# J.A. Adande on how Shaq and Kobe Turned Chaos Into a Dynasty | 05.19

An episode of [The Right Time with Bomani Jones](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/982639043), 19 May 2026, 1 h 00 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/pscrb.fm/rss/p/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/370fc844-36bd-4f61-8b8f-b4bb010de39a/59e53e4e-bcd0-4085-80aa-b4bb01130d89/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=919a7cbe-003c-4146-b592-b4bb010de3a5

Bomani Jones is joined by J.A. Adande for Time Machine Tuesday to look back at the Shaq-Kobe Lakers three-peat and the drama behind one of the most dominant runs in NBA history. They discuss how Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant arrived in Los Angeles, why it took years for the Lakers to finally break through, and how the 2001 team became one of the most unstoppable playoff squads ever. Bomani and J.A. also revisit the tension between Shaq and Kobe, Phil Jackson’s role in holding it all together, the iconic 2000 Game 7 comeback against Portland, the 2001 destruction of the West, Allen Iverson’s Game 1 moment, and the controversial 2002 Western Conference Finals against Sacramento. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:01] Speaker 1: Wave.
[0:09] Speaker 2: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the right time presented by
[0:12] Speaker 2: FanDuel Predicts. My name is Bomani Jones. Thanks for listening
[0:15] Speaker 2: wherever you get your podcast. Thanks for watching us on YouTube. Subscribe, like,
[0:19] Speaker 2: rate us, review us, give us five stars. You only
[0:22] Speaker 2: give us four stars. I'm inclined to believe you are
[0:25] Speaker 2: a hater. It is Time Machine Tuesday. We're going to
[0:28] Speaker 2: talk about the.
[0:30] Speaker 1: Shaq-Kobe Lakers three-peat with the co-host of Dynastic, J.A. Donde.
[0:35] Speaker 1: What's going on, man?
[0:37] Speaker 3: What's going on, Bo? Fun to go back and revisit
[0:40] Speaker 3: this time and fun to be on here with you.
[0:42] Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm going to tell the people what J.A. mean
[0:44] Speaker 2: by revisit this time. We're going to talk about the
[0:46] Speaker 2: Shaq-Kobe Lakers, the buildup once we get there and everything else.
[0:50] Speaker 1: This man J.A. come on like, you know, I was
[0:51] Speaker 1: going back reading my clips for that time and you
[0:53] Speaker 1: know your boy was on top of his game. That's like,
[0:58] Speaker 1: I want to talk about the peak of the Lakers.
[1:00] Speaker 1: He's like, let's talk about the peak of the Dodgers.
[1:02] Speaker 3: The peak of me. The peak of me. Well, you know,
[1:07] Speaker 3: like I, I did some things back in that time.
[1:10] Speaker 3: But what it was, it's funny. Like, A, I was,
[1:14] Speaker 3: you know, in the midst, right in there for everything.
[1:17] Speaker 3: And 2001 in particular, that was the only time I
[1:19] Speaker 3: actually did every round with the Lakers because usually I'd
[1:23] Speaker 3: break off for a series and go do something on
[1:25] Speaker 3: the economy.
[1:25] Speaker 1: Because you were a columnist.
[1:26] Speaker 3: You know, to set up the next season. I was
[1:27] Speaker 3: a columnist, exactly. I wasn't on the beat. I was
[1:30] Speaker 3: on the beat actually in 2004, 03, 04, that crazy
[1:32] Speaker 3: year with, you know, Gary Payton and Karl Malone in
[1:37] Speaker 3: that hectic year. But, yeah, this was the first time
[1:40] Speaker 3: that I went with the Lakers all the way through
[1:44] Speaker 3: their championship run in the 2001 playoffs. So, you know,
[1:48] Speaker 3: that one in particular, which I think we're going to
[1:51] Speaker 3: focus on. Because also, like, it's kind of back in
[1:55] Speaker 3: the news because low-key, Oklahoma City this year, Might be
[1:59] Speaker 3: on a 2001 Lakers kind of run.
