future Hall of Famers, creating a dynasty the likes of 0:04:40.000 --> 0:04:45.920 which the NBA would never see, including eight consecutive NBA championships, 0:04:46.480 --> 0:04:49.679 the first of which would be against the Minneapolis Lakers 0:04:50.080 --> 0:04:56.160 and their rookie phenom Elgin Baylor. They had one player 0:04:56.279 --> 0:05:00.040 on their particular team that was just we could I 0:05:00.240 --> 0:05:05.960 do very much with it, and that was entirely leading Russell. Russell. 0:05:06.480 --> 0:05:10.320 Russell was Russell was just unbelievable because Russell was the 0:05:10.400 --> 0:05:13.920 best I mean defensive player you will find. I mean, 0:05:13.960 --> 0:05:19.480 it was very difficult, but in the summer of nineteen sixty, 0:05:19.640 --> 0:05:22.960 Elgin Baylor and the Lakers would add a player who 0:05:23.000 --> 0:05:26.280 would help turn that ten years of hell pain into 0:05:26.360 --> 0:05:30.080 a furious, decade long struggle that would not only rest 0:05:30.200 --> 0:05:34.320 basketball supremacy from the East Coast stronghold of the Boston Celtics, 0:05:34.839 --> 0:05:38.600 but would sow the seeds of a bitter coastal rivalry 0:05:38.680 --> 0:05:43.000 that still exists today. The nineteen sixty NBA Draft was 0:05:43.120 --> 0:05:45.960 arguably the richest draft in league history. Four Hall of 0:05:45.960 --> 0:05:48.400 famers in the first ten picks, and one of those 0:05:48.400 --> 0:05:52.279 picks was a lanky sharpshooter from the Sticks of West Virginia. 0:05:53.360 --> 0:05:56.119 When I first came into league, I wasn't even sure 0:05:56.200 --> 0:05:58.520 I was good enough to play, but you know, I 0:05:58.520 --> 0:06:01.880 could run and jump like crazy, had a very big 0:06:01.960 --> 0:06:07.159 vertical and that's before they even started to pay attention 0:06:07.200 --> 0:06:10.640 to stuff like that, and then extremely long arms, and 0:06:11.279 --> 0:06:13.679 it was always really funny to me that they would 0:06:13.920 --> 0:06:17.159 put that I was sixty two and when the actually 0:06:17.160 --> 0:06:19.799 over sixty four, and you know, with the forty en sleevelank, 0:06:19.880 --> 0:06:21.840 it makes you a lot bigger. And you know, if 0:06:22.800 --> 0:06:25.279 it's a physical part of it caught up with a 0:06:25.360 --> 0:06:27.720 mental part of it. And that was the most difficult 0:06:27.920 --> 0:06:30.280 transition for me. A mental part of it. He had 0:06:30.320 --> 0:06:35.200 to feel confidence and the confidence to God were you 0:06:36.000 --> 0:06:41.240 got from playing against these people. West would be the 0:06:41.320 --> 0:06:45.120 Laker's first pick in Los Angeles and the number two 0:06:45.320 --> 0:06:50.040 overall behind Cincinnati's Oscar Robertson, but signing the All American 0:06:50.120 --> 0:06:55.239 from West Virginia would prove difficult, as another Ohio area team, 0:06:55.279 --> 0:06:59.720 the ABL's Cleveland Pipers, also had their eyes on West. 0:07:00.360 --> 0:07:03.040 The Pipers were owned by a brash and brilliant young 0:07:03.080 --> 0:07:07.440 businessman who was educated at MIT and entered the world 0:07:07.440 --> 0:07:13.320 of sports franchises against his father's wishes. His name was 0:07:13.400 --> 0:07:18.040 George Steinbrenner. My dad had a fight trying to get 0:07:18.240 --> 0:07:24.280 Jerry West, and Steinbrenner was offering Jerry a chance to 0:07:24.360 --> 0:07:27.040 