Few athlete's silhouettes can be said to last forever. Jerry West, who died on Wednesday, June 12, aged 86, was one of those exceptions. A superstar in the NBA in the 1960s and early 1970s, the Los Angeles Lakers guard became the model for the North American basketball league's logo in 1969, earning himself a nickname –"The Logo" – with which he maintained a complicated relationship throughout his life. And yet, it would have been hard to come up with a better choice than this elegant, iconic image of a dribbling player: For six decades, West embodied basketball.

"Jerry West was a basketball genius and a defining figure in our league for more than 60 years," saluted NBA president Adam Silver in a statement released on Wednesday, calling him a "consummate competitor" and "one of the greatest executives in sports history."

The native of Chelyan, West Virginia, came up against the Boston Celtics' hegemony throughout his entire playing career. Faced with the East Coast powerhouse – which is on course for an 18th NBA championship in 2024 – and its star Bill Russell, his Californian franchise never found the right solution, losing six times in the NBA Finals (1962, 1963, 1965, 1966, 1968 and 1969). And while he eventually reached the Holy Grail in 1972, two years before the end of his playing career – not without first losing a seventh final – this single title proved insufficient to redeem West's pent-up frustrations. "Haunted by those lost finals," West set about solving the Celtics' puzzle once he had put away his sneakers.

A tireless offensive player on the court (he scored over 27 points per game in his career, at a time when three-point shooting didn't exist), "Mr Clutch" – his first nickname, due to his propensity for scoring decisive baskets at the end of games – became an uncompromising leader in his second career, in perpetual pursuit of excellence. As the architect of two dynasties that dominated the NBA, the 1960 Olympic champion (in Rome) never wavered in his determination to keep "his" Lakers at the top of the league. Like the legendary Red Auerbach with the Celtics, West was at the heart of the Angeleno team's many rebirths – and teardowns.

As general manager of the Californian franchise (after brief stints as coach and then scout), he built one of the NBA's most spectacular teams in the 1980s. Led by the likes of Earvin "Magic" Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the Lakers won five league titles between 1980 and 1988 (including two against the Celtics) and went down in history as the "Showtime" era.

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