← The Right Time with Bomani Jones
The Right Time with Bomani Jones
J.A. Adande on how Shaq and Kobe Turned Chaos Into a Dynasty | 05.19
01:02:56
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J.A. Adande
Wave.
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Bomani Jones
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Right time presented by FanDuel Predicts. My name is Bomani Jones. Thanks for listening wherever you get your podcast. Thanks for watching us on YouTube. Subscribe like Rate us, review us. Give us 5 stars. You only give us 4 stars. I'm inclined to believe you are a hater. It is Time Machine Tuesday we gonna talk about the shaq Crazy Kobe Lakers 3 Pete with the co host of Dynastic J A Don Day. What's going on man?
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J.A. Adande
What's going on Bo? Fun to go back and revisit this time and fun to be on here with you.
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Bomani Jones
Yeah, I'mma tell the people what J A mean by revisit this times. We gonna talk about what the the Shaq, Kobe, Lakers, the buildup once we get there and everything else. This man J A come on. Like you know, I was going back reading my clips from that time and you know, your boy was on top of his game. That's, that's, that's like I want, I want to talk about the peak of the Lakers. He's like, let's talk about the peak
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J.A. Adande
of the, the peak of me. Well, you know, like I, I did some things back at that time and but what it was, it's funny like a, I was, you know, in the midst right in there for everything and 2001 in particular, that was the only time I actually did every round with the Lakers because usually I'd break off for a series and go do something on the.
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Bomani Jones
Because you were a column, you know,
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J.A. Adande
to set up the next season. I was a columnist. Exactly. I wasn't on the beat. I was on the beat actually in 2004. 03 04. That crazy year with, you know, Gary Payton and Karl Malone and that hectic year. But yeah, this was the first time that I went with the Lakers all the way through their championship run in the 2001 playoffs. So you know, that one in particular which I think we're going to focus on because also like it's kind of back in the news because low key Oklahoma City this year might be on a 2001 Lakers kind of run.
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Bomani Jones
Right, Right. No. And look, I think the buildup to getting to this team winning championships, I think is very much so forgotten in the discussions that we have about them at this point. Like, it's really interesting to look back at them, like to figure out Kobe's role in this and everything else. But 1996, there was no way to really, I don't think there was any way to truly realize they drafted Kobe, Shaq signed in free agency, that those two were really going to matter that much. Like, I think people forget that Kevin Garnett was the first of this new era of guys coming straight from high school. And he had a pretty good year. Right. But it was not. He did not set the world on fire. And it was a slow start. They started coming together after the all star break, but he was seven feet tall. We're talking about Kobe at six foot six. Like the guys who were doing this typically had been big men and it made sense. He was seven feet tall. RD head start, a six foot six two guard who only. Who went 13 in that draft. That draft was loaded. But we did not go into that draft thinking it was the all time draft that it ultimately became. And Sh and Kobe still went 13 in this, but they show up at the same time. And it was a grind for them to get to the place of being such championship contenders. Like, they took a lot of scars along the way. Where I feel like we talk about the bad boy Pistons doing that and we talk about Jordan doing that, but we don't really talk about it. Man, this was a long march before they became champions.
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J.A. Adande
Maybe one of the reasons we don't talk about BO is because we still had the last dance era, right? So it's funny that, you know, the Kobe Shaq era starts so 1996 is also when Jordan signs that huge. That was a huge free agency summer, right?
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Bomani Jones
Yes.
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J.A. Adande
Lonzo Morning's a free agent. Shaq, like all these DaVinci, Patrick Ewing might have been, you know, it felt like all the David Falk guys in particular, which Shaq was not, but you know, so many guys were free agents, including Michael Jordan. Jordan signs the first of the huge contracts that, you know, those $30 million
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Bomani Jones
plus contracts, by the way, that nobody else got for like 10 years.
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J.A. Adande
Right, right. So. So we get that. And the Shaq deal felt like a big deal, right? That it felt like it shifted some of the power that like that's how big Shaq was. At that time, you know, the Eastern Conference had been dominant. And now this. This brings some balance to the force, so to speak, where you've got Shaq in the West, Michael Jordan, east, and they never meet up in part because the Utah Jazz. Talk about two guys who had to slog it out. A superstar combo that had to slog it out. Karl Malone and John Stockton, who've been together since the mid-80s. They're finally getting their day, you know, and they finally reached the finals.
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Bomani Jones
And.
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J.A. Adande
And they were two of the guys that were kept Shaq and Kobe from ascending early on, as did the spurs in 99. You know, much more veteran teams. So two things about the league back then, it was an older league. The average age of an NBA player has dropped by a full year from then to now. In part because the influx of high school guys started coming in and then one and done guys and then, yeah, you had these veteran teams. It was their turn. And it's a shame we never got Shaq and Kobe against Jordan's Bulls. They made it to the conference finals one year and I think that's when the Jazz got him one of the times. So we don't think of that as the same era. Right. We think of those Bulls, that Bulls three peat. But Kobe and Shaq and that and a lot of the other guys on that team, Robert Horry and Rick Fox and Derek Fisher, you know, a lot of the key figures were there. The key change that started the run was the arrival of Phil Jackson in 1999. The coaching team.
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Bomani Jones
Yeah, but like the 96 part is interesting because I also think it's very easy to Forget. Shaq was 24 when he got to LA. He was only in Orlando for four years. He didn't. That did not even get to his 25th birthday on that team. So when he shows up, he's 24. And it is a team full of almost guys, right. Eddie Jones, Nick Van Exel, Cedric sa. Right. Like it was. A bunch of guys had won a
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J.A. Adande
couple series on their own.
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Bomani Jones
They had. They had. Right? They won.
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J.A. Adande
Knocking off a number one seed. Yeah.
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Bomani Jones
They won that series in 95 against Seattle. Right. I think it's like one of the big ones that jumps out. But they were. They had a bunch of pretty good guys and then they got Shaq and they still never really got too far past pretty good. Right. Like they had some. They had some moments in times where they look like they really were about to make it happen. It's not until really like 98 that Kobe becomes Like a full on competitive, like a real contributor to this team. So they had. They were super young, but still had scars like that. That 2000 finals version of Shaquille O' Neal is 28 years old, right. Like he had just entered peak around the moment. Like when Phil Jackson gets there in 99. That is when Shaq does this thing that we saw him do multiple times in his career. We saw Joel Embiid do this also, I want to say the first year that Doc Rivers got there, that first year, let me show you what I got. And been never quite caring as much about it after. But after they had lost to the Jazz and they had lost to the spurs, right? Because they. Their spurs rivalry becomes weird because it's kind of bookended. Spurs here, spurs there, Laker domination in the middle. But they had gone through all those things. And then it gets to 2000 and they won, I want to say 67 games that year. And Shaq was unreal. It is possible that somebody played center better than Shaquille O' Neal played in the year 99, 2000. It's just impossible to imagine. If you watch Shaq as he did
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J.A. Adande
it, Bo is possible. We weren't allowed to see it like, you know, because he was doing some Wilt Chamberlain stuff, you know, and. And on defense, he was doing some Bill Russell stuff. So one of my. My favorite moment from Shaq defensively that time. So actually I did go on the road with them in like January 2000. It might have been just because, like, hey, these guys are pretty good. I think they got on a winning streak. Like it was possible they were going to go after that Laker 33 game streak. So they sent me on the road with them and playing in Milwaukee, and the Milwaukee Bucks just refused to go in the paint, you know. And Ray Allen came in one time and shot a hook shot. Have you ever recall see Ray Allen shooting a hook shot? But that's what they're doing. So I'm in the Bucks locker room afterward. I go to Sam Casaso, Sam, you guys seem like you were kind of hesitant to go in the paint there. And he goes, they got shack in that. That was the explanation. And that's what it came. That's how dominant was Shaq. And you can still see, but even in the finals, like they like against Indiana, there's a game where Shaq's just like feels like he's going up and blocking shots like at the top of the backboard. Like he was monstrous on both ends.
