The Logo himself, Jerry West, passed away this week at the age of 86. One the Latest Mortcast Jeff talks about West's hyper competitive legacy, his drive, and how Luka Doncic could learn a lesson from West's own personality.
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CSG Podcast
CSG #681: The passing of Jerry West and how Doncic needs a West in his life
This is the story of the one. As a maintenance engineer, he hears things differently. To the untrained ear, everything on his shop floor might sound fine, but he can hear gears grinding, or a belt slipping. So he steps in to fix the problem at hand before it gets out of hand. And he knows Granger's got the right product he needs to get the job done, which is music to his ears. Call clickgranger.com or just stop by. Granger, for the ones who get it done. [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] What is up, everybody? Thank you all for joining me on the latest broadcast part of the CSG number. I'm, of course, your host, Jeff Morton. I had an entire podcast recorded yesterday, was ready to post. And I was doing my final editing check, and the entire thing was static. I don't know what happened, I think my mic messed up. But anyway, I didn't want to record another half hour long podcast in the same day. So I just decided to wait till this morning, give myself another another opportunity to see another NBA finals game, which I was convinced it was going to be the last one. And it turned out that Dallas and specifically, Luca Donchich kind of rose up and met the challenge. On today's podcast, I'm going to talk about Jerry West who died a few days ago. And I'm going to kind of relate that to Luca Donchich and his difficulties with being competitive and channeling that competitiveness. But first, I want to talk to you about Bed Online, our sponsor for these podcasts. Bed Online is your number one source for the NBA finals and the Stanley Cup playoffs this season. Every stat, every matchup, and even live odds and spreads while the games are being played. When the game's over, head on over to our online casino and get in on a game with Blackjack or Poker or Unrine with one of our 150 slots and games. Bed Online's a good one-stop shop place to just get everything you need in one place. And those kinds of things, if I were a gambling sort, which I'm not. But if I was, I would take advantage of something like this because it's informed that Bed's not only that, but you can do other stuff. And as for someone like me who has, can drift in his mind as you can tell from these more casts, they'll low these many years, it is good to kind of have that kind of one-stop shop thing so you can just do other things. And that's what I appreciate. Head to the website today and get in on the action. Use promo code BLEAV all in caps for your 50% welcome bonus on your first deposit. That is promo code BLEAV in all caps for your 50% welcome bonus on your first deposit. Bed Online, the game starts here. So you know, Luca Donch has had a terrible game three in multiple ways. Luca is one of those guys that has a lot of stats, but sometimes it's like his impact is both positive and negative. He's very competitive and I think people misinterpret that competitiveness for windiness. It's never struck me as that. I do think that he has a problem with managing his emotions when it comes to refs and those sorts of things can manifest themselves in inappropriate ways. And I do believe he struggles with that. I do believe that is his primary struggle and I think competitiveness is great and the person who just died a few days ago, Jerry West, it was an ultra competitive guy. I only met him once years and years and years ago and then he was, I believe he was consulting with the Warriors at the time. So this would have been in the early 2010s and he was, for some reason, he was in Denver and this is way, I mean, I'm talking way back. And just he had a presence about him. Jerry West is, I mean, other than, you know, obviously he's the logo, a guy who went one in eight and NBA finals, it was probably the best player of the 60s. I'll do respect to Bill Russell. Bill Russell was the greatest winner of the 60s. Bill Chamberlain had the most God, he stats but honestly Jerry West was probably the best overall player of the 60s and early 70s. But he had this presence about him and it was so hard to describe someone who has just what the kids would say nowadays or he just has this vibe about him, had this vibe about him that was really just kind of, you, you, you saw it, you sensed it. So some people, very few people have had that. And a lot of NBA players who think you have that kind of vibe don't. But Jerry West had this, just presence about him that you made, you made you pay attention to him. And a lot of that had to do with how ruthlessly competitive he was. Now there's going to be a lot of talk in the coming eulogies, if they're not done yet about Jerry West and his portrayal in the show Showtime. There's some truth to it, I don't know everything about Jerry West, I only met him once and it was briefly extremely brief. I said, oh hello Mr. West and that was it. So I can't say that. But that's the only time I've been in his presence. There are people who have covered the league and knew Jerry West really well and they will tell you that he was congenially competitive and had a tendency to drop F bombs, basically. So some of that is the way he came across in that show was accurate but it was cartoonish. And they really did