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Type of bind: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 796.323640979494
EAN num: 9780071430340
ISBN number: 0071430342
Label: McGraw-Hill
Manufacturer: McGraw-Hill
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 544
Printing Date: December 05, 2005
Publishing house: McGraw-Hill
Sale Popularity Level: 51188
Studio: McGraw-Hill
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Product Description:
The very first definitive oral history of the ever popular L.A. Lakers
The L.A. Lakers have long been one of the NBA's most exciting teams. In The Show, critically acclaimed sportswriter Roland Lazenby brings the story of this charismatic team to life in an unprecedented oral history, featuring such legendary players as Wilt Chamberlain, Jerry West, Kareem Abdul- Jabbar, and Magic Johnson, along with current stars like Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant.
Through in-depth interviews with players, coaches, and many other key figures, Lazenby follows the Lakers from their birthplace in 1946 Minneapolis to their eventual successes and failures in Los Angeles, using his flair for storytelling and eye for detail to show you exactly why the 14-time NBA champion Lakers are a celebrated favorite for sports fans all over America.
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Rated by buyers 
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For some reason, sports lends itself perfectly to oral biographies, especially basketball. The Terry Pluto book about the ABA, "Loose Balls" is one of the greatest sports books ever written.
This is a delightful book, an easy read and incredibly informative. All eras of the Lakers are covered, from startup through current. There are a lot of sources from every era, many of them contradicting each other, which is great.
Jerry West is quoted throughout and that is reason enough to buy the book. He is notoriously reticent and the author deserves a huge amount of praise for getting him to open up.
Even the soap opera between Bryant, Shaq and Phil Jackson is told in a way that is readable.
Great book!!!
Rated by buyers -
A good book, although I started skipping through the last third of it - too bad there wasn't more info on the Minneapolis Lakers version and the early 70's West-Chamberlain-Goodrich Lakers - it would've been nice to read more about personalities on those Laker teams - there was already enuff media saturation with the Kobe-Shaq Lakers so i started to skip thru that section. Seems kind of sad that everyone didn't have the foresight (and media saturation) like we do now, to save every lil scrap and every piece of info, so we can have a better perspective on how things were then.
Rated by buyers -
What a wonderful book on the inside story of the Lakers. Having been a huge Laker fan since the early '70's, I found this book to be very informative and easy reading. This book brought back all the heartache of all the loses to Celtics, to the very first championship in the '72 season.The Lakers had a great team with Jerry West and Wilt Chamberlain. The 33 wins in a row will most likely never be beat. As the book moves through the '80's, I could visualize each year and the outcomes. Magic Johnson, Kareem, James Worthy and company brought alot of excitement and winning during this time. The '90's were exciting in its own right if you are fans of Kobe and Shaq. I tend to favor the early years. I would recommend this book to Laker fans of yester-year and today. Well done.
Rated by buyers -
The author keeps the narrative going with many voices. He does a great job of keeping your interest. Lots of colorful characters. I tuned in during the Jerry West era and then back for the Shaq and Kobe era, so it is great to learn about the in betweens. I wish it came with a DVD package.
Rated by buyers 
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Lazenby wrote one of the best basketball books I have ever read, called The Lakers and one of the best books on the Chicago Bulls dynasty called Blood on the Horns. In this book, he tells the history of the Lakers, but this time, it is told by those who lived it. It is similar in format to Terry Pluto's excellent books Tall Tales and Loose Balls.
The book is very large - over 400 pages which makes you think it is an exhaustive and thorough collection, but it really is not. I found the book to be less informative than The Lakers, with the only difference being that that The Lakers ends in 1993 and this book goes up to the 2004 season. I was wanting more information on Magic Johnson's final comeback and the behind the scenes information on the Dennis Rodman acquisition and dismissal, but this book left me wanting much more. Furthermore on seasons that the Lakers did not do well, they are passed over briefly, so rather than being an exhaustive history, it is closer to highlights of the franchise. In defense of Lazenby, if he wrote the book I wanted, it would probably be 2 volumes, but after the bar he set with his previous work, I expected at least as much detail. If you want more detail on Magic Johnson's short lived very first comeback, read The Lakers.
Lazenby goes into great detail about the Phil Jackson-Shaquille O'Neal-Kobe Bryant 4 year soap opera. We heard from the press about how Bryant broke up the team so that he could hog the ball more. Lazenby tells the other side of the story, and details what a despicable person Phil Jackson can be and how his peers and even Jerry West loathe him. He tells more about O'Neal was out of shape an uninterested in defense and rebounding and was a poor team leader. He brings credibility to the argument by often quoting the venerable Tex Winter. However, I noticed that he only briefly touches on the shortcomings of Bryant. I think he would have been better served covering this and bringing balance to the story, much as he did in Blood on the Horns. I wonder if the lack of balanced reporting is a conflict of interest, due to the fact that he wrote a Bryant biography Mad Game: The NBA Education of Kobe Bryant.
Besides exposing the Jackson/O'Neal shortcomings, the strength of the book (compared to The Lakers) is that he goes into great detail about Jack Kent Cooke's reign over the franchise, exposed how tight Jerry Buss was with his money, and covered the power plays between Jackson, Buss, and West. Also, The Lakers bounces around between time eras from the present to the past, which is a bit maddening, whereas this book has more of an authentic feel to it, since it is written in chronological order.
If you haven't read The Lakers, this is definitely worth picking up. Some of the parts will be more Cliff's Notes version compared the other book, but this book covers the last 3 NBA championships, which tells a more complete story of the franchise. If you have read the other book, and come to expect a certain level of detail from Lazenby, you may find yourself a bit disappointed.
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