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Bomani Jones
Yeah.
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J.A. Adande
Because
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Bomani Jones
the demerits against Shaq in the all time ledger, never made first team all defense, never won a rebounding title. Two things that feel strange to say out loud, but part of it, to be fair to him, there's a bit of overlap with Dennis Rodman. Like there were guys who did nothing. Like guys who had no other responsibility other than getting rebounds. And also to be fair, one thing that interferes with getting rebounds is when the guy who takes the most shots on the team makes 60% of his shots. That, that, that can like cut down on the number of the potential that you have of doing these things.
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J.A. Adande
But that year he didn't get those Moses Malone rebounds.
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Bomani Jones
Right, right, right.
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J.A. Adande
They throw in, miss it up close, get the rebound, miss it up close, get the rebound, put it back in.
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Bomani Jones
Right. That guy did it. He was also. But to be fair to him, he did not make first team all defense, but he was the second place defensive player of the year that year in 2000. Like he was just Shaq as a player. I think this is also before he got like soft, big. You go look at those clips of Shaq in his early to mid-20s, like when he first gets to the Lakers. It is absurd what a physical specimen he is. Like he is Jack Diesel running the floor. Has incredible footwork, shockingly good touch around the rim considering how bad he was at the free throw line. But he was, he was an athlete. Like a, the pound for pound athlete we normally talk about. Like a Nate Robinson type, like a five foot nine dude. LeBron. Right. But he was a seven one guy in the same pound for pound athlete competition.
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J.A. Adande
Although I always say clearly the best version of Shaq was this era we're talking about, you know, 99 through 2002, et cetera. But the most exciting, the highlights were in Orlando.
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Bomani Jones
Yes.
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J.A. Adande
And, and yeah, that was the physical specimen and just lean, tall, agile, could run, jump. So that version of Shaq, which we didn't have, and, and he'd also been dealing with injuries, including his first year in la. So one of the years, one of the reasons it didn't quite take off right away was he gets there and he's playing like an MVP through the first couple months of the 96, 97 season, his first in LA. And then he tears his, like his groin. And so, you know, it took him a while, he never quite came back. It sort of derailed him and kind of took him out of that year. And then physically, you know, he wasn't quite in shape. And then again, Phil Jackson comes and you get a Version that starts to look a little bit more like the Orlando version.
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Bomani Jones
Yeah, the, the 2000 version, though, as good as he was. And Kobe starts getting there. Right. Like, like 2000, it starts kind of feeling it. But that year it is very clear that Shaquille o' Neal is the best player on that team. The Western Conference playoffs, bit of a slog, right? Like, they did not dominate in the playoffs like one would expect. They went, I think this is back when we still had a five game series. They went five against Sacramento, they blew Phoenix away. But then they had that Portland series against.
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J.A. Adande
Well, well, before we skip Phoenix, they're up three nothing and then they get destroyed four.
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Bomani Jones
That's right.
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J.A. Adande
Which led to Phil Jackson saying, hey, teams that win championships don't get blown out in a closeout game like this.
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Bomani Jones
Right.
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J.A. Adande
And then they move on to, yeah, the Portland series. They, they, they go seven. So their record in closeout games, you know, in early closeout opportunities. Right. So 02 the first round, 1 and 1 the second round, 02 in the third round, and then 1 and 1 in the final round. Right. In the finals. So they're just a middling if not losing record in early closeout opportunities, which is far from dominant. Right?
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Bomani Jones
Yeah, dude, the Portland series, we always talk about that team and we call them the Jailblazers and everything that went along with that. That is literally the deepest team in the history of the NBA.
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J.A. Adande
Like you go back, especially the next year, right, when they get Dale Davis and Shawn Kemp.
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Bomani Jones
But I think even the, even the 99, 2000 team, right. Like I'm going to sort this by, sort this by minutes per game. This is how many people clock in at over 10 minutes a game for this team. Rasheed Wallace, Scottie Pippen, Steve Smith, Damon Stoudemire, Arvidus. A bonus dead left shrimp. Brian Grant, Greg Anthony, Bonzi Wells, Jermaine O', Neal, Stacy Augment. That's 11 dudes.
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J.A. Adande
11 dudes that had got 10 plus minutes.
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Bomani Jones
Yeah. And, and had real live NBA careers. Right. Like not just guys that got in here for a little while. If you step it down one more, you get to a dude that I know a lot of you ain't gonna remember, but Gary Grant was a dude that played 10, 11 years in the NBA.
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J.A. Adande
Like I forgot he was on that team.
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Bomani Jones
Yeah. Like they, they had so many dudes. You can't typically win that way in the NBA. Right. Because guys need more minutes than that. But they were loaded and they had the Lakers. It was. They had them. They're up 18 in the fourth quarter.
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J.A. Adande
Right up, I think 18 in the third and like 15 in the. In the fourth, maybe.
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Home Depot Announcer
Yeah.
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Bomani Jones
And we've had Rashid on this show and he blames it all on, and I quote, dumb Believy. D U M B L E A V Y the head. Mike Dunleavy, the head coach of Portland. But this Lakers team looked like it was going to be, damn, y' all got this all together. And here we go, y' all about to blow it again.
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J.A. Adande
So the weird thing with that Game seven, from the Portland perspective is in the fourth quarter, they were getting all the same shots that they had when they built the league. You know that Rasheed Wallace baseline turnaround, right. Bonsie Wells was posting up. He was a matchup problem. They're getting all the same looks and they're just not going down. And then to me, the turnaround was Kobe like volleyball spikes, one of Bonzie shots. And that seemed to trigger things. But the weird thing about that comeback was this. Initially it. The Lakers, like Portland had just stalled out, and the Lakers went a couple minutes when they couldn't score either. And you're like, well, that might have been their window. And then Portland just kept on missing and kept on missing and kept on missing. And you had that epic comeback that ended with obviously the. The iconic Kobe, the Shaq lob, which is probably the most significant basket that wasn't significant. Like they were going to win the game with or without that. But it's funny, even Phil Jackson is not one for like, hyperbole or sort of poetic descriptions of things. He calls that. That the statement play that Kobe to Shaq, because it just crystallized everything that you wanted. Kobe could have shot it, but he passed it to Shaq and Shaq gets the glory.
