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The Show: The Inside Story of the Spectacular Los Angeles Lakers in the Words of Those Who Lived It Hardcover – December 26, 2005

by Roland Lazenby (Author)
4.7 4.7 out of 5 stars 29 ratings
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The 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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Previous page
  1. Print length
    480 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    McGraw Hill
  4. Publication date
    December 26, 2005
  5. Dimensions
    6.2 x 1.56 x 9.1 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0071430342
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0071430340
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The love-'em-or-hate-'em Los Angeles Lakers and their 14 NBA championships may be the most overreported story in professional basketball, with countless books written about the team's flashy playing style and the notorious off-court activities of superstars like Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Earvin "Magic" Johnson. Lazenby, having written excellent books on current Lakers coach Phil Jackson and top Lakers player Kobe Bryant, possesses tremendous insight into the team, plus the trust of players and coaches, which helps him deliver this entertaining oral history. Fans—and detractors—of today's Lakers will devour the book's second half, which presents insights into the Kareem-Magic years, especially about the women and drugs readily available to NBA players. But Lazenby also presents how the 1940s rivalry between center George Mikan and guard Jim Pollard parallels the recent rivalry between center Shaquille O'Neal and guard Bryant. Many authors have depicted the brusque, demanding nature of Jack Kent Cooke, the big-spending Lakers owner during the 1960s and early '70s, as Lazenby does, but it's refreshing to read former Laker Rod Hundley's pithy appraisal of Cooke: "He was the number one asshole that ever lived." (Jan.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* The Los Angeles Lakers--along with the Boston Celtics--represent the best in the five-decade-plus history of the National Basketball Association. Lazenby, author of many sports books including Mad Game: The NBA Education of Kobe Bryant (1999), has written an oral history of the franchise from its incarnation in Minneapolis in the early 1950s through its most recent run of championships under coach Phil Jackson and key players Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal. The book is must reading for NBA fans both young and old. Most fascinating are the stories from the late 1960s and early 1970s, when the Lakers, led by Hall-of-Famers Jerry West and Elgin Baylor, reached the NBA finals five times in six years and lost each time. The anguish experienced by West--who has since become the league's most accomplished executive and general manager--over those losses is palpable. A driven individual and as fierce a competitor as the league has ever known, West nearly quit in frustration and entertained thoughts that the losses were some sort of divinely dictated personal punishment. He eventually got his championship as a player and many more as the team's general manager. Other fascinating eras include the Magic Johnson years and the Bryant-O'Neal and Jackson championships in which the attendant soap opera of clashing egos was as almost as interesting as the action on the court. The best book on pro basketball since Sam Smith's The Jordan Rules (1992). Wes Lukowsky
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ McGraw Hill; 1st edition (December 26, 2005)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 480 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0071430342
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0071430340
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.81 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.2 x 1.56 x 9.1 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.7 4.7 out of 5 stars 29 ratings

About the author

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Roland Lazenby

Roland Lazenby

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Michael Jordan saved my life once. It was during the 1995 playoffs, Chicago vs. Charlotte, after a practice at the arena in Charlotte. He was walking out of the building with a group of reporters following. Walking backwards, I was leading the pack, with my tape recorder in his face, interviewing as we walked. I was a foot from walking off the loading dock at the back of the arena, about a 10 foot fall onto concrete, when he reached out and grabbed my arm to stop me from going over the edge.

So when I say that I have an interest in Jordan, I mean it.

I've written a new biography, Michael Jordan, The Life, set to be released by Little, Brown on May 6, 2014. His is a very big life, and the book was an immense challenge to write but oh so fascinating, as was the Jerry West bio I wrote in 2010 for ESPN Books/Random House.

I like to write about competitive personalities, especially those in the NBA. I like to write about their families. Among the zillion questions I had about MJ, I wanted to know where he came from, who the Jordans were. They were moonshiners, making and selling illegal liquor on North Carolina's Coastal Plain. So that's where his hard edge came from, I thought upon discovering who they were. Just about all the farmers and sharecroppers were moonshiners back in the day. That was their cash crop, the one that kept the family fed. They were tough-minded people, just like Jordan himself.