[2:01] Speaker 1: Right, right.
[2:02] Speaker 2: No, and look, I think the buildup to getting to
[2:05] Speaker 2: this team winning championships, I think is very much so
[2:09] Speaker 2: forgotten in the discussions that we have about them at
[2:12] Speaker 2: this point. Like, it's really interesting to look back at them, like,
[2:14] Speaker 2: to figure out Kobe's role in this and everything else.
[2:17] Speaker 2: But 1996... There was no way to really, I don't
[2:21] Speaker 2: think there was any way to truly realize they drafted Kobe,
[2:25] Speaker 2: Shaq signed in free agency, that those two were really
[2:30] Speaker 2: going to matter that much. Like, I think people forget
[2:33] Speaker 2: that Kevin Garnett was the first of this new era
[2:35] Speaker 2: of guys coming straight from high school. And he had
[2:37] Speaker 2: a pretty good year, right? But it was not, he
[2:40] Speaker 2: did not set the world on fire. And it was
[2:42] Speaker 2: a slow start. They started coming together. after the all-star
[2:45] Speaker 2: break but he was seven feet tall we're talking about
[2:48] Speaker 2: kobe at six foot six like the guys who were
[2:51] Speaker 2: doing this typically had been big men and it made
[2:53] Speaker 2: sense he was seven feet tall all right you already
[2:55] Speaker 2: had the head start a six foot six two guard
[2:57] Speaker 2: who only who went 13 in that draft that draft
[3:00] Speaker 2: was loaded but we did not go into that draft
[3:02] Speaker 2: thinking it was the all-time draft that it ultimately became
[3:06] Speaker 2: and kobe still went 13 in this but They show
[3:09] Speaker 2: up at the same time and it was a grind
[3:12] Speaker 2: for them to get to the place of being such
[3:15] Speaker 2: championship contenders. They took a lot of scars along the
[3:19] Speaker 2: way where I feel like we talk about the bad
[3:21] Speaker 2: boy Pistons doing that and we talk about Jordan doing that,
[3:24] Speaker 2: but we don't really talk about it, man.
[3:26] Speaker 1: This was a long march before they became champions.
[3:29] Speaker 3: Maybe one of the reasons we don't talk about Bo
[3:31] Speaker 3: is because we still had the last answer, right? So
[3:34] Speaker 3: it's funny that You know, the Kobe Shaq era starts.
[3:38] Speaker 3: So 1996 is also when Jordan signs that huge, that
[3:42] Speaker 3: was a huge free agency summer, right?
[3:44] Speaker 1: Yes.
[3:44] Speaker 3: Lonzo Mornings was a free agency. Shaq, like all these David,
[3:47] Speaker 3: Patrick Ewing might've been, you know, it felt like all
[3:49] Speaker 3: the David Falk guys in particular were, which Shaq was not. But,
[3:54] Speaker 3: you know, so many guys were free agents, including Michael Jordan.
[3:57] Speaker 3: Jordan signs the first of the huge contracts that, you know,
[4:01] Speaker 3: those $ 30 million plus contracts.
[4:02] Speaker 1: By the way, that nobody else got for like 10 years.
[4:05] Speaker 3: Right, right. So we get that. And the Shaq deal
[4:12] Speaker 3: felt like a big deal, right? That it felt like
[4:16] Speaker 3: it shifted some of the power. That's how big Shaq
[4:19] Speaker 3: was at that time. The Eastern Conference had been dominant,
[4:21] Speaker 3: and now this brings some balance to the force, so
[4:23] Speaker 3: to speak. where you've got Shaq in the West, Michael
[4:25] Speaker 3: Jordan in the East, and they never meet up, in
[4:27] Speaker 3: part because the Utah Jazz. Talk about two guys who
[4:31] Speaker 3: had to slog it out, a superstar combo that had
[4:33] Speaker 3: to slog it out. Karl Malone and John Stockton, who've
[4:36] Speaker 3: been together since the mid-' 80s, they're finally getting their day,
[4:40] Speaker 3: you know, and they finally reached the finals. And they
[4:42] Speaker 3: were two of the guys that kept Shaq and Kobe
[4:44] Speaker 3: from ascending early on, as did the Spurs in 99.
