Jerry West has been the face—or at least the silhouette—of the NBA for more than 50 years, and surprisingly, the late basketball star had very mixed feelings about it.
The Los Angeles Clippers announced that West, a 14-time NBA all-star and two-time Basketball Hall of Fame inductee, died Wednesday at age 86. While the league has never officially acknowledged him as the inspiration, West served as the model for the NBA logo approved in 1969 and still used to this day. Its creator, Alan Siegel, has confirmed as such.
West repeatedly spoke about this not-so-cryptic secret, making it clear the honor was both a blessing and a curse. “I wake up, and I see it. I go to a game, and I see it. It’s everywhere,” West said. “I can’t get away from it. I just shake my head.”
West was one of the NBA’s first superstars
West was born on May 28, 1938, in the coal-mining town of Chelyan, West Virginia. He later revealed he struggled with an abusive father in childhood and battled depression throughout his life.
According to the Los Angeles Times, he was inspired to play basketball after his older brother, David, died while serving in the Army during the Korean War. A distraught Jerry found solace in his sibling’s old basketball, which he began shooting at a neighbor’s house and with his own makeshift basket.
Jerry West was drafted by the Lakers in 1960 and played 14 seasons with the team.
Short and frail as a child, West experienced a growth spurt of roughly 6 inches before his senior year of high school and became nearly unstoppable on the court. He played collegiately at West Virginia University and was the second pick of the 1960 NBA draft, joining the then-Minneapolis Lakers.
After the team moved to its familiar home in Los Angeles, West became an all-time great. Nicknamed “Mr. Clutch,” he was an all-star in each of his 14 seasons with the Lakers and named an all-league player 12 times prior to his retirement in 1974. In addition to his NBA success, West was a co-captain of the gold medal-winning U.S. basketball team at the 1960 Rome Olympics.
West was a stout defender and equally potent on offense, winning the NBA scoring title during the 1969-70 season. It was right around this time he received his unexpected title as “The Logo.”
A photo of West inspired the logo
In 1969, the NBA asked marketer Alan Siegel to create its now iconic red, white, and blue seal. According to NBA.com, Commissioner J. Walter Kennedy requested a multi-colored logo similar to that of the MLB, which someone else at Siegel’s agency had designed a year prior.
Siegel, a sports fan who once played high school hoops at New York’s famous Madison Square Garden, eagerly accepted. He drew up as many as 50 sketches but was adamant he didn’t want to show a player dunking. He instead admired ball-handling guards and their versatility and felt they were a good fit for a vertical logo design.
When it came to selecting a player as the model, Siegel was enamored with a file photo of West dribbling the ball. “Of course I watched him in college and the NBA. I always admired him, but I liked the picture because it was a nice vertical and had this motion to it,” Siegel explained in 2021. “But in designing the logo, I never mentioned it was based on a picture of him. It was just discovered years later.”
He presented the logo to Kennedy and, to his surprise, the commissioner approved it within 30 minutes. Siegel charged only $14,000—a bargain considering the league’s global reach today.
West wanted the logo to change
Although the plain white silhouette wasn’t an exact copy of West’s figure, it soon became clear he was the player depicted. West wasn’t consulted for the design and eventually found out about the process from Kennedy.
In the decades that followed, West was reminded of his role every time he put on a pair of NBA socks, attended a game, or simply looked at a basketball. “I wish that it had never gotten out that I’m the logo,” West said in 2017, even calling it “embarrassing” for the league.
“I don’t know, I don’t like to do anything to call attention to myself, and when people say that, it’s just not who I am, period,” he explained. “If they would want to change it, I wish they would. In many ways, I wish they would.” West even suggested in 2015 that six-time NBA champion Michael Jordan should take his place, though that will likely never happen given Jordan’s partnership with Nike.
However, West didn’t completely detest the honor. The photo that inspired Siegel was used as the cover jacket for his 2011 autobiography West by West: My Charmed, Tormented Life.
“I was surprised [West] wasn’t more gracious about it,” Siegel said. “He should be proud that the symbol is based on him. It isn’t him literally but based on his style of dribbling and moving. But the more I heard about him and understood him, he just didn’t want it to be him. He felt uncomfortable with it.”
West’s impact goes beyond the logo
Current NBA Commissioner Adam Silver has come the closest to formally recognizing West’s contribution, saying in 2021 that while “it’s never been officially declared that the logo is Jerry West, it sure looks a lot like him.” Siegel has suggested the league might have refrained from linking West to the logo because of copyright reasons, thinking he would ask for a fee for use of his likeness, or to simply avoid the marketing consequences of associating one name with the ubiquitous symbol.
In any case, West’s NBA contributions go much further than the logo or even his career stats. After his playing days, West worked in the league for decades as a coach and executive. As the Lakers’ general manager, he helped build the team’s “Showtime” dynasty in the 1980s, featuring players like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Magic Johnson. Actor Jason Clarke recently portrayed West in the HBO series Winning Time, about the team and its stars.
Jerry West receives the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Donald Trump in 2019.
In total, West won eight championships as a member of an NBA front office. He also received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2019.
Later this year, he is slated to be posthumously inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame a third time for his overall contributions to the sport, further cementing his status as one of the game’s GOATs.
Tyler Piccotti
News and Culture Editor, Biography.com
Tyler Piccotti first joined the Biography.com staff as an Associate News Editor in February 2023, and before that worked almost eight years as a newspaper reporter and copy editor. He is a graduate of Syracuse University. When he's not writing and researching his next story, you can find him at the nearest amusem*nt park, catching the latest movie, or cheering on his favorite sports teams.