I've written a book that builds his life from that background. Starting at the beginning, with the birth of his great grandfather Dawson Jordan, allows me to take the reader through the process of his family, his background, and the nurturing of his vast competitive nature. What's more, it's immensely fun to track his rise. I enjoyed writing about the sharecroppers on North Carolina's Coastal Plain, just as I enjoyed writing about the coal miners and frontier settlers in Jerry West's background in West Virginia.

I see it as connecting all of the important cultural dots in the backgrounds of iconic figures.

Customer reviews

4.7 out of 5 stars
4.7 out of 5
29 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

A Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Showtime At Its Best!!
Reviewed in the United States on April 3, 2007
Verified Purchase
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 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.
3 people found this helpful
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Howard Wexler
5.0 out of 5 stars Even For Laker Haters
Reviewed in the United States on February 8, 2008
Verified Purchase
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!!!
2 people found this helpful
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Bruce Lubliner
5.0 out of 5 stars Loved this book
Reviewed in the United States on January 28, 2015
Verified Purchase
Loved this book! I'm a die-hard Laker fan, so reading the behind-the-scenes accounts that included actual quotes from different sources was extremely insightful. What a lot of effort must have gone into putting all this together.
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aztronut
4.0 out of 5 stars A Laker Showoff
Reviewed in the United States on March 23, 2010
Verified Purchase
I was fascinated by this book even though it was not very well written. In fact, a majority of the book consists of short quotes from various personages involved in the long illustrious history of the Lakers. Lazenby plays the role of a gossip columnist here, commenting on the various rumors and innuendo bantered about so freely. Normally this type of stuff would not hold my interest for long, except that it involves one of my favorite subjects: The Lakers. There is a lot of franchise history to be garnered from this collection of interviews and much of it is extremely interesting to a rabid Lakers fan such as myself, but I'm not sure how relevant this all might be to the casual follower of the team or the league.

The problem with this particular format is that many of the quotes contradict each other and others amount to unsubstantiated slurs. I especially didn't appreciate the numerous comments of the form, "...I'm not going to name names but..." These typically go on to describe drug, womanizing and attitude issues of the team as a whole without specifying individuals, but in the process smearing large groups of players with the broad brush of controversial behavior. Still, if you can recognize the difference between verifiable and unverifiable information then there is a wealth of useful historical knowledge to be gathered here. The reader of this book also needs to realize that Lazenby has his own personal biases and preferences towards those involved and picks his quotes and comments accordingly.

Despite its many shortcomings this makes a very interesting narrative that is jam-packed with Lakers factoids from the team's inception to 2005. It certainly altered my perception of Kobe Bryant among others, as I came out of this experience having much more respect for both the basketball player and the man. I am still disgusted by the scandal in Eagle, regardless of what actually happened there, but I now realize that this is really an issue to be resolved between Kobe and his wife and that we shouldn't necessarily judge people by the worst public mistakes ever exposed in their life. Integrity is not measured by our worst behavior but rather by the human equation, which includes the adjustments made to correct personal mistakes and the accumulated actions of a lifetime.

I was vacillating between giving this book three or four stars but settled on a low four in the end, around the eightieth percentile. However, your mileage may well vary and if you're not a hardcore Lakers fan, nor a aficionado of tabloid journalism, then it may prove a disappointing read.
One person found this helpful
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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Complete and easy-to-read
Reviewed in the United States on September 12, 2009
Verified Purchase
Great book. Complete Lakers' history with easy-to-read textual quotes of the Laker's owners, stars and rivals.
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J. Johnson
5.0 out of 5 stars Lakers
Reviewed in the United States on February 11, 2010
Verified Purchase
This book was even better then I thought it would be. I reccomend it for all Hard Core Lakers Fans.
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Bill Staley
5.0 out of 5 stars A very readable history of the Lakers
Reviewed in the United States on February 24, 2007
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.
One person found this helpful
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Bob Fitzsimmons
5.0 out of 5 stars A Slam Dunk
Reviewed in the United States on January 15, 2006
This is by far the best book on pro basketball in recent memory. If you're a fan of the NBA, not just the Lakers, you owe it to yourself to read this book. An absolutely fascinating oral history. Highly recommended.
4 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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Niki-sports
5.0 out of 5 stars sehr gut
Reviewed in Germany on April 4, 2013
Verified Purchase
Perfekt!!! :) <3

War sehr schoen! Gerne wieder!!! :)) hab mich sehr gefreut, war auch wie beschrieben!

danke nochmal ;)
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