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Bomani Jones
It was a measure of desperation or a moment of desperation that meant that whatever the bullshit was, couldn't matter right now. Right? Like, you think about it in that. In the. In that context, in that moment. And it is a. Also an incredibly high lob, an incredible catch, an incredible bring down, and a classic Shaq reaction. Like the moment it felt like, at least for them, the moment they realized, oh, we've actually done this. You normally see a kind of response like that from a team after they've won a championship before, and then they can dig into the reservoir and turn it on. This team had never won one. And they were. I mean, they were on the verge of a terribly embarrassing loss. Terribly embarrassing loss.
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J.A. Adande
Two things. Well, one, on the lobby, I remember thinking, he threw it Too high.
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Bomani Jones
Yeah.
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J.A. Adande
And then Shaq still somehow went up and still got it. But at some point when they're down and just the whole life had been taken out of Staples center, like, they're just getting completely disrupted and just dissected. And I'm thinking this thing is over before it began. Like, I was just sure that there was going to be a parade in two weeks. You know, the Lakers were going to win their championship. They. They've been that team. They've clearly been the best team in the league all year. And then the Blazers were about to beat him three straight times and just destroy them. And I remember thinking, this is going to be it. I still go back that. That game, one of the most pivotal in the modern NBA, because I think if they don't win that year, that they don't win the next year. That, that championship resolve that. That you could draw upon, that you mentioned bo, that certainly came into play next year when they're down to the. The Sacramento Kings in the conference finals. Right. But they didn't have it yet. They. They gained it in this game, but they wouldn't have had that stamp of being a championship team that they could have drawn on the rest of the time. And I don't think they went. I think that was the difference between three championships with Shaq and Kobe and no championships, because if it kept not working, then one of them got to go.
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Bomani Jones
Well, also keep in mind, they'd already made their big move the year before, and that's when they finally got. Yeah, they got Glenn Rice, got Eddie Jones out to make more space for Kobe, which, by the way, at the time for a lot of people was like, hey, are you sure you. You. You sure you want to get. You want to get Eddie Jones out of here? People really like Eddie Jones right now. They went ahead and made that move. And it's funny, in reading Jeff Pearlman's book about that time, one thing he points out about it, like, you go back and talk about Kobe in the. In the air balls in 97 or whatever with. With. With some time to have passed. Shaq even said in that book, everybody that said they was mad at Kobe, Shaq, like, none of them wanted to shoot. Not a single one of them. And especially was talking about Eddie Jones. Hey, felt like he did not want that shot at all.
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J.A. Adande
Yeah, he starts sniping like it's not a coincidence that Eddie was the one to go because. Because Shaq would often be disappointed in him and their playoff shortcomings.
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Bomani Jones
Was that his Horace Grant Michael, Michael Jordan was always disappointed in Horace Grant. That was his disappointment guy.
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J.A. Adande
But Michael would say it at the podium.
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Bomani Jones
Yes.
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J.A. Adande
So you give me excuse to one of my favorite quotes. So remember the Paxton shot to seal the three peat? The first three peat. Horace. Michael passed a horse. Horse was right under the basket. But Horace shoots like 20% or something in the finals. So Horace passes, passes up the two pointer which would have. Which would have tied the game. All they needed was two. Horace passes out the layup and passes out to Paxton for the three that wins it. So Michael at the podium just couldn't let it go. And has to mention, I guess Horace was afraid to shoot. Which is sad. Why would you think he just won the championship? Right. Celebrates not Mike, which is because he can't relate.
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Bomani Jones
He simply could not relate to the idea that you were afraid of it. Right. That you just didn't want it. He's like what are you talking about? But yeah, all of that.
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J.A. Adande
But the interesting thing is that Horace becomes, you know, one of the veteran. So one of the things that took the Lakers, you know, got him over the hump. Not only does Phil Jackson and his staff with all of his championship experience come in, but he brings in players with championship experience more. So you've got Ron Harper comes in, Horace Grant comes in, AC Green. So you've got all these vets who help that team, you know, get over the hump.
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Bomani Jones
Yeah. Because I think something that gets lost. We call these the Shaq Kobe Lakers and there's a reason we call them the Shaq Kobe Lakers because it was really Shaq Kobe and a bunch of dudes like Glenn Rice when they got him was viewed as an upper echelon like three like scoring player. But it never, it didn't really as the number three. It didn't really work. Right. Like he was not a guy that moved really smoothly into that because all he really was giving you was buckets. So all he's giving you was buckets. As the number three option. That doesn't really go as well. But other than that. 36 year old Ron Harper, 36 year old A.C. green, young Derek Fisher, Robert Ory has, you know, because he threw that towel at Danny A that time and Danny A punished him by letting him be a Laker A very young.
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J.A. Adande
It's funny because Ori told me once like that was one of the things when he looked back on his career that he regretted obviously was not a good look. But I mean he's leads such a charmed life.
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Bomani Jones
Best thing he ever did best move he ever made.
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J.A. Adande
It gives him three more rings.
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Bomani Jones
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It gives him five more rings because he becomes champion guy, which then makes him attractive to the spurs so that he could go and, and get the two more. But these, these are not great rosters. When you look through the run outside,
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J.A. Adande
they were top heavy. But again, they were guys who had championship experience, which matters. And you got a guy like Rick Fox who's a Dean Smith product. These Dean Smith guys knew what they were doing. The ultimate example of course, being Michael. But I always said the real testimony of the Dean Smith was the Joe Wolfs and the Pete Chilkas who would have lengthy NBA careers even though they weren't as talented as Michael. And so Rick Fox is a Dean Smith guy and Rick plays a key role on those teams too. He could score a bucket here and there, including had had a couple big baskets in the big comeback against Portland in the game seven and then didn't mind doing the dirty work in the battles with Sacramento. Like he would play defense on Peja Stojakovic and he had also just mentally messed with them too.
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Bomani Jones
Yeah. Also John Sally on the one more for you go list, he popped up, got. Got him, got him one more ring, right?
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J.A. Adande
Great guy in the locker room. Go to guy in the locker room again. Because one of the all time great quotes in the nb. I mean we loved having those guys as media. You know, having a John Salley, his time in LA was so memorable to me. Just like, remember he was on those Bulls teams too? You know, obviously we think of him as a Piston, but he was on the 95, 96 bulls. Had one of the most memorable quotes of the Finals, which I don't really want to repeat here, but he said on one of the off days and then was just great in the locker room with the Lakers. He's even played. I barely remember him. I can't remember him anything he did on the court with that team. But I do remember him going, spending a lot of time in his locker.
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Bomani Jones
Sally, also a pioneer of New York dudes who moved to Atlanta and realized that they love it. Like, that's a. That's a. That. That's it. That's it. That's an archetype that came to define the latter part of the 80s that he was in. Like he was a dude.
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J.A. Adande
He was in Kenny Anderson too.
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Bomani Jones
Kenny Anderson's after him. Right?
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J.A. Adande
Like, but like, would you, would you put him in that category?