take it to a cartoonish extent. Jerry West's integral part of building the Lakers had a lot to do with him responding to failure. Jerry West never got over going one and eight in the finals, never. He was the only player to win MVP on a losing team. That was the 69 finals that the Lakers were the better team that year I did. How they lost that series is beyond me. That is the end of Bill Russell's lead time with the Celtics and the Lakers were the better team. They had Will Chamberlain by that point and it was in 68-69 season and it didn't win. And then they ran up against the dynastic Boston Celtics and they ran up against the very good New York Knicks. The Knicks were just, I think they won two finals and were in four, I believe, in the early '70s. It was just a great team. They had obviously Willis Reed and Clyde Frazier and those were those teams but the 72 Lakers are legitimately one of the greatest teams of all time. The 33 game winning streak, obviously everyone remembers. But regardless of all that, Jerry West never got over going one and eight in finals and you could tell because it burned him out. He was so, I think the fear of losing drove him to an insane extent. His angst at having that on his neck despite being the logo, despite being the best player of the '60s and early '70s, despite him being an executive that helped build the showtime Lakers and then the Shaq and Kobe Lakers, you could tell Jerry West never got over being one and eight in the finals. And I was listening to a few people talk about it and Jerry West would often use his losses in the finals as recruiting tools to get people out. Famously he was a very integral in bringing Kevin Durant over to the Warriors. One of his pitches to Kevin Durant was something that Kevin Durant responded to was that don't be like me. Don't stay in one place and regret that you have went this one and eight and lost all each other. Now obviously there's sliding scale to that. Reaching the finals that often is incredible. It's kind of like LeBron. LeBron is what? Four and seven in finals, four and six and making it to that many finals is incredible. But having those losses obviously is something that is part of his legacy and the same thing with an integral to Jerry West. Jerry West is someone who was singularly driven by the fact that he failed, quote unquote, at the highest levels in getting over the hump via the Boston Celtics and it kind of drove him mad and it got him to a sense where he drove himself to burn out. You know, another player that was sort of like this on a smaller, much smaller scale with Dan Essel. Dan Essel was hyper competitive and Essel couldn't allow him, I mean, there was famously one of the reasons he left the, the Lenuggets in the early 1995 was because he just was burning himself to a crisp and he was fighting constantly with burning bicker staff and he couldn't get along with mock mood and it was just, he drove himself to the point of I can't do this anymore. Of course, then he came back and the same thing happened. Some guys are wired this way. In West's case, he took his failures and he turned it into something that is very unique to him. You know, Pat Riley is one of the greatest basketball people lifers we've had. He and Jerry West are lifers. They are guys that are driven by a singular thing. They're guys who are driven by, by the need to eat, to, to constantly reaffirm how good they were still. You know, Pat Riley was not a good basket, but only he was an okay basketball player. One was on the Lakers team that won the 72 title. Very closely associated with Jerry West and I think those two really kind of go hand in hand as people in the league who, players who could succeed as executives, who could reinvent themselves. I mean, think of a guy like Jerry West who is partly responsible for that Warriors team that, you know, won 73 games and then, you know, recruited Kevin Durant and all that stuff. What's modern basketball, think of a guy who came up in basketball in the 60s is able to adapt like that. It's incredible. Using that competitiveness that Jerry West did was obviously a blessing and a curse. It drove him mad. It made him cantankerous. It made him all the parts of who he was, but at the same time, it led him to do that summer in 1996 maneuvers to get both Kobe in check is incredible, absolutely incredible. The man, if you, there's been deep, I highly suggest people look up some deep dives on everything that went into that summer and getting Keel O'Neill and, you know, engineering the trade that got, prior to that, engineering the trade that got Kobe is just, just fascinating and it was incredible and it's something that probably to me, other than his association with the Showtime Lakers, is the thing that cemented Jerry West as a guy beyond guys in the NBA. And obviously, as you saw in recent years, Jerry West's competitiveness and fear of failure and all that stuff drove him to have a terrible relationship with the bus family and drove him away from the organization that he was so closely associated with the Lakers. It's that kind of competitiveness that is both a blessing and a curse. And Jerry West was someone who had more accolades than you can possibly imagine, despite going only one in eight in the finals, and he made, he made up for it in spades as if he had to make up for it. And the fact that he felt that he had to is the thing that was the blessing in the curse. And him being associated so closely associated with all those, that basically the