While it hasn’t gained the media traction that the Lakers‘ upcoming No. 2 pick or Chris Paul‘s pending free agency have, the fact that Jerry West, a purple and gold legend, could leave his post with Golden State to join not the Lakers but the Clippers would shake the L.A. basketball landscape, Bill Plaschke of the Los Angeles Times writes.
Having beaten the Lakers in 18 of their past 20 meetings, the Clippers are officially on top of the intercity rivalry. Poaching West from Golden State would only add to the growing divide between the two franchises.
“Sometimes I thought in my life that maybe that [rejoining the Lakers] might be something that I can revisit, or they would want me to revisit, but that didn’t happen,” West said recently. “It kind of sent me a message that they wanted to go elsewhere, which was fine.”
While West hasn’t worked with the Lakers in an official capacity for 17 years, he’s still synonymous with the franchise. The fact that he’s intrigued by the possibility of joining Steve Ballmer and the Clippers is symbolic of the changing times.
There’s more from the Pacific Division:
- A pair of tickets for Game 5 of the NBA Finals has sold for $90K, Darren Rovell of ESPN writes. The Warriors and Cavaliers will tip off in the Bay Area tomorrow. The price point, however, falls just shy of last year’s finale, when two seats to Game 7 went for $99K.
- Confusion arose in Game 4 of the NBA Finals when officials appeared to retroactively change the recipient of a technical foul. Adi Joseph of USA Today compiled an oral history of the incident. Officials say that the technical foul had always been awarded to Warriors coach Steve Kerr and that there had simply been a miscommunication.
- Never one to shy away from controversy, Warriors forward Draymond Green riled the feathers of Cavaliers fans after Game 4. In the same Joseph article Green is quoted as saying “I really don’t pay much attention to anyone in Cleveland, honestly. They don’t seem to be the sharpest people around.“
People rag on draymond for this stuff but I honestly love to see it in sports.
Agreed. It makes the finals more interesting. Reminds me of the Stephenson vs Lebron thing going on like 6 years ago.
Yeah
Man for 90k those seats better be next to Derrick Williams on the bench.
I see what you did there.
Green needs to go on Comedy Central stand up. Commenting on the intellect of CLE from someone who’s from an area that continuously re-elects Pelosi is hilarious.
You know Green isn’t from California, right?