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Bomani Jones
Yes, yes.
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J.A. Adande
Crim is fife.
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Bomani Jones
Yeah, that was five. Five live around a Quarter for my parents when he came down. Fife and Eric Sermon very early in that. But now Crimmins was like, hey, man, I know players in New York and Crimson figured out, hey, man, I could bring him down. Here they go. Love this shit, right? The ACC was all fueled by get the players from New York at that point, get them out of trouble or whatever it was. But Sally was one of the very first. They retired his jersey at Georgia Tech. Quiet.
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J.A. Adande
Yeah, yeah.
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Bomani Jones
Like, Sally was that dude.
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J.A. Adande
But like Stephon Marbury.
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Bomani Jones
Oh, yeah. Well, Stephon. Yeah, it's a. It's. It's a tradition unlike any other. Um, but we get to 2001 and now we talking. See that, to me, that year is interesting, and I want to build this up. We'll break in the middle and we'll talk about it, but you tell me what it was like around the team, because from a distance, it felt like the first time that we on the outside truly got a handle on the fact that Shaq and Kobe really didn't like each other. And in particular, that Kobe thinks the Shaq is fat and lazy.
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J.A. Adande
Yeah. So this had been going on, we knew about in la and we would write about it. No one was really on the record. But again, you're spending time in the locker room, you're talking to all the players. You're pretty plugged in at that point. And so we're writing about it. At one point, I even tried to, like, broker, like, a summit meeting between Shaq and Kobe and have it be on the record. And that couldn't come through. But it was clear, like, this is one of the things hindering this team. And the local people in LA would get mad at me for talking about it, and they would just kind of deny. Everyone was living in denial. The fan base. And then Rick Bucher does the story for ESPN Magazine. It comes out in December or January of that season, and it's the COVID story. And Kobe just is really all out talking about, like, when I read it, I reread it, getting ready for this, and I'm like, wow, I couldn't believe, like, how strong it came in, you know? And Buker really took Kobe's side. It's funny, Buker said in a podcast not too long ago that one of his strategies, like, he told Kobe after the airballs in Utah early in his career, they're like, you know what? I like that you had the balls to take those shots. So, like, Bucher had access to Kobe that very few, if any, anybody else had. Like, he had his number, he'd go to the house like, so Kobe, Bears, all to Bucher. And you're right, Bo. The rest of the country finds out what we've been trying to tell y' all in la, that these two guys aren't getting along, and they're fight for control of the team. And it's getting worse. And again, it's nearing a breaking point. The team winds up winning 11 fewer games than it did in the 99, 2000 season. Shaq starts off the season, I think injured, might miss a few games early on. Derek Fisher notably misses, like, 60 games. And then he comes back in March, and noticeably, Kobe starts missing some games with ankle injuries. And so they go like seven to seven through the stretch, through March and April. But Kobe goes out, Derek Fisher's back, and they win four straight games without Kobe. And now. And they're playing really well. And it becomes apparent when Kobe comes back that if things go sideways, it's going to be on him.
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Bomani Jones
Yeah.
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J.A. Adande
But, like, so that kind of keeps him in line the rest of the way, and that's what enables them to go on this incredible run. Yeah.
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Bomani Jones
Like, I don't think what we could grasp from a distance was the idea that Kobe was good enough to where this would be even a discussion about who would be good enough. Because, again, 2000, Shaq was the best player on earth. Right. There was no question that he was the best player on earth. And what I remember imagine audacity to
- [26:50]
J.A. Adande
Kobe to say, all right, that's nice, but let me run things now.
- [26:53]
Bomani Jones
Right.
- [26:54]
J.A. Adande
I'm gonna take over from here.
- [26:55]
Bomani Jones
But I think there are two things about Kobe that I didn't. It was difficult for me to grasp these things about Kobe myself in that time because he's my age. Right. And so I saw him as being more grown than he was. Right. Because I saw myself as being more grown than I was. So I'm not, like, he's not. I'm not viewing him in the context of a young guy trying to find his way. Right. Because that's not how I view myself, even though I definitely should have. But it's Shaq. I mean, it's Kobe coming out and saying, hey, man, I've been working all off season on my game. I've been coming up with new stuff. I want to show people what I've been doing. I've been working to be Kobe. Kobe's soft skills were not good. Right. Like, this is why it's funny.
- [27:41]
J.A. Adande
And Bo, the key thing, like, that's a great way to paraphrase it. But it's all first person singular, right?
- [27:47]
Bomani Jones
Yes.
- [27:48]
J.A. Adande
So I wrote a story for the Sporting News in the middle of that. I called it the Kobe quandary because, yeah, this guy is great. He works on his game. And I ended that story with, you know, Kobe. It's after practice, Kobe shooting. He's getting better. He's working, he's improving, he's dedicated, but he's alone.
- [28:05]
Bomani Jones
Yes.
- [28:05]
J.A. Adande
You know, and Phil Jackson used to tell him, Kobe wants to lead the team, but Kobe, who's going to follow you?
- [28:10]
Bomani Jones
Right. And that's why when I hear people now romanticize Baba mentality, I'm like, guys, we're not talking about this. Mama mentality is great for the summer. Right. I'm going to keep working hard. I'm going to keep getting better. But everything with Kobe was, yeah, a the hip. For him, the team game was a vessel for personal expression and a personal demonstration of what he has worked to show to the world. It was important to him that the world see these things. So now he's saying these things out loud and also implicitly. And then here come this fat motherfucker over here. But y' all say he's supposed to be in charge. And Kobe, Phil Jackson saying to Kobe, well, who's going to follow you? And Kobe's saying, why should I follow somebody who doesn't work? It's hard to respect somebody who doesn't work as hard as you and Shaq
- [28:57]
J.A. Adande
and can't make his free throws.
- [28:58]
Bomani Jones
Right, right. Which to Kobe is just, why don't you get out there and shoot a thousand free throws until you start making them? Right? And so that is the backdrop coming into this season. And they did not finish the season with the most wins in the West. They were second. Sacramento was only one game below them. We were not looking at the Lakers going into the postseason as being a team that would dominate. Well, what happened? Coming up next, we're going to tell you. You can predict the playoff action all the way to the finals with FanDuel predicts. All you have to do is sign up to get your $25 bonus. Follow all the playoff dishes, swishes, wishes and misses. Every move is a potential plot twist. Predict the spread, the total points, and even the game winning moments that make the playoffs, where one run, one rebound, one shot changes everything from opening tip to the final buzzer. Stay locked in with every pass, every play, and every moment that moves us closer to crowning a champion. Sign up now for your $25 bonus on FanDuel Predicts offered by FanDuel Prediction Markets LLC, a registered Futures Commission merchant. 18 plus bonus is non withdrawable and expires 7 days after receipt trading Derivatives involve significant risk and may not be suitable for all investors. Manage your activity with our consumer protection tools. Restrictions apply. See terms@fanduel.com predicts bonus offer terms all right, we are back with J A Adande. Check out the podcast Dynastic Jay Adande and Chuck Todd. And so now we're talking about. We have reached the 2001 postseason for the Lakers. It was a stumbling road, but one thing that's interesting to look back on also before I forget, while we talk about Shaq and Kobe and like the fight for who would be in charge, it always felt to me that it's a no brainer. The best player on this team is Shaquille O'. Neal. Shaq finished that year with 28.7 points per game. Kobe had 28.5. What is crazy is that Kobe took three more shots a game than Shaq did the year before. Shaq took three more shots per game than Kobe did. The all fucking dastardy. In an era that still the rules had not changed yet. So we're still greatly prioritizing the big man.