play at almost the same level as he would play 0:07:27.080 --> 0:07:29.640 in the NBA. And he didn't have a poctupis in 0:07:30.160 --> 0:07:32.080 as you would expect from a guy who just gets 0:07:32.080 --> 0:07:35.640 out of West Virginia in that era. So George wanted 0:07:35.640 --> 0:07:38.360 to see me, and I visited with him. At that 0:07:38.480 --> 0:07:41.520 point in time, I think all young kids, if you're 0:07:41.560 --> 0:07:45.440 any good, and particularly if you know you had higher 0:07:45.480 --> 0:07:49.520 aspiration when somebody talking about something had been around for 0:07:49.560 --> 0:07:54.840 a while, but not forever, the NBA. That was always 0:07:54.920 --> 0:07:57.320 kind of a dream of mine because I'd watched, you know, 0:07:57.360 --> 0:07:59.680 some of the great great players had played in that era. 0:08:00.400 --> 0:08:02.760 And also I felt that if I were going to 0:08:02.880 --> 0:08:05.000 do something, and the most important thing to be the 0:08:05.000 --> 0:08:07.960 most competitive person I could be, but to play against 0:08:08.040 --> 0:08:15.840 better players. Not only did Steinbrenner offer West NBA money, 0:08:16.720 --> 0:08:19.920 he also offered him something most NBA players of that 0:08:20.000 --> 0:08:27.360 era needed during the off season, a job. He was 0:08:27.400 --> 0:08:31.240 really pressing me pretty hard about doing this. If father 0:08:31.480 --> 0:08:33.719 was in a ship building business and I'm going to 0:08:33.800 --> 0:08:37.839 be an insurance salesman again, coming from West Virginia, I 0:08:37.920 --> 0:08:40.719 can't imagine me selling any a piece of candy must 0:08:40.760 --> 0:08:48.040 or less an insurance pology someone. As Steinbrenner pushed Jerry West. 0:08:48.679 --> 0:08:52.920 Laker owner Bob Short pulled, even hiring his former college 0:08:52.920 --> 0:08:56.880 coach Fred Schausse to take over the team, But ultimately 0:08:57.520 --> 0:09:03.920 it was West's drive that me the decision. The money 0:09:03.960 --> 0:09:06.439 had nothing to do with it. I just wanted to 0:09:06.440 --> 0:09:08.720 play against it what I felt was the best competition. 0:09:09.440 --> 0:09:12.319 And obviously I think I made you right in to 0:09:12.360 --> 0:09:15.000 see the kid who grew up in the foothills of 0:09:15.040 --> 0:09:19.600 the Alleghany Mountains, not far from places with names like Gunstock. 0:09:19.679 --> 0:09:23.840 Knob was now moving to Los Angeles, the home of 0:09:23.920 --> 0:09:38.960 Beverly Hills and Hollywood. You know, I hadn't traveled hardly 0:09:39.000 --> 0:09:42.319 any at all when I was a kid, as to say, 0:09:42.360 --> 0:09:44.680 we had no means of transportation, so I was kind 0:09:44.679 --> 0:09:51.040 of a I shut in in terms of expanding the 0:09:51.160 --> 0:09:53.800 knowledge I had about other cities and the way the 0:09:53.880 --> 0:09:57.720 people conducted themselves in other cities. He compared to very 0:09:58.320 --> 0:10:01.319 really rule small play that I grew up in, and 0:10:01.360 --> 0:10:07.600 it was a complete a learning experience me first time 0:10:07.600 --> 0:10:09.679 I came out here, and I was kind of awe struck. 