[4:49] Speaker 3: You know, much more veteran teams. So two things about
[4:52] Speaker 3: the league back then. It was an older league. The
[4:54] Speaker 3: average age of an NBA player is dropped by a
[4:57] Speaker 3: full year from then to now, in part because the
[4:59] Speaker 3: influx of high school guys has started coming in and
[5:02] Speaker 3: then one and done guys. And then, yeah, you had
[5:05] Speaker 3: these veteran teams. It was their turn. And it's a
[5:08] Speaker 3: shame we never got Shaq and Kobe against Jordan's Bulls.
[5:13] Speaker 3: They made it to the conference finals one year, and
[5:15] Speaker 3: I think that's when the Jazz got them one of
[5:17] Speaker 3: the times. So we don't think of that as the
[5:21] Speaker 3: same era, right? We think of those Bulls, that Bulls three-peat,
[5:25] Speaker 3: but Kobe and Shaq and a lot of the other
[5:27] Speaker 3: guys on that team, Robert Ory and Rick Fox and
[5:29] Speaker 3: Derek Fisher, a lot of the key figures were there.
[5:33] Speaker 3: The key change that started the run was the arrival
[5:36] Speaker 3: of Phil Jackson in 1999 to coach the team.
[5:39] Speaker 2: Yeah, but the 96 part is interesting because I.
[5:41] Speaker 1: Also think it's very easy to forget.
[5:43] Speaker 2: Shaq was 24 when he got to L.A. He was
[5:47] Speaker 2: only in Orlando for four years. He did not even
[5:51] Speaker 2: get to his 25th birthday on that team. So when
[5:53] Speaker 2: he shows up, he's 24, and it is a team
[5:57] Speaker 2: full of almost.
[5:58] Speaker 1: Guys, right?
[5:59] Speaker 2: Eddie Jones... Nick Van Axel, Cedric Sabalos, right? Like, it
[6:04] Speaker 2: was a bunch of guys.
[6:05] Speaker 3: Who had won a couple series on their.
[6:06] Speaker 1: Own, right? They had, right?
[6:08] Speaker 3: Including knocking off a number one seed, yeah.
[6:10] Speaker 2: They won that series in 95 against Seattle, right? I
[6:13] Speaker 2: think it's like one of the big ones that jumps out.
[6:15] Speaker 2: But they were, they had a bunch of pretty good guys,
[6:18] Speaker 2: and then they got shacked, and they still never really
[6:20] Speaker 2: got too far.
[6:21] Speaker 1: Past pretty good, right?
[6:22] Speaker 2: Like, they had some moments and times where they looked
[6:25] Speaker 2: like they really were about to make it happen. It's
[6:27] Speaker 2: not until really like 98, That Kobe becomes like a
[6:30] Speaker 2: full on competitor, like a real contributor to this team.
[6:35] Speaker 2: So they had they were super young, but still had
[6:39] Speaker 2: scars like that. That 2000 finals version of Shaquille O'Neal
[6:43] Speaker 2: is 28 years old.
[6:45] Speaker 1: Right.
[6:45] Speaker 2: Like he had just entered peak around the moment, like
[6:48] Speaker 2: when Phil Jackson gets there in 99. That is when
[6:51] Speaker 2: Shaq does this thing that we saw him do multiple
[6:53] Speaker 2: times in his career. We saw Joel Embiid do this also.
[6:56] Speaker 2: I want to say the first year that Doc Rivers
[6:57] Speaker 2: got there. That first year, let me show you what
[7:00] Speaker 2: I got. And they're never.
[7:01] Speaker 1: Quite caring as much about it after.
[7:04] Speaker 2: But after they had lost to the Jazz and they
[7:06] Speaker 2: had lost to the Spurs, right? Because their Spurs rivalry
[7:09] Speaker 2: becomes weird because it's kind of bookended. Spurs here, Spurs there,
[7:13] Speaker 2: Laker domination in the middle. But they had gone through
[7:16] Speaker 2: all those things and then it gets to 2000 and
[7:18] Speaker 2: they won, I want to say, 67 games that year.
[7:20] Speaker 2: And Shaq was unreal. It is possible that somebody played
[7:25] Speaker 2: center better than Shaquille O'Neal played in the year 99-2000.
[7:28] Speaker 2: It's just impossible to imagine if you watch Shaq as
[7:32] Speaker 2: he did it.
[7:33] Speaker 3: Bo, it's possible we weren't allowed to see it, like,
[7:36] Speaker 3: you know, because he was doing some Wilt Chamberlain stuff,
[7:38] Speaker 3: you know, and on defense, he was doing some Bill
[7:41] Speaker 3: Russell stuff. So one of my favorite moments from Shaq
[7:45] Speaker 3: defensively that time. So actually I did go on the
[7:47] Speaker 3: road with them in like January, 2000. It might've been
[7:50] Speaker 3: just cause like, Hey, these guys are pretty good. I
[7:52] Speaker 3: think they got on a winning streak. Like it was possible.
[7:54] Speaker 3: They were going to go after that Laker 33 game streak.
[7:57] Speaker 3: So they sent me on the road with them and
[8:01] Speaker 3: Milwaukee and the, the Milwaukee bucks just refused to go
[8:05] Speaker 3: into pain, you know, and Ray Allen came in one
[8:08] Speaker 3: time and shot a hook shot. Have you ever recalled
[8:11] Speaker 3: seeing Ray Allen shooting a hook shot, but that's what
[8:14] Speaker 3: they're doing. So I'm in the Bucks locker room afterward.
[8:16] Speaker 3: I go to Sam because I said, Sam, you guys
[8:18] Speaker 3: seem like you were kind of hesitant to go in
[8:20] Speaker 3: the paint there. And he goes, yeah, they got Shaq
[8:22] Speaker 3: in that motherfucker. That was the explanation. And that's what
[8:28] Speaker 3: it came down to. That's how dominant was Shaq. And
[8:31] Speaker 3: you can still see it. Even in the finals against Indiana,
[8:35] Speaker 3: there's a game where Shaq just feels like he's going
[8:37] Speaker 3: up and blocking shots at the top of the backboard.
[8:39] Speaker 3: He was monstrous on both ends.
[8:42] Speaker 1: Yeah, because.
[8:44] Speaker 2: The demerits against Shaq in the all-time ledger. Never made
[8:50] Speaker 2: first team all defense. Never won a rebounding title. Two
[8:53] Speaker 2: things that feel strange to say out loud, but part
[8:57] Speaker 2: of it, to be fair to him, there's a bit
[9:00] Speaker 2: of overlap with Dennis Rodman.
[9:02] Speaker 1: Like, there were guys who did nothing but.
[9:03] Speaker 3: Dikembe Mutombo.
[9:04] Speaker 1: Yeah, Dikembe Mutombo.
[9:05] Speaker 2: Like, guys who had no other responsibility other than getting rebounds.
[9:09] Speaker 2: And also, to be fair, one thing that interferes with
[9:11] Speaker 2: getting rebounds is when the guy who takes the most
[9:12] Speaker 2: shots on the team makes 60% of his shots. Um, that, that,
[9:15] Speaker 2: that can like cut down on the number of the
[9:17] Speaker 2: potential that you have of doing these things.
[9:20] Speaker 3: But that year, he didn't get those Moses Malone rebounds.
[9:22] Speaker 1: Right, right, right.
[9:23] Speaker 3: They throw it close, get the rebound, miss it up close,
[9:25] Speaker 3: get the rebound, put it back in. Right.
[9:27] Speaker 1: That guy did it.
[9:29] Speaker 2: He was also, but to be fair to him, he
[9:31] Speaker 2: did not make first team all defense, but he was
[9:33] Speaker 2: the second place defensive player of the year that year
[9:37] Speaker 2: in 2000.
[9:37] Speaker 1: Like he was just