- [31:25]
J.A. Adande
Right. Basketball is still very much inside out. I will say part of it though was Shaq. Shaq, you know, put it all out there for that MVP season. He was kind of content to lay back a little bit in a regular season. Right. But not only to an extent. Yes, right. He was ready to let Kobe have his shine, but only to an extent. And then especially now, once playoff time came around, two games that kind of preceded and maybe precipitated this was that that game seven comeback against, against Portland in the Western Conference finals. Kobe led the Lakers in every major statistical category that game. And the numbers weren't huge. It was a low scoring game, but he led him in points, blocks, rebounds, like everything. Right. And then in the middle of the finals, Kobe misses a game because he sprains his ankle. In game two, I think misses game three, comes back in game four, Shaq fouls out, they go to overtime and Kobe leads way. I think he scores eight points. Famous bucket he gets when he was doing the kind of, hey, calm down, I got this. And you know, Brian Shaw, one of the vets on that team later said that that's the moment that Kobe arrived. So even though that was Shaq's year, it also was Kobe's arrival.
- [32:37]
Bomani Jones
Yes.
- [32:38]
J.A. Adande
So that kind of changes the mentality going into the next season.
- [32:41]
Bomani Jones
Yeah, she. Kobe's like, finally. He's like, all right, there we go. What I thought this was going to be two years ago is finally taking place. And so like, I think it is a, a thing about Kobe and I think it's important to note, especially at that point, my criticism. Scottie Pippen always is. There is no Scottie Pippen game. Right. Kobe had the games where the man was out and he is like, all right, cool. Mom and daddy ain't here. Fine, I'll cook dinner. Don't worry. We're not going to starve, baby. Right? We're going to get this going. So they get into the 01 postseason and they just start destroying people like they. It was a run through the west unlike just about anything that we had ever seen. There are a couple of close games in there, but otherwise it was just sheer destruction.
- [33:29]
J.A. Adande
Yeah. So first round, it's interesting because they played Portland. Portland had loaded up in the off season. I remember when they made all these moves. I was in, I was covering the US Open and like all these things went down and I stopped and wrote a column and I'm like, all right, the only question now is where are they going to put the banner? Because like it's. They just, you know, they'd taken the Lakers to seven and now they just loaded up and then it just did not fit the chemistry. So I went up and did a store on the Blazers right before the regular season ended and just on just how, what a mess it was and just how it hadn't meshed and people were disgruntled and people didn't like their roles and Dunley, they lost control of the team and the players were mad at Mike Dunleavy and all this stuff. So after taking the Lakers to seven the year before in the conference finals, they get swept by the Lakers in the first round. Get them out. And then Sacramento comes and hold on,
- [34:17]
Bomani Jones
Sacramento had won 50. The Lakers won 56 games that year. Sacramento won 55. And they had taken the Lakers to the limit the year before.
- [34:24]
J.A. Adande
The year before that was 2000. Those Lakers weren't these Lakers. These were championship proven Lakers. And again, it all clicked and they just smoke them at 4. Jack goes 40, 20, 40, 20. The first two games goes back to back. Wilt Chamberlain like we hadn't seen him.
- [34:41]
Bomani Jones
This is in an era where 100 points was not happening very often, right?
- [34:46]
J.A. Adande
Yeah. So Shaq goes 40, 20, 40, 20 in the first two games. Then they go to Sacramento and this was interesting. And this was one of the reasons why Shaq was willing to let Kobe have his time. To an extent, Kobe was a lot better on the road, right? Look at, look at the home road splits. Shaq's numbers went down, Kobe's numbers went up. Jack explained. It's funny. I didn't realize it was. Actually. He said this during this playoff series to me that a problem for him on the road was that he couldn't sleep comfortably. Like, he had custom beds at home. You think it's a dude that size, he's got custom beds now he's got to go sleep in hotel beds. He attributed that at the time, we were kind of dismissive. We've come to have a better understanding of the importance of sleep, but I think it's somewhat valid. But no matter, because you get maybe slight decreased version of Shaq, and you get a Kobe who lives for those moments. Again, you think of the Kobe games. A lot of them are on the road in the playoffs, similar to MJ, and it peaks with A. He goes 48 and 16. I think it was in. In. In game four, that series. One of the best statistical Kobe games. You'll see the game score in that. That's a. A metric that takes into account, you know, all the different categories and gives you a single number form. So a game score of 30 is great. 30 and above. Kobe's game score in that game was a 43. It's it. It might be the Pete Kobe game. So this. This. The. The. The Kings get dismissed. There's a lot of speculation that this is it for them. Chris Weber's going to leave in free agency. He hadn't given any indication that he's eager to come back. Remember the Maloofs had that oh, yeah, billboard, like, mow your lawn.
- [36:23]
Bomani Jones
Yes.
- [36:24]
J.A. Adande
And so Shaq, I remember talking to him by the bus. He's like, that's it for the Kings. They're going back to expansionism. So they're. They're leveling, you know, creating words, expansionism, to describe the state of the Kings. Of course, you know, we'll find out that was very much not the case, but they're gone. But then the thing that we forget, Bo, going into the next series against the spurs is the Lakers were the underdogs in that as well as they've been playing these first two rounds. Everyone expected the spurs to win. They, you know, they had the number one seed. They, they. They were a great team, and they had championship experience themselves. As you said, the last time they faced each other in 99, the spurs swept the Lakers. Right now, a key thing, one of the pivotal, the untold story, the unknown story, is that so the spurs winning championship in 98. The Lakers are the team in 2000. But as we saw how vulnerable they were in the 2000 playoffs, they didn't have to play the Spurs. Why? Because Tim Duncan hurt his knee. Pop sits him. And so they lose in the first round to Phoenix. And Phoenix was trying to do this small ball stuff way ahead of his time and that wasn't working at all. And Phoenix just gets destroyed. But I believe if the spurs had played the Lakers and they've been healthy, I think the spurs would have beaten that Laker team and we changed the whole history, right? But now, now that the Lakers had that championship experience, they go down, they win game one. Everyone's like, oh, the spurs are going to win game two. Like there's no question. Like, that was the most locked. The spurs are going to win game two. No way the Lakers are going to come down here and win game two. It's close game. Kobe hits a three from straight away late. That just, you know, the ultimate dagger shot. And I'll never forget, we're walking to the. They're at the Alamo Dome. We're walking. It's a long walk from the locker rooms to where the buses used to be. The buses would come inside the Alamo Dome. And I say, Cole, I think he hit an artery with that one. He just said, let him bleed. It was so cold. But it was true. That shot broke that version of the spurs because they go out to LA, the Lakers, I think, I know the Lakers scored 111 in both of the games in LA. And the spurs scored like 82 and 92, like it wasn't even close. And I remember, I think it was game three. It was maybe it was poor. The most bored I'd ever been a playoff game. So I made the mistake of. Of the first two games were in San Antonio. And the TNT had the Western Conference that year. So Barkley's there we go, dinner. He goes, hey, they doing a roast for me in Vegas on Saturday. You should come. So I go up there, I go to the roast. Game three is Friday, I think game four is Sunday. So Saturday night I go up to Vegas for the roast. Wind up going all night. Wind up in a limo with Matt Kuchar the golfer coming off win. Yeah, he just come up winning the US Amateur, I think. And yeah, very random night. But I'm out like all night, literally. And Then go to the airport and I get back and I'm struggling. It's a day game and I don't even have time to take a nap. And I'm sitting there like, why did I come back for this? Because it just wasn't close. Yeah, the team, the spurs just got broken.