0:10:10.160 --> 0:10:12.160 I would never never forget. We stayed at the old 0:10:12.200 --> 0:10:16.000 Ambassador Hotel and Wiltshire Boulevard, and that's where Robert Kennedy 0:10:16.040 --> 0:10:21.160 got killed. I was twenty one. They took us to 0:10:21.200 --> 0:10:24.400 the nightclub, to Coconut Grove, the nightclub these old hill 0:10:24.400 --> 0:10:29.120 buildings from West Virginia, and so we went there and 0:10:29.600 --> 0:10:31.640 the thing I noticed that you could just walk right 0:10:31.679 --> 0:10:34.240 across the street. You didn't have to eaven walk across, 0:10:34.280 --> 0:10:37.040 and at that point in time, traffic stopped and let 0:10:37.040 --> 0:10:40.480 you go. I was amaze why the streets were and 0:10:40.559 --> 0:10:43.839 we spent our time there, and really it was an 0:10:43.840 --> 0:10:49.079 eye opening for me in a sense, very relaxed attitude. 0:10:50.040 --> 0:10:54.760 Bob Short, the lakers quiet Midwest owner, had somehow managed 0:10:54.760 --> 0:10:58.840 to outduel his audacious East Coast counterpart. The Los Angeles 0:10:58.920 --> 0:11:04.319 Lakers had it's man and Elgin Baylor wouldn't get a sidekick, 0:11:04.880 --> 0:11:09.120 he would get a side arm. But Laker head coach 0:11:09.160 --> 0:11:12.520 Fred Shaws would keep Jerry West holstered for much of 0:11:12.559 --> 0:11:15.640 his rookie season. I played for him in colleague for 0:11:15.640 --> 0:11:18.400 three years. He helped recruit me, but when I got 0:11:18.440 --> 0:11:22.319 to Los Angeles here it was completely different. He would 0:11:22.320 --> 0:11:25.959 not I did not play a whole lot the first 0:11:25.960 --> 0:11:29.640 half of my rookie season. And when I say a 0:11:29.640 --> 0:11:31.880 whole lot, I don't think I ever played more than 0:11:31.960 --> 0:11:36.040 twenty minutes a game. And yet I felt like I 0:11:36.080 --> 0:11:39.760 was making progress. But he would tell the sports writer, 0:11:39.840 --> 0:11:41.920 as well, you know, he's he's going to get hurt. 0:11:42.000 --> 0:11:45.480 He's he's not very big and there only about one 0:11:45.559 --> 0:11:48.400 hundred and seventy eight pounds, and well, I never missed 0:11:48.400 --> 0:11:53.960 a game in college, so it was It was a 0:11:54.080 --> 0:11:59.240 huge adjustment for me. For Jerry West's education, he would 0:11:59.280 --> 0:12:03.080 have to look no further than Elgin Baylor. Having Elgin 0:12:03.120 --> 0:12:07.640 Baylor and to be alongside of him and to be 0:12:07.720 --> 0:12:11.280 around him how he treated me. He treated me like 0:12:11.360 --> 0:12:14.800 an equal when for a while I wasn't close to 0:12:14.840 --> 0:12:18.600 his equal. But he helped me become a better player 0:12:19.120 --> 0:12:24.040 by just watching him. There was no doubt that once 0:12:24.160 --> 0:12:28.240 Jerry West joined the Lakers in Los Angeles, it was 0:12:28.320 --> 0:12:31.000 like a wanting bell had gone off to the rest 0:12:31.000 --> 0:12:35.079 of the league that this team was going to be special. 0:12:36.360 --> 0:12:39.360 But the bell that Laker owner Bob Short really wanted 0:12:39.400 --> 0:12:42.640 to ring was the one in his Laker cash register. 0:12:43.400 --> 0:12:47.040 As the team still struggled to make ends meet. Bob 0:12:47.120 --> 0:12:49.680 Short invested a ton of money into this team, and 0:12:49.760 --> 0:12:52.920 this is really the first quality product that he produced. 