Jerry West might be an executive for the Golden State Warriors, but the 14-time All-Star nonetheless stopped by the Lakers’ practice facility on Thursday to address the current members of his former team.
West spent every year of his playing career with the Lakers and later added three more as the team’s head coach and 18 as General Manger or executive.
According to Brandon Ingram, West delivered a message highlighting the importance of routine and trusting the team’s plan for the future.
“Jerry talked today about his team winning 33 games in a row and how bad it hurt whenever he lost a game and how personally he took it,” head coach Luke Walton said. “I think players always relate pretty well to former players.”
West isn’t the first Lakers legend to speak to this year’s squad, as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, James Worthy and Gail Goodrich have done the same.
Walton wants his players to take away “the idea of what it is to be a Laker” and a sense of the organization’s history.
“They come in here and they talk about all the banners here and the new era,” Ingram said. “They set a (standard) and give us motivation each and every day we come here and look up at all the banners every single day.”
But Walton is also careful that his team doesn’t get lost too deep in the past, saying that he rarely even brings up memories from his own playing days.
“When we’re out here on the court, I don’t want heyday stories going on,” Walton said. “We former players had our time. This is these guys’ time. It should be all about them and what they’re doing.”
Back to the Present
The Lakers have one preseason game remaining against Phoenix in Anaheim on Friday, and they will be without Jose Calderon, who will miss his third straight game due to a strained left calf.
Timofey Mozgov — who bruised his tailbone on a fall in Wednesday’s contest — is questionable and did not practice.
Walton will have to cut two players to reach the maximum of 15 on the roster for the regular season, which begins on Wednesday, but he isn’t sure whether he will give extra minutes to players competing for the final spots on Friday or run a rotation closer to what he envisions for the regular season.