entire Lakers dynasty, aside from the Minneapolis titles, is absolutely incredible. And Jerry West's legacy is in built in, built in stone. You can't take it away. In the second half of the podcast, you want to talk about Luca Donchich, his, his meltdown at the end of game three, and how he probably needs a guy like, needed like a guy like Jerry West in his life to teach him how to channel that competitiveness. We'll get to that right after the break. This is the story of the one. As head of maintenance at a concert hall, he knows the show must always go on. That's why he works behind the scenes, ensuring every light is working, the HVAC is humming, and his facility shines. With Granger's supplies and solutions for every challenge he faces, plus 24/7 customer support, his venue never misses a beat. Call quickgranger.com or just.buy. Granger, for the ones who get it done. When Luca Donchich tried to draw a foul on Jalen Brown with four minutes to go in game three, it was obviously, and it was clear to everyone in the building. It was a frustration foul. Luca has a tendency, as we all know, to get angry at the refs, to negatively channel his energy and do something that completely distracts him. Those distractions can turn into team dragging down elements. It can turn into things that you saw in game three, cause your team to lose, and make no mistake, Luca having a meltdown and drawing two fouls within a minute of each other is the reason the Mavericks lost game three. The Mavericks had come back from 21 points down in a very rapid succession. The Celtics were ready for the Mavericks to beat the Celtics. Despite everything that Bill Simmons will say, despite anything that a lot of the media will say that Boston team, everyone could tell was ready to be beaten. They were ready to accept it, and Luca's meltdown gave them what is likely going to be the series clinching win in game three, which is weird to say this, considering it's only game three, but no team is going to come back from three zero down, at least, no one has yet, but that meltdown, despite the teams cooling down by that point, that meltdown was the reason they lost, and he's going to have to live with that. Now, obviously, Luca came out in game four, played great, played defense, and was more focused, didn't complain to the refs, and you saw that at one point the Mavericks were up by 40, 40 something, almost 50, and it was just the ass kicking of immense proportions. All well and good, right? They have to go back to Boston. Like I said, the chances of the Mavericks pulling off the impossible here are low. But I kind of want to talk about Luca and his competitiveness. You could tell that he just doesn't yet know how to do what Nicola Yokech has done, which by the way, Yokech had the same problem for a long time, and at times he still does. Well, when you complain as much as you do, what happens is the refs tune you out, and you're left with a four on five on the other way. You know, Kareem Abduljibar used to do this. Kareem would get pissy, and he wouldn't run past half court, particularly the last almost ten years of his career, and Kareem played for 21, I think. Maybe in the last nine years of his career, he would get increasingly agitated and just kind of loaf on back to the defensive end, and it happened over and over and over and got more infrequent. And it really was things that the Lakers were able to overcome because they were so talented. This Dallas Mavericks team is not as talented. Obviously, they do have Kyrie Irving, but they're not as talented as the Showtime Lakers. And when you've got a player who is that distracted and is not running back and is just yelling at refs, you are at a deficit. And a lot of teams, what they have done is taken to guarding Luca extremely tight. Guarding him tightly will force refs to call fouls, which is kind of what the Minnesota Temples did in the Nuggets in game two of their second round series, make them call something, and they didn't. Mark Davis, refereeed game, which was a smart play on their part. And it became, you know, what became became. Now that's not why the Nuggets lost, but it was certainly a strategy that can be deployed. And with Lucas specifically, he starts complaining. And what that does is filter down to the entire rest of the team. The rest of the team gets this, gets caught up in the drama of someone who can't stand to lose. And I make no mistake with Luca Donchich. He doesn't like losing. And it is very obvious, but he has struggled to channel it in a positive way on a dramatic scale. Luca Donchich has a tendency to let it get to him. And I think it's these things that kind of lead me to think about Jerry West. You know, Jerry West wasn't a guy like that, and he came up in an era where, you know, you'll have complaints to the rest, but not nearly as histrionic as we get now. And I do believe that a guy in Luca's life that is like Jerry West, he could have an example because like, look, don't don't fail the way I did. Even though, like I said, Jerry West didn't fail, but in his mind it was. And a guy in Luca's life that it could have that effect would benefit him tremendously because the talents there, the superstar talents there, the superstar ability is there. But Luca needs is to understand that eventually people stop listening to you, and I don't, and I think that is the biggest key here. Eventually, if you complain them enough, it's just it's like crying wolf. People don't think that you are telling either A, you're