- [39:34]
Bomani Jones
Yeah. And this is San Antonio had the home court. Right. And I think those, that incarnation of the spurs is underrated because I think people misunderstand how good David Robinson still was. Like he was not playing the heavy minutes at that point after the back surgery, but all his advanced numbers checked out higher than Tim Duncan at that point. Like, he was still an. A legitimate force as a player when he was out there. So you've got Tim Duncan, who's now moving toward MVP caliber. Tim Duncan, he finished second in the MVP voting that year. They had Derek Anderson, who was a pretty good player at that point. Now, you know, it's a bit of a collection of Spursy guys. Right. Like, you got Steve Kerr hanging around there, but they were still a really good team. And the Lakers destroyed them. An interesting, interesting quirk about the spurs of that run. Either they were going to beat you or you were going to destroy them. That, that was.
- [40:28]
J.A. Adande
That.
- [40:28]
Bomani Jones
That was kind of how it worked for most of those teams.
- [40:30]
J.A. Adande
And, and in the middle of this, you know, the Lakers, next year, they. They win in five games. The Lakers win eight out of nine playoff games against the spurs in this stretch after having being swept by them. The Lakers, they were just on one. They shot 44% from three in this series. Derek Fisher, 15 to 20. So the numbers weren't big. Right. Because of the way the game was played, but the percentage. So Derek Fisher shoots 75% from 3. 15 for 20 in the series. Right. Like, that's how much they were on. And it's funny, this team, this run became sort of the ultimate example of, you know, flipping the proverbial switch. Right, Right. Because they were not. They were a good team, but they were not a great team. They were not a historically great during the regular season. And then this is one of the great playoff runs that you'll ever see. And the funny thing is it kind of lulled the Laker fans into thinking that this team could do it at any point. And I remember in the 2004 season, I wound up before a game in Phoenix and it was Rick Fox, Kobe, I think, Derek Fisher, somehow we started talking about that 2001 run, and it was just understood that that's the type of thing that could Never be repeated. Right. It just all came together in a way, like as professional athletes, you know, you could easily go your whole career and never find a groove like this. And it just happened. And they understood how rare it was and how special it was. And so when it happens like that, they just look back fondly on it because they were like, you just don't get those, you know, and it happened then.
- [41:55]
Bomani Jones
I mean, they just ran through and swept the first three series. They were so good that we treated Allen Iverson and those Sixers winning game one like he won the championship. Like winning one game validated a career that can be very difficult to validate.
- [42:16]
J.A. Adande
Right, right.
- [42:17]
Bomani Jones
And people did not.
- [42:18]
J.A. Adande
And people like him validated his mvp.
- [42:20]
Bomani Jones
Yes, yes. And people like him a lot more now than they did at the time. It was a much more polarizing figure in real time, Allen Iverson was. Than he is right now. But that team was so good that losing that one game, the only game they lost in the playoffs, it made Iverson. That's all it took, man. Remember that time I was. Can you imagine? Yeah. Can you imagine if James Harden got one playoff. I mean, one win in the finals. And we were like, see, told you what?
- [42:46]
J.A. Adande
And winning game one right at that.
- [42:49]
Bomani Jones
Right, right.
- [42:50]
J.A. Adande
That's the only win is game one in game one.
- [42:52]
Bomani Jones
Now, of course, there wasn't another. What was the other team, the 83 Sixers had the one loss. And I want to say one of those Kevin Durant warriors teams ran through
- [43:00]
J.A. Adande
the first year with Kevin Durant. They went all the way. And remember, LeBron hadn't lost in the east right up until the Finals. And then the warriors, we thought they were going to run the table. They lose game four. It took all time. Like, we saw the best the Cavs could possibly play in a game four. I think they're like a missed free throw or two away from scoring 50 in the first quarter.
- [43:19]
Bomani Jones
Right, right.
- [43:20]
J.A. Adande
And like that was the only way you were going to beat those Warriors. You're going to have to had 50 point quarters to get them down by like 30. And then the warriors still. The funny thing is in that third quarter that that game the warriors made on a little run, people are like, they might do this, right? Like, that's how highly we thought of those Warriors. But yeah, and to me, the only reason we, we. The. The Lakers lost that first game was they had that long layoff because they're sweeping everybody. The Eastern Conference finals went seven, and then, you know, the Russ versus rest argument. And so it's funny because when the Lakers won, so they were running my columns, we were doing an exchange with John Smallwood of the Philadelphia Daily News. So my column was running in Philly. Smallwood's column was also running in la. And so when I, when I, you know, when the matchup was set, I was like, all right, now we know who the Lakers are going to sweep in the Finals, you know, because that's how dominant, you know. Now we got the details. We know they're going to sweep. Now we know who they're going to sweep. And so the Philly fans were mad at that. They were sending me all these emails. Then, of course, Sixers win game one, and I get all, oh, what do you say now?
- [44:24]
Bomani Jones
Blah, blah, blah.
- [44:25]
J.A. Adande
What about your Lakers? Blah, blah, blah. And then as the series went on and the Lakers are winning and winning, winning. And it's funny because the Sixers and Brown and Ira Larry Brown and Allen Ivers kept saying, like, oh, we're playing with heart, we're playing with Hart. They kept losing that. So I wrote, hey, sooner or later, it ain't about heart. It's about winning these games. And now the Philly fans, being Philly fans, they're agreeing. They're like, yeah, that's right. You tell them. You're like. They started turning on their team. So Matt Geiger was the backup center on that team. He missed, I think, the first couple games with knee injuries. So I'm in the stands in Philly. I went up to see someone I knew, and I'm talking to them before the game, and Geiger is like, stretching out his knee on the, on the scorers table. And Philly fans are like, yeah, that's right, Gager. Stretch out that knee, you pussy. This is like you're supporting. You're supposed to be supporting your team. So as the series going on, you know, and Shaq is just like pounding away on Dikembe Mutombo, who's the defensive player of the year. Is that my memory of that is Shaq, one time just like turns, elbows flying, hits Dikembe in the nose with the ball and just like goes through him and scores like he was going through Dikembe. Robert Horry had one of his Robert Horry shots. Not quite as dramatic as the more memorable ones. And it, you know, just by game three, it's just feeling inevitable, you know, four, and the Lakers went in five. The interesting thing with that, though, there's a lot going on behind the scenes. So there's that iconic shot of Kobe wearing the Jeff Hamilton leather jacket in the showers with the trophy that everyone likes to recreate. And they think it's like this great moment, like, oh, you know, I'm walking this. Like, you didn't want to be Kobe in that moment. If you look at him, he's sort of. He doesn't look like a guy that just won a championship. The only indication that he just won a championship is Larry o' Brien trophy sitting there. But he was dealing with a lot of stuff. And he later admitted or talked to Bill Plaske about the fact that it was difficult for him. He called it bittersweet because he's back in Philly, in his town, and his family isn't there.
