Enjoy the offseason Laker fans!

[Card Trader]

Good series, but when it came down to it, the team with the sack and the true MVP won.

 

[Brian in Mesa]

The best team usually wins out in a 7 game series. Throw out the seeding, records, etc - it's obvious you guys were the better team.

I'm impressed by how far our team got this year. Making the playoffs was the stated goal for this year and we almost made it to the second round.

We won 11 more games than we did last season and got our young guys initiated in playoff basketball.

Kwame actually showed signs of waking up and he'd only be a rookie this season had he played college ball. I hope the claims of sex assault are false - having Kobe on the team is bad enough.

Props again for the series win.

Now go win a freaking title so Lakers fan can't throw that at you year after year. (I'm guilty of that with my family )

 

[Card Trader]

No title this year....we'll get that next year though.

 

[Brian in Mesa]

No title this year....we'll get that next year though.

The case is still ready:

You must be registered for see images

Seriously - you guys will have a great shot with Amare and KT back.

I just wonder who will sign TT away from you once the year ends?

 

[Card Trader]

Old material BIM, I've been using that picture for years now on Eagle's boards

 

[D-Dogg]

Old material BIM, I've been using that picture for years now on Eagle's boards

lay it on me CT.

 

[Ryanwb]

Kobe won't ever win a title again, he rode Shaq's coat tails. He's the Scottie Pippen of that relationship..... I think Kobe is a phenominal basketball player but he lacks so much in the mental and team aspect of the game. I just can't believe he has fans.

 

[Brian in Mesa]

I just can't believe he has fans.

 

[D-Dogg]

All the other adulterers in the league have fans too.


BTW BIM, do you watch games in an A.C. Green jersey?

 

[Brian in Mesa]

All the other adulterers in the league have fans too.


BTW BIM, do you watch games in an A.C. Green jersey?

Kobe was hard to like before Colorado.

Never warmed up to fans/teammates.

Bleh.

 

[D-Dogg]

BIM, have you read Mad Game by Roland Lazenby? If not, it's a good read. At least gives you some background of those first seasons.

I'd also recommend The Show or The Lakers, both by Lazenby. He has been writing for the Lakers for a long time now, and has intimate inside access. He's also written some books on the Bulls, Phil, and some random football ones. As sportswriters go, he's a fantastic read.

Mad Game:

LA Daily News
"Subtitled The NBA Education of Kobe Bryant, the 313-page biography is proof that there is no such thing as a charmed life...Lazenby's book makes startlingly clear Bryant, 21, also is like you and me, tiptoeing around hostile co-workers and getting blamed for every little thing that goes wrong on the job and knowing at least one of the smiling faces he sees every day is trashing him behind his back."

Washington Times
"...the writing is sharp, and it's clear Lazenby knows his stuff. "Mad Game" creates an image of a young player whose determination leaves him aloof, whose lack of a college experience deprives him of some necessary team skills and whose playground style frustrates his teammates."

Amazon Book Description
When Kobe Bryant joined the glitzy Los Angeles Lakers in 1996 right out of high school, he faced a wave of media hype that declared him the next Michael Jordan. Now a veteran of five NBA seasons at the age of 23, Bryant has earned a place among pro basketball's elite.
Mad Game documents his hard lessons on the road to stardom, his rapid rise through the NBA, and his conflicts with--and, at times, alienation from--his teammates, including his on-and-off-again relationship with Shaquille O'Neal. This is a story of triumph, of an unusually gifted young athlete trying to remain true to himself and his game.

Reviews for The Show:

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 ***** 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

Review
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



Book Description
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.

About the Author
Roland Lazenby (Roanoke, VA) is the author of numerous sports books, including Blood on the Horns: The Long Strange Ride of Michael Jordan's Chicago Bulls and Bull Run! the Independent Publishers Association's 1997 Book of the Year. His work has appeared in Sport, The Sporting News, and the Chicago Sun-Times.

 

[phillycard]

Old material BIM, I've been using that picture for years now on Eagle's boards

Be careful with that CT!!

 

[Card Trader]

lay it on me CT.

No need.

 

[D-Dogg]

No need.

You're a good man sir. Feel free to remove yours at your leisure.

GL to your boys next round.

 

[Chaplin]

I do not concede that the regular season doesn't matter, but I will say that the Lakers are not as bad as I thought. They played like total crap in Game 7--I mean like NY Knick bad--but the rest of the series was pretty exciting.

The thing is, they could only keep up that play for 4 1/2 games, then they really lost it. If the Lakers played like that in the regular season, they would win their first few games, but then they would start losing, and losing a lot.