not telling the truth or B, they just tune you out. It's the Michael Malone principle. Eventually, Nuggets players just stop listening to the histrionics, and they stop listening to the gesticulating and the and on the screaming and all that stuff. It has a shelf life. Same thing with nucal, Luca Donchich. You can be as great as you can ever be. But if your deficit is causing people to not listen to you, and then the energy and all that stuff negatively drags down your team, it is going to cost you. And I do really take, I do think that there was a good sign from, if you're a Mavericks fan listening to this, and why would you? I think there was a good sign in game four with Mavericks at the very least, because look, it's a titanic uphill battle. And honestly, if I were the Mavericks, I would think that winning two games, if they can pull off another victory in Boston, would be, I'd shock that as a win. There's a gigantic talent deficit between the Celtics and the Mavericks, and it just is the way it is. It happens when you don't have any margin for error, it happens. But if they can point a direction, and to say to Luca, this is what you can do, let someone else argue your fouls. Let trust your teammates to stand up for you. Trust your teammates to do what it takes to pick you up, because a lot of this is, and this is the problem with guys who are so ball dominant, is that they only trust themselves. And when you only trust yourself, you don't trust your teammates. And in a team sport, you got to trust your teammates. And what I noticed in Game 4, as opposed to the cataclysmically bad end of Game 3, was Luca trusted his teammates. Look at how many lobs and three point shots there were, and how the increased pace. It was a lot better, and it was more reminiscent of the series against their series against the Minnesota Timberwolves than it was the previous three games. They weren't in the mud, they weren't struggling to get into offensive sets. They were playing faster, and Luca was getting open shots for his teammates. Which is what you need to do, you're going to get your 30. But you've got to have teammates to get 15. You've got to have Kyrie going for 25. You've got to have Derek Jones Jr. and P.J. Washington, and Derek Lively, you have to have all of those guys being able to get to where they need to be to produce points. Because if you get into a mono E-mono with the Boston Celtics, you're mono E-mono. You just don't have as much of them. You don't have as much mono's. You have two, and your numbers game is going to fall off. Like I said, the most consequential game was Game 3, and the Mavericks probably cost themselves the series in that game, very specifically Luca. I can't help but think if there was a Jerry West around, he could have counseled Luca long before now, there has been a permissiveness with Luca Doncic, and like I said, with Nicole Yokic, in that last playoff run was sublime. He wasn't complaining to the refs, he was locked in, and that's what you need to be. If you're going to be a championship team, you need to be locked in. There needed to be someone, aka Jerry West, on the Mavericks who was able to get to him. And I think what got to Luca this last time was simply the criticism, very specifically Brian Winhorst who was about as forthcoming and critical as you will ever hear and see on a national broadcast from someone who's not an opinion person on one of those hot take shows. It was forceful, it was about as you cost your team a win, kind of thing that you will ever see, and I think that got to Luca, because Winhorst was the guy that got out there and was willing to say, "Not only were you, did you do this thing at the end of the game, but they were targeting you on defense and you weren't playing well on defense." And you could tell that Luca heard it, and maybe that's what he needed. Maybe that was his Jerry West moment, not to give Winhorst too much credit, but maybe that was it. The fear of losing can drive you, but it can also drive you insane. There's a balance, and Michael Jordan had that balance for six titles, but even it drove him to burn out. You can only remain that fire hot competitive for so long before it eats you alive, and if you look at Jerry West's career, he burned himself out as a coach. He burned himself out as a scout. He burned himself out as a GM, and then he burned himself out as a consultant for the Clippers. It happened over and over and over again, and if Luca keeps complaining to the refs, if he lets these things get in his head, and that angst at losing keeps going, he's not going to be lasting very long, and hopefully Game 3 was a listen to him. Alright, thank you all for joining me on the latest morecast, I'll be back on Monday with another episode. Bye! [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] This is the story of the one. As a maintenance engineer, he hears things differently. To the untrained ear, everything on his shop floor might sound fine, but he can hear gears grinding, or a belt slipping. So he steps in to fix the problem at hand before it gets out of hand, and he knows Granger's got the right product he needs to get the job done, which is music to his ears. Call clickgranger.com or just stop by, Granger, for the ones who get it done. [BLANK_AUDIO]
The Logo himself, Jerry West, passed away this week at the age of 86. One the Latest Mortcast Jeff talks about West's hyper competitive legacy, his drive, and how Luka Doncic could learn a lesson from West's own personality.