- [46:30]
Bomani Jones
Right. And he's getting booed.
- [46:32]
J.A. Adande
Yeah, he's getting booed. And. But more importantly, the family members aren't there to see it because there'd been the split because of the marriage to Vanessa, which, you know, the family took all. Took them a long time to come around on, and they weren't quite there yet. So Kobe, A. I think he thought this would be his championship. He'd be the Finals mvp. To his credit, he had deferred to Shaq when necessary because he recognized that that was the path to win a championship. And so I think he's a little disappointed at the fact that this wasn't his Finals mvp, that he only had the Larry o' Brien and not what would become the Bill Russell Finals mvp.
- [47:12]
Bomani Jones
If I'm not mistaken. It's not just that he didn't win Finals mvp. I don't think he got a vote. And they were. They were as close to equally as good as one could ask for two people to be under those circumstances. Even the advanced numbers bear out, like win shares per 48 in that series, win shares per 48 in the. I'll say this, for the whole postseason, win shares per 48.260 and 0.260. Like, that's how in lockstep they were for that whole post.
- [47:39]
J.A. Adande
But I think Kobe, a lot of it was more in that Sacramento and.
- [47:42]
Bomani Jones
Yeah, that's fair. That's right. Because he did dial it back. He did dial it back. I do remember the. And the NET series the following year.
- [47:49]
J.A. Adande
Yeah. But he does get kind of the series icer. So the crazy thing I was looking in the San Antonio series, he took 20 more field goal attempts than Shaq. But again, Shaq was content with that. A, they started on the road. Kobe's better on the road. B, you know, the. They had the. The twin Towers, Dave Robinson, and Tim Duncan. It wasn't as easy for Shaq to dominate against San Antonio. So he. This is also when Shaq. So Shaq wants to encourage Kobe to play the way that he'd been playing in those playoffs. So he starts saying stuff like, kobe's my idol. You know, I love the way he's playing. So he. He. He was. It just was all working and clicking. And Phil, at the end of the Finals, says that it was in some ways his most satisfying, but also his most difficult of his championships. So this was number. At this point, number eight for Phil Jackson. And, you know, he. It was challenging because there had just been this tension all year. So Shaq was mad at Kobe. Kobe was mad at Shaq. They were both mad at Phil. You know, Shaq wanted Phil to say, hey, Kobe, you know, dial it down. Let's run the offense through Shaq. Kobe wanted Phil to acknowledge him, right? And recognize that, hey, this guy's putting in all the work and this guy's more disciplined. Maybe we should give him more of the share of the offense. And what Phil did not do, Phil's response was, you know, laissez faire. So he let the guys resolve it. And it did work out. But then, you know, Phil liked to poke people through the media rather than through direct confrontation. And Kobe didn't really appreciate that. In fact, when Phil came back a few years later after having written that book in which he called Kobe uncoachable, yes, Kobe was like, all right, we can do this, but I don't want you criticizing me publicly. And if you notice the second stint that Phil was in la, he never said a bad word to Kobe in the media because they had this agreement, which I got him to confess to finally, on the last day before he left. In the second stint.
- [49:45]
Bomani Jones
Yeah.
- [49:46]
J.A. Adande
No.
- [49:46]
Bomani Jones
And then they win this championship, and then the next year comes and they win the next championship. But it doesn't.
- [49:53]
J.A. Adande
On fumes.
- [49:54]
Bomani Jones
On fumes. I mean, the most memorable.
- [49:57]
J.A. Adande
And on the residue of being champions, right?
- [49:59]
Bomani Jones
Yes.
- [49:59]
J.A. Adande
The only thing. Sacramento was a better team, a deeper team. The Kings were better, but the Lakers won that. On the residue of being champions, there's
- [50:07]
Bomani Jones
the residue of being champions. And the most memorable game of this Lakers run in the postseason is the one that felt like it was fixed. That's not to say the game six against Sacramento was fixed, because I would never say such a thing. Tim Donaghy did say such a thing, but he is an unreliable narrator. But as one of our colleagues once said, but if there was a game that I ever thought was fixed, it would have been that one.
- [50:40]
J.A. Adande
So that game, yeah. Fishy, dubious, all of that stuff, right? And just like, oh, wow, it's going to be like that, right? You see some of the calls, you're like, okay, that's how it's going.
- [50:52]
Bomani Jones
It was some WWE shit, man. There's no other way around it.
- [50:56]
J.A. Adande
It's funny because the first year, the game five, the decided game five in the first round, like they call like two illegal defenses against the Kings or defensive valet, whatever it was called at that time, like in the first quarter. And I remember Chris Weber was looking around like, okay, and this felt like that on the other end of the court, right? Where like you couldn't look at Shaq and without a foul being called. So there was that. My thing is, everyone likes to point to the fishing in this series. The bottom line is the Kings still had Game 7 at home, in which at that time, home court in game seven, you were winning like 83% of the time. It's come down now, I think largely because of the three point variance. But back then you get a game seven at home, you're supposed to win that. And then I think they missed 13 free throws. That game was very well officiated. No one was talking about the officiating at the end of that one goes into overtime. Great game. But. But the Kings had all the chances and they just couldn't make free throws. Some people didn't want to shoot the ball.
- [51:56]
Bomani Jones
They went out license great shooters. There's kind of no way around it, the end of that game on your home court.
- [52:01]
J.A. Adande
So I don't want to hear about the refs after that season when you lose. And, and, and Doug Christie later admits to Elian Boisan, the columnist in Sacramento, that he was scared to death in that game.
- [52:10]
Bomani Jones
They were terrified. Like it was very easy to watch and see. That whole roster was terrified at the end, including their best player. Right. Like the one guy that wasn't scared was Mike Bibby. Yep, that was it.
- [52:27]
J.A. Adande
Who had made the game winning shot in game five.
- [52:29]
Bomani Jones
Right, right. Because that look, the thing about Mike Bibby was if Mike Bibby was a little bit better, Mike Bibby could have grown into all time great clutch player. And you saw it from him in college, for example. He had that. He just wasn't good enough for it to matter. But so much. But you saw guys running away from shots. You saw guys shooting air balls, as I recall, in the games that mattered. Not just at home, at home, in One of the most daunting environments in the NBA.