0:12:53.320 --> 0:12:56.400 Now we just need more people to watch him. So 0:12:56.520 --> 0:13:02.000 I think my dad recognized that people money to see stars, 0:13:02.400 --> 0:13:06.560 whether they're on the court like Elgin Baylor, Jerry West, 0:13:07.000 --> 0:13:14.320 Gel Goodrich, or they're sitting in the stands. By the 0:13:14.400 --> 0:13:20.600 early nineteen sixties, Doris Marianne Kappelhoff had become a household name. 0:13:21.280 --> 0:13:25.599 She went by Doris Day. Doris Day was the original 0:13:25.960 --> 0:13:28.800 La Lakers celebrity. Bob Short leave her two tickets to 0:13:28.840 --> 0:13:31.920 every single game because Short knew that having Doris Day 0:13:32.000 --> 0:13:35.280 at his games was good for business. It was from 0:13:35.320 --> 0:13:39.040 that moment that the Lakers had a direct connection with Hollywood. 0:13:39.760 --> 0:13:42.760 Fellow A listers like Dean Martin, Jack Lemon, and Walter 0:13:42.880 --> 0:13:48.960 Matho would follow Day with superstars like Elgin Baylor and 0:13:49.040 --> 0:13:52.760 Jerry West on the Laker court and a burgeoning celebrity 0:13:52.760 --> 0:13:57.560 fan base in the stands. Bob Short's big move finally 0:13:57.600 --> 0:14:00.800 began to pay off, and the seats at the Memorial 0:14:00.880 --> 0:14:05.280 Sports Arena on South Fiedaroa Street slowly began to fill up. 0:14:05.679 --> 0:14:08.040 This was the real birth of Showtime, which, of course 0:14:08.160 --> 0:14:11.120 Jerry Buss would later be credited for. But Bob Short 0:14:11.120 --> 0:14:13.720 tried everything. He even tried cheerleaders for the first time, 0:14:13.800 --> 0:14:16.840 long before the Laker Girls, but according to Debbie Danielson, 0:14:16.840 --> 0:14:19.800 who was one of those original Laker cheerleaders, it didn't 0:14:19.800 --> 0:14:23.640 go over too well. My mother was a choreographer and 0:14:23.840 --> 0:14:27.200 she taught dancing all through the fifties, and she started 0:14:27.280 --> 0:14:30.440 a high school dance line at St. Louis Park high school. 0:14:31.160 --> 0:14:33.720 We were the first in the league to have cheerleaders. 0:14:33.800 --> 0:14:36.760 A general manager for the Lakers lived in Saint Louis 0:14:36.840 --> 0:14:41.520 Park and he may have seen us perform and maybe 0:14:41.560 --> 0:14:45.120 got the idea that the Lakers needed something to liven 0:14:45.240 --> 0:14:48.920 up the games. So I believe he had contacted my mother, 0:14:49.680 --> 0:14:54.040 and that's how the Lakers got started. So us six 0:14:54.120 --> 0:14:57.840 little high school girls with our nineteen fifties attire on 0:14:58.560 --> 0:15:01.080 got out there and we would jump out and do 0:15:01.280 --> 0:15:04.880 a few cheers at the time out. It was kind 0:15:04.920 --> 0:15:08.040 of sketchy as to how we were accepted to begin with. 0:15:08.360 --> 0:15:14.280 And one thing I remember, Unbidley is the Boston Celtics 0:15:14.280 --> 0:15:18.160 were in town and Red Arbot was the coach, and 0:15:18.320 --> 0:15:20.200 we got out on the floor during a time out 0:15:20.280 --> 0:15:24.040 and he screamed, get those god damned girls off the floor. 0:15:26.200 --> 0:15:29.800 You are listening to Westward on the Dan Patrick podcast Network. 