2 weeks Ago By Broderick Turner, Dan Woike
For Kurt Rambis, it all started in the most unthinkable way. The first time he ever spoke with Jerry West , the NBA legend tried recruiting Rambis to join the Lakers in training camp. But the roster was crowded, his future was unsure and the option didn’t look all that promising.
So he listened, declined and hung up the phone. Why try out and waste time, Rambis thought, when he could just return to his team in Greece and carve out a career in Europe. As soon as Rambis hung up, he knew what he’d done was totally crazy.
“I just told Jerry West that I wasn’t interested,” Rambis remembered on Wednesday. Rambis, of course would relent, he’d join the Lakers and change his entire life by becoming a beloved member of Showtime and a NBA lifer. Following West’s death Tuesday at 86, Rambis remembered the iconic former Lakers star and executive.
“His drive, his competitiveness, his obsession with winning, I mean, you felt that,” Rambis told The Times. “You felt that kind of good competitive pressure that he put on himself and the osmosis, in a lot of ways, of how he carried himself and things that he said. And, you know, the anxiety that he went through watching games and how relieved he was when you won, all of that culminated in helping the Lakers develop this competitive winning culture.
” That culture still exists, West’s mark on basketball in Los Angeles permanently tattooed on the players and people who got to work with him. When the Lakers acquired Byron Sco.