- [52:53]
J.A. Adande
Yeah, Bo. My head was ringing for, like, an hour after that game. It was so loud in there, and, like, my stomach was curled up. Not. I had no stake in it. You know, like, the only thing to me that made a difference was if the Lakers won, I was going to get to be at home for half of the finals instead of having to hit the road immediately. But, like, I had no, you know, real stake in it. But there was so much tension that, like, my stomach was out, and I swear my ears were ringing and I had a headache pounding. That's how loud it was in there. It was so dramatic. And I remember. So Shaq had the line the year before about expansionism. And I remember I'm walking out with Kobe. We're by the vending machines at Arco arena, and. And I'm asking him about the rivalry. And Kobe's like, rivalry? She's like, they gotta beat us first. You know the rules. So one of my favorite things about that series was Kobe and Shaq's reactions after those series were over.
- [53:50]
Bomani Jones
I mean, it was. You had to be there, man. Like, the Lakers, we saw something similar to this with LeBron, with the Heat, which I do think, because it was in the Eastern time zone, was a bit more like the sun in a heliocentric media environment in a way that the NBA, I don't think, can capture attention in the same way. But that team. Those teams mattered so much. Part of it was the Lakers. Part of it is the star. The star power of those guys, like everything else.
- [54:19]
J.A. Adande
And the drama.
- [54:20]
Bomani Jones
Yes.
- [54:20]
J.A. Adande
The interior drama.
- [54:22]
Bomani Jones
Yes. It was like.
- [54:24]
J.A. Adande
That's the thing again, like I said, the. The Thunder are very much looking like. And statistically like those Lakers, but they're nowhere near as compelling.
- [54:32]
Bomani Jones
No, they like each other. Like, you don't. You don't have the sheer force of personal. Of those two guys that you had. It's impossible in a lot of ways to recreate the circumstances that got us there. Like, it was like anybody. Perlman's book, Three Weeks, Three Ring Circus. I don't know if you read it. It was really interesting and really good. It just had. It is not a flattering portrayal of Kobe Bryant. And it was set to come out right after Kobe died. That is a really tough break because that book is full of people who could not wait to shit on Kobe Bryant page after page after page.
- [55:06]
J.A. Adande
Well, it's funny because I always wanted to do, like, that year, the 0304 year, which, again, is the year Kobe's facing a sexual assault allegation, and you've got bills in the last year of his contract, and Shaq starts the season in the training camp demanding a contract extension. All the stuff going on. And so I kind of kept detailed notes and I wanted to do a book on that year, just focusing on that year. And then I found out Phil Jackson was doing his own book about that year. So I said, well, I think that one would do a little bit better than mine. So I called it down, but I wanted to revisit it. Like, I thought it would be something that would be fun and maybe go back and talk to the people and get that benefit like you had in the last dance of the perspective and the distance and the increased honesty that comes with time. So I'd always kind of entertained thoughts of revisiting that year in a book. But then Kobe passed away and. Or died, more accurately in the helicopter crash. And again, it would not have been a flattering portrayal of Kobe. Right. With all the stuff that was going on in him. So I was like, yeah, I can't do the book the way that things went down, because you don't want to speak that way of the departed. So, yeah, the aftermath of that is funny. And kind of wrapping up the championship in 2002 was a foregone conclusion. The Western Conference finals were really to decide the championship. The Lakers go through the nets and sweep the nets. And I just remember, just kind of to make it personal. Brad Turner, who covered the Lakers at that time, Riverside Press Enterprise, now he's with the LA Times. We're back. The media hotel was the Mayor Marquis in Manhattan. And we get back and we wanted to go out, you know, after, you know, they won and we're in New York City and we just collapsed in the elevator. We were so tired that those three years of, you know, every series going all the way through June, like it takes toll on the media too.
- [57:04]
Bomani Jones
Yeah.
- [57:04]
J.A. Adande
You know, and what it takes out of you. That's why I have so much respect and admiration to LeBron for going to the Finals for eight straight years. Because the run ends the next year in the second round against the spurs. And the Lakers were just out of gas. You could just tell, like collectively all those things. And same. Same way when the Lakers lost to the mavericks in. In 20. What was it? 2012. Yeah, I guess. Or 2011, when they run 2011, when they're. When that run ended with Kobe and Pau Gasol. They'd been to three straight finals and then same Thing, you're just out of gas, man. So, man, what a ride while it lasted. But these things cannot be sustained. And, you know, it really peaked in that Game seven in Sacramento. Yeah, that was kind of the dramatic conclusion of.
- [57:53]
Bomani Jones
Yeah. Like, I think the thing that Perlman said in the epilogue of that book was the part that was interesting about writing that book is that everybody loved to talk about it, that everybody who had been around it had called, like, hey, I'm doing this book. And they just say they just couldn't get it. Like, it was a time that no matter what it was in the moment, everybody seemed to appreciate the fact that they were there and loved to reminisce on it. Whether it be J.R. ryder, whether it be Phil Jackson, whether it be Shaq. Right. Jerry west, all these people, extensively on the record, because they just love talking
- [58:21]
J.A. Adande
about that time and again. Because at the core of it, that 2001 run in the playoffs was some of the best basketball you'll see and some of the, you know, the greatest team play that you'll see. So I'm sure if you talk to those guys, you know, yeah, winning the first one is special, but that 2001, it just stayed with them. I'll just never forget that. Just that impromptu locker room conversation in Phoenix with those guys and the way they look back on that run, because lightning in a bottle seems too trite. But it was just when it all clicks and you practice and train for your whole life to hope something like that will happen, you know, and you also, you're fortunate to get to cover something like that like I did. You know, like, a lot of people never get to cover a championship team in their lives. And, you know, I got to cover multiple in la, but. But again, that run, we rarely see something like it. We saw it with Golden State the first year Kevin Durant was there, but again, it just wasn't. You didn't have that history. And as you mentioned at the very beginning, the build up to that, and you don't have that as much now because you just have so much change and you have these instant teams and things can change dramatically, quickly. I mean, I'll give the Thunder some credit in that they've had a mini buildup, but it was nothing like the buildup because the expectation from the get go, right from the moment Shaq arrived, and then disappointment after disappointment after disappointment before they finally break through in 2000, and then the benefit of that championship experience and what it means and the fact that it could have very easily a couple more shots go down for the blazers in game seven in 2000, and we get none. And instead, what we had was that three ring circus, as promo calls it.
- [60:13]
Bomani Jones
All right, Jay Adande, check out Dynastic podcast J A Adande and Chuck Todd available where you get your podcast, my brother. I appreciate you.
- [60:21]
J.A. Adande
Great reminiscing with you, bro.
- [60:23]
Bomani Jones
I appreciate it. And ladies and gentlemen, thanks so much for joining us here on the Right Time. We do this four days a week. Ryan Brumley handles everything behind the scenes. Thank you, sir. Hit the voicemail line, 323596. Remember, follow the Right time. Subscribe like, rate us, review us, give us five stars. You only give us four stars. I'm inclined to believe you are a hater. And we'll talk to you guys in a couple of days. Take it easy.