0:15:30.000 --> 0:15:46.480 We'll be right back. The Lakers dynamic duo of Baylor 0:15:46.520 --> 0:15:49.160 and west proved to be the most lethal in the 0:15:49.280 --> 0:15:53.640 NBA's Western Conference, and in just their second year playing together, 0:15:54.280 --> 0:15:58.040 the pair would have their first opportunity to dethrone the 0:15:58.160 --> 0:16:04.360 mighty Boston Celtics. The nineteen sixty one sixty two NBA 0:16:04.480 --> 0:16:08.920 Championship would go a complete series, needing an overtime in 0:16:08.960 --> 0:16:12.240 Game seven to be decided. But while the Celtics may 0:16:12.280 --> 0:16:16.080 have prevailed, it was the fiery Lakers whose salvo would 0:16:16.120 --> 0:16:20.440 be remembered as Elgin Baylor and Jerry West would combine 0:16:20.800 --> 0:16:27.760 for over five hundred points. Game five of the series 0:16:27.800 --> 0:16:31.560 would also see Baylor erupt for sixty one points, an 0:16:31.680 --> 0:16:36.160 NBA Final record that still stands to this day, but 0:16:36.280 --> 0:16:39.400 it was still no consolation for his second loss to 0:16:39.520 --> 0:16:43.040 the Celtics. The loss to the Celtics would be Jerry 0:16:43.080 --> 0:16:48.160 West's first. That's going back a long way. I just 0:16:48.200 --> 0:16:51.440 think probably a saying that how thrilled. I think that 0:16:51.560 --> 0:16:54.600 was a seven game series, and I just felt that 0:16:54.720 --> 0:16:58.560 that's when the Lakers had turned a corner with the fans. 0:16:58.920 --> 0:17:02.640 There was the games were sold out. Yes, a young 0:17:02.760 --> 0:17:06.879 player trying to win something very special which is elusive 0:17:07.720 --> 0:17:13.480 and everyone can't get there. If anything, the Lakers would 0:17:13.480 --> 0:17:16.920 improve the following season, finishing with the best record in 0:17:16.960 --> 0:17:22.719 the Western Conference. The Lakers would cruise through the playoffs, 0:17:22.880 --> 0:17:26.320 only to be ousted once again by the Boston Celtics, 0:17:26.920 --> 0:17:31.119 this time in only six games. As a result of 0:17:31.160 --> 0:17:34.560 these losses, Moving toward the sixty four sixty five season, 0:17:35.200 --> 0:17:38.280 Laker owner Bob Shart felt that both his investment and 0:17:38.400 --> 0:17:42.280 his team had plateaued. He made plans to sell the 0:17:42.320 --> 0:17:46.480 team a third time for the franchise since entering the league. 0:17:48.080 --> 0:17:51.359 My dad originally became interested in the Minneapolis Lakers in 0:17:51.480 --> 0:17:54.840 order to try to save the franchise for Minneapolis. It 0:17:54.960 --> 0:17:59.439 was more of an attempt at frankly civic boosterism because 0:17:59.480 --> 0:18:02.640 they believe to having a professional franchise in Minneapolis made 0:18:02.640 --> 0:18:07.120 Minneapolis a world class city. But he was never going 0:18:07.200 --> 0:18:10.960 to be a long term owner in Los Angeles. My 0:18:11.040 --> 0:18:13.119 dad was a young business guy at the time. He 0:18:13.240 --> 0:18:18.680 had seven kids under the age of eleven and needed 0:18:18.720 --> 0:18:21.560 to focus his attention on his growing business in the 0:18:21.600 --> 0:18:24.560 trucking business that was based in the Twin Cities. So 0:18:24.640 --> 0:18:27.320 in nineteen sixty five, the same year that Marvin Cratter, 0:18:27.600 --> 0:18:30.119 why is the best team in the NBA the Celtics 0:18:30.359 --> 0:18:33.600 for three million dollars, Bob short puts a price tag 0:18:33.640 --> 0:18:37.200 on the Lakers for five million dollars, which was absurd. 0:18:37.200 --> 0:18:39.760 There wasn't a business person in America who was going 0:18:39.840 --> 0:18:43.680 to pay anywhere close to that. There wasn't, but there 0:18:43.680 --> 0:18:46.880 would be one in Canada. As his son, John Kent 0:18:46.960 --> 0:18:52.320 Cook remembers, my father heard about it and became interested. 