Product Description

An all-access look at the Lakers' championship season

"Elizabeth Kaye is a wonderful writer--as a reporter she's like a bulldog--she grabs onto you and doesn't let go until she figures out everything about you. Throughout Ain't No Tomorrow, she discovers and explains the game of basketball in a way that no one ever has. She takes the reader through the mental preparation, coaching strategies, and personal struggles of players--who are part Rocky and part Rambo. If you like to read, you'll love Ain't No Tomorrow."
--Sylvester Stallone

At the start of the 2000 NBA playoffs, the famously underachieving Los Angeles Lakers found themselves the focus of national attention. The team that had limped along since the golden era of Magic Johnson was now endowed with basketball's two most gifted and dominant players, Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant, and was led by none other than Phil Jackson, the most fabled coach in the NBA. By the time the Lakers beat Indiana in game six of the championship series, they showed themselves unstoppable, a team above and apart and blessed with a glamour and facility that made them the obvious franchise to lead pro basketball into the new millennium.

Then everything began to fall apart. Jackson had warned his team that the truly challenging season is the one after an initial big win, and his words were quickly becoming reality as the great team slipped into profound disarray at the start of the new season. Ain't No Tomorrow is an intimate look at the astonishing eight-month roller-coaster ride that became the Lakers' 2000­-2001 season: a time of tumult and drama when impulses toward brotherhood and unity dissolved into petty, ugly battles and bruised egos; when men who previously rose to a great challenge grew greedy and slack.

Combining brilliant reporting and original perspective, Elizabeth Kaye­­--a journalist granted special access to Jackson, Shaq, Kobe, and other major players--­­takes you into the minds and hearts of the team members. She chronicles the unique story of a team that ultimately righted itself, united, and found its way to a second championship title--­­but only after an extraordinary season in which exciting sports drama becomes human drama at its most compelling and complex.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1029065 in Books
• Published on: 2002-03-25
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 256 pages

From Library Journal
Journalist Kaye spent the 2000-01 season with the defending NBA champion Los Angeles Lakers during their up-and-down quest for a repeat title. Coach Phil Jackson's teams are noted for running the Triangle Offense, but what is most evident in following his Lakers is that the Kobe Bryant/ Shaquille O'Neal/Phil Jackson triangle often took on soap-opera proportions. That soap opera is the focus of Kaye's book as she tries to explain how a championship team could implode so quickly in the regular season and then turn things around and come together as a team once again in time for the playoffs. At press time, the season appeared to be following the same story line, and if it ends the same way as last season, the Lakers can truly boast of the dynasty noted in the title of this work. The most interesting perspectives are offered by the many less-famous veteran players who served a valuable role in the championship run. Recommended for all public libraries. John Maxymuk, Rutgers Univ. Lib., Camden, NJ
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
The accepted adage in sports is that getting to the top is tough but staying there is exponentially tougher. The Los Angeles Lakers won the 2000 NBA championship behind Shaquille O'Neal, Kobe Bryant, and the sage coaching of Phil Jackson. Could they do it again? Yes, but not easily. Author Kaye, whose work has appeared in such publications as Esquire and Rolling Stone, tracks the team's sometimes bumpy road to a repeat championship in 2001. She profiles the individual players and coaches (including the lesser knowns, like basketball gypsy Mike Penberthy); but, more pointedly, she focuses on the ephemeral chemistry that every successful team develops. Phil Jackson comes through as a subtle, clever, and knowing coach, confident enough to retreat to the background when a midseason feud erupted between Shaq and Kobe, the team's foundation. ("Family" spats, Jackson learned during his championship years with the Chicago Bulls, are best allowed to dissipate on their own timeline.) An intelligent, thoughtful examination of the mental focus required for professional sports success. Wes Lukowsky
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
"Elizabeth Kaye is a wonderful writer--as a reporter she's like a bulldog... [she] discovers and explains the game of basketball in a way that no one ever has."--Sylvester Stallone "An inside look at the near-implosion of a championship team, the 2000-01 Los Angeles Lakers, titans who clashed, grew, gave, and learned to work as one. Like the Lakers, this book is a winner."--Paul Sunderland, commentator for Fox Sports News/NBC

Customer Reviews

Nothing new for real fans
This is a good book for part-time Laker fans. They get to learn a lot about locker room stories.
But if you're someone who regularly follow the Lakers'exploits during the season, on the internet or otherwise, you're not getting any wiser by reading this book. The author was just repeating articles form the LA Times, OCR and other sources. Reading passages in the book you get the feeling that you've already read that somewhere else.
This ain't a David Halberstram book.

Not Bad
Ain't No Tomorrow offers a unique perspective on the 2000-2001 World Champion L.A.Lakers in that Ms. Kaye is an outsider with very little - if any - previous basketball experience. She develops close relationships with many of the players, coaches, and members of the travelling media. The best aspect of this book is it's commentary on the individual relationships between the players and coaches. From a basketball standpoint, however, it is found wanting. Kaye's basketball terms and descriptions leave much to be desired as she continually uses improper terms and awkward phrases that detract from the flow of the book. A good read for a die-hard Laker fan - but if you're only going to read one Laker book - I'd pick a different one. Lyle Spencer's perhaps.

I LIKED IT
THE AUTHOR OF THIS BOOK HAS NO EXPERIENCE COVERING SPORTS. IN HER FIRST ATTEMPT I THINK SHE DOES A VERY GOOD JOB DESCRIBING THE CHAMPIONSHIP SEASON OF THE 2000 LAKERS. THE DETAILED RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN THE PLAYERS IS THE HIGHLIGHT OF THIS BOOK. NOT ONLY KOBE AND SHAQ BUT ALL THE OTHER PLAYERS ARE OF INTEREST IN THIS STORY. FROM ROBERY HORRY TO RICK FOX TO PHIL JACKSON, YOU FIND OUT SOMETHING INTERESTING ABOUT EACH ONE OF THEM. BUT THE MAIN STORY IS THE COMING OF AGE OF KOBE FROM A BALL HOG TO A COMPLETE PLAYMAKER AND PASSER. I RECOMMEND THIS FOR ALL BASKETBALL FANS.