MEMPHIS – Jerry West has followed boxing long enough to understand contrasting styles can make for a good fight. It can make for a good NBA Final, too.
Long before he embarked on his Hall of Fame playing career with the Lakers, West was a fight fan who would sit by the radio as a youngster and listen intently when Sugar Ray Robinson or Joe Louis was in the ring.
Saturday night, the new president of basketball operations for the NBA’s Memphis Grizzlies will be among the 20,000 observers in the Pyramid when Lennox Lewis defends his heavyweight titles against Mike Tyson. Nonetheless, part of West will be interested to see what transpires in this year’s NBA Finals between the up-tempo Nets and more rugged Lakers, a franchise West helped win eight NBA championships as a player and executive.
“The Nets have done a wonderful job and I’m happy for my good friend Rod Thorn,” West said yesterday. “Jersey has a very aggressive defense. But the Lakers have an X-factor. I just don’t think anybody can cover Shaquille O’Neal. He’s too big and too strong. And that sidekick of his [Kobe Bryant] helps create an incredible combination. I don’t know if you can beat that. [The Nets] are going to face a different beast in this series than they did in the last series.”
West, who joined the Grizzlies April 30 after 19 years as an executive with the Lakers, played a major role in building the team that will be looking for its third straight championship. But even he was awed by the resilience they showed in winning Game 7 in Sacramento.
“It got to the point where it wasn’t about talent,” West said. “It got to the point where it was courage and inner toughness that won the game. I’ve known those players for a while and they have a resolve that was evident in how they won that game.”
While West thinks the Lakers have the edge in the best-of-seven series against the Nets, he wouldn’t predict an outcome to Lewis-Tyson, the biggest thing to happen in this city since . . . well, West joined the Grizzlies.
“It should be an interesting fight,” he said. “It almost can be divided into two fights: the first four or five rounds and the fifth through 12th rounds. When you look at the fighters, one has a better chance of winning depending how long the fights goes.”