0:18:52.600 --> 0:18:55.879 He told me that he could see how popular is 0:18:55.960 --> 0:18:59.399 going to be, particularly in Los Angeles, so it's just 0:18:59.440 --> 0:19:02.120 a matter of time. And he was obviously very right. 0:19:03.160 --> 0:19:07.360 Jack Kent Cook was born and raised in Ontario, Canada, 0:19:09.320 --> 0:19:13.440 and as a boy sold Encyclopedia's door to door. Born 0:19:13.480 --> 0:19:16.040 with a knack for business and a love for sports, 0:19:16.359 --> 0:19:20.080 Cook went into media in his twenties and built an empire. 0:19:20.640 --> 0:19:23.920 But having been told that nearly a quarter million Canadian 0:19:23.960 --> 0:19:29.400 expatriates had moved to southern California, Cook envisioned the unthinkable, 0:19:29.800 --> 0:19:33.359 a professional hockey team in Los Angeles. As a step 0:19:33.400 --> 0:19:37.160 towards this, he would purchase the Los Angeles Lakers, despite 0:19:37.240 --> 0:19:41.120 never having seen an NBA game. Well, I think that 0:19:41.119 --> 0:19:44.520 that is. I don't know if he never saw a 0:19:44.560 --> 0:19:50.560 basketball game, but he certainly was unfamiliar with basketball. You see, 0:19:51.000 --> 0:19:54.440 he as I am, was born and raised in Toronto, Canada, 0:19:54.840 --> 0:19:59.040 and he was born in Hamilton, Canada, and up in Canada, 0:19:59.160 --> 0:20:03.960 there's only one sport. It's called hockey. Basketball was the 0:20:04.080 --> 0:20:07.760 low curling up there in popularity. My dad was not 0:20:07.840 --> 0:20:10.960 a rich man. My grandfather was a fireman. He was 0:20:11.040 --> 0:20:13.720 in the trucking business, but it was a small business, 0:20:14.240 --> 0:20:18.320 and so I remember him being so proud. They sold 0:20:18.320 --> 0:20:22.480 the team for what was the highest price at the 0:20:22.560 --> 0:20:26.800 time ever paid for a sports franchise. There were many 0:20:26.920 --> 0:20:31.399 lasting legacies of the Bob Short owned Lakers, Minneapolis bred 0:20:31.480 --> 0:20:34.359 and owned. The team had been pulled from the brink 0:20:34.359 --> 0:20:39.040 of bankruptcy, survived a plane crash, and proved that professional 0:20:39.080 --> 0:20:43.440 basketball could flourish in Los Angeles. While his team had 0:20:43.520 --> 0:20:47.240 never won an NBA title under his ownership, Bob Short 0:20:47.240 --> 0:20:52.119 had laid the foundation of a championship franchise. My dad is, 0:20:52.520 --> 0:20:55.520 I considered, on the positive side, would be more akin 0:20:55.600 --> 0:20:57.840 to what I think of a Jerry Jones kind of owner, 0:20:57.880 --> 0:21:01.320 where he is involved in his players and considered them 0:21:01.359 --> 0:21:04.159 to be friends. But either the real interest in the 0:21:04.240 --> 0:21:08.280 lives of these young men. My dad will continued to 0:21:08.359 --> 0:21:12.840 listen to games after we sold them, continued to have contact, 0:21:12.920 --> 0:21:15.920 I think, with some of the players, especially the players 0:21:16.160 --> 0:21:20.639 in Minneapolis. In nineteen sixty five, just months before Bob 0:21:20.680 --> 0:21:24.280 Shorts Lakers were sold to Jack Kent Cook. The team 0:21:24.280 --> 0:21:28.240 would express their gratitude by reaching the NBA Finals once again, 0:21:29.440 --> 0:21:35.959 only to lose to the Boston Celtics. You are listening 0:21:36.000 --> 0:21:39.439 to Westward on the Dan Patrick podcast Network. We'll be 0:21:39.560 --> 0:21:49.199 right back. For a community to embrace a sports team fully, 0:21:50.040 --> 0:21:53.640 they need a cent of their mutual history and a 0:21:53.640 --> 0:21:59.640 sense of place. Bob Short and the Minneapolis team gave 0:21:59.680 --> 0:22:03.359 theres a sense of history, but it would be Jack 0:22:03.480 --> 0:22:06.480 Kent Cook who would give the Lakers and the city 0:22:06.480 --> 0:22:10.960 of Los Angeles their sense of place. The Lakers were 0:22:11.000 --> 0:22:15.879 playing in the sports in Los Angeles. The NHL wanted 0:22:15.920 --> 0:22:19.720 to have an expansion, particularly to the West coast in 0:22:19.720 --> 0:22:23.200 the United States, and so they said that they were 0:22:23.320 --> 0:22:28.680 interested in offers from different sportsman and Dad was one 0:22:28.720 --> 0:22:32.400 of them. Dan Reeves, who owned the La Rams at 0:22:32.440 --> 0:22:36.320 that time and who also owned the minor league hockey 0:22:36.359 --> 0:22:40.280 club that played in the Sports Rear, was also one 0:22:40.320 --> 0:22:45.800 of the NHL franchise the Sports Arena. However, being a 0:22:45.840 --> 0:22:49.640 public Kennedy said that Jack Kent Cook, as who got 0:22:49.680 --> 0:22:53.920 the franchise, couldn't play in the sports in Los Angeles. Well, 0:22:53.920 --> 0:22:56.680 at that point, my father said I'll build my own arena. 0:22:57.280 --> 0:22:59.240 The Laker year, of course, was marked for the opening 0:22:59.240 --> 0:23:02.000 of their new home, the Fabulous Forum and engle Wood, 0:23:02.240 --> 0:23:05.400 and the first Lakers game. On July first, nineteen sixty six, 0:23:06.119 --> 0:23:10.399 Jack Kent Cook broke ground on the Los Angeles Forum. 0:23:10.520 --> 0:23:12.879 The arena would be a state of the art structure 0:23:13.440 --> 0:23:16.320 and was brought to life by engineers Carl Johnson and 0:23:16.359 --> 0:23:20.320 Spen Nielsen. When finished, it would be the only arena 0:23:20.400 --> 0:23:22.880 of its size in the world that would have no 0:23:23.040 --> 0:23:31.040 major support pillars. It was designed by Charles Luck and 0:23:31.400 --> 0:23:36.399 the first wandering looked like a birthday cake, the stretchful, 0:23:36.560 --> 0:23:39.119 and my brother said to him that he wanted something 0:23:39.560 --> 0:23:46.600 classier than that, something like the Form. But as Jack 0:23:46.680 --> 0:23:50.480 Kent Cook would build the Laker's new home, his team 0:23:50.560 --> 0:23:54.040 would take a step backwards. The nucleus of that team 0:23:54.080 --> 0:23:56.800 had been the three finals in five years. Eldon Baylor 0:23:56.800 --> 0:23:58.960 had been before, and even though they had a great 0:23:59.000 --> 0:24:01.359 corror and they were so much fun to watch, the 0:24:01.400 --> 0:24:03.600 team had been built on a fall line. They had 0:24:03.640 --> 0:24:05.760 no big man, and every time they went to the 0:24:05.800 --> 0:24:10.280 finals against the Celtics, Bill Russell just destroyed them. In 0:24:10.359 --> 0:24:12.560 an attempt to shake up his team and push it 0:24:12.640 --> 0:24:16.040 over the edge. Cook would move head coach Fred Schauss 0:24:16.200 --> 0:24:18.840 to the front office and hand the reins to a 0:24:18.920 --> 0:24:23.920 fiery college coach for Montclair, New Jersey named Butch van Brettakoff. 0:24:26.160 --> 0:24:29.080 Because I liked Bill van Brettakoff away from the court. 0:24:29.200 --> 0:24:32.520 I liked him away from the court, and he expected 0:24:32.560 --> 0:24:36.680 certain things. He thought basketball was a beautiful canvas and 0:24:36.800 --> 0:24:39.560 everyone could paint a beautiful picture. Well, there's a lot 0:24:39.600 --> 0:24:42.359 of pictures that people don't think are very beautiful, and 0:24:42.520 --> 0:24:46.600 they still are people like them because of different taste. 0:24:47.080 --> 0:24:51.119 The Princeton educated Van Brettakoff had never coached at the 0:24:51.160 --> 0:24:54.720 professional level, but was neither phased by the bright lights 0:24:54.720 --> 0:24:59.320 of Tinseltown nor the Lakers star studded Rosta. Even without 0:24:59.320 --> 0:25:01.040 a center of the lay, were still the best in 0:25:01.080 --> 0:25:04.399 the West, but they had a coaching problem. Van Breda 0:25:04.440 --> 0:25:07.240 coff wasn't the answer. He had three future Hall of 0:25:07.280 --> 0:25:10.760 Famers and good Rich West and Baylor and all those 0:25:10.800 --> 0:25:14.040 guys like to run Van Breida golf like a very 0:25:14.119 --> 0:25:18.600 structured half court offense. So there was a huge disconnect 0:25:18.680 --> 0:25:22.359 between the talent and the coach. And it's the coach's 0:25:22.440 --> 0:25:26.240 job to adjust, and Van breda coolf just couldn't. Jack 0:25:26.320 --> 0:25:30.120 Kent Cook's dream was to finish construction on the Forum 0:25:30.119 --> 0:25:34.320 within a year and christen it with a champion, and 0:25:34.480 --> 0:25:42.560 he would achieve booth in the winter of nineteen sixty eight. 0:25:43.359 --> 0:25:46.800 It's the deciding game of Basketball's World Series as Boston 0:25:46.880 --> 0:25:49.080 leaves the Lakers three games to two in the Los 0:25:49.080 --> 0:25:52.800 Angeles Farm. The Los Angeles Lakers played their first game 0:25:52.840 --> 0:25:58.960 in the newly built Los Angeles Farum as owner Jack 0:25:59.040 --> 0:26:02.760 Kent Cook hadn't vision. The Lakers finally had roots in 0:26:02.800 --> 0:26:07.160 their own home, and on Thursday May second, nineteen sixty eight, 0:26:07.920 --> 0:26:13.639 his fabulous Forum would indeed christen its first champion. Placheck 0:26:13.760 --> 0:26:16.719 drives around a triple screen and another say dive. Boston 0:26:16.800 --> 0:26:20.280 team wins the world's professional basketball crown one twenty four 0:26:20.400 --> 0:26:23.199 to one O nine in the final against Los Angeles. 0:26:23.320 --> 0:26:35.199 Our fitting climax to the converse cavalcade what it's like 0:26:35.359 --> 0:26:38.480 to be on the losing in not one time, but 0:26:38.600 --> 0:26:41.080 numerous times against the Celtics, and it just was not 0:26:42.000 --> 0:26:46.439 something that that was a feeling to have to endure that, 0:26:46.840 --> 0:26:50.160 and unfortunately all of us did you know, you get 0:26:50.200 --> 0:26:53.240 there and have high expectations and at the end of 0:26:53.240 --> 0:26:59.320 the day you go home frustrated and really down. Those 0:26:59.359 --> 0:27:02.119 things take stole, and they certainly took the stall on me. 0:27:04.840 --> 0:27:07.960 The Fabulous Forum would be home to the Los Angeles 0:27:08.040 --> 0:27:13.119 Lakers for over three decades and for years after the 0:27:13.160 --> 0:27:16.800 team left. The dated arena wasn't unlike one of the 0:27:16.840 --> 0:27:23.639 old ruins of Rome, of which it was named, but 0:27:23.800 --> 0:27:26.639