I never watched him play, but I know it would be really cool if my image was used as the sport’s logo!
I will never forget this shot in the NBA finals.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzWGnA4Ll-0
A more faithful outline rendering of the photo on the left would have made a much better logo-- as it is, the logo silhouette looks like the player is tripping over his feet, and is leaning too far to his right in a way that defies gravity.
I grew up in LA and my dad was a Laker fan. I watched him play in person numerous times as a child.
My MIL thinks he’s somehow related to the Wests in the family - distant cousin or something. But she also thinks there’s a connection to Dean Martin, so who knows??
He was 86 years old.
WILD! DeBusschere makes his shot for the Knicks, then West’s crazy 60-footer!
I like the logo. He’s moving quickly to his right. And you just got faked out of your shoes as he’s about to dribble around you. If you played, you’d know.
I think that’s just because the picture of the logo is taken from an angle, which foreshortens it vertically.
I like the concept of the logo, I just don’t think the execution of it is very good. Hey, I’m a former graphic artist. If you drew, you’d know 
That’s true, the foreshortening doesn’t help, but I still don’t think the silhouette is very well drawn:
I don’t draw! Thanks for the artist’s explanations.
RIP. One of the most vivid memories from watching basketball on TV in the 60s was the announcer’s call when he made a clutch shot: “Jerrrrrry Lucas!!!”
Here’s a quick-and-dirty outline I made of the Jerry West pic from the OP, compared to the actual NBA logo on the left. I’m not saying this is great work (the basketball isn’t even round), I just made a rough outline of West’s actual silhouette; but I think the pose looks more natural.
Ooops, wrong Jerry, talk about a brain fart! And I missed the edit window, dammit. 
In logo land, that’s what it’s meant to say: “NBA players defy gravity!”
In addition to being an all-time great player, he was a great executive. He was an executive board member for the Warriors during the years they built the championship team with Steph Curry.
I sort of feel like the logo was created from a slightly different shot, maybe a fraction of a second before or after that one, or maybe from another time when he made a similar maneuver. It’s clearly a similar pose, but different enough that I don’t think that the logo was created directly from that.
I had the 44 jersey when I played for the Balboa Lakers at age 10. I know West didn’t like Jason Clarke’s portrayal of him in Winning Time but the scenes of Jerry West losing his shit were my favorite thing about that series.
My parents owned a diner on the WVU campus where West was a frequent customer. One day when my older brother was about five years old, he walked into the diner carrying a basketball. He and West got to talking, and West invited him to shoot hoops at a backboard behind our house. (The backboard is long gone, but there was still a small bare spot in the grass the last time I was there).
Jerry West was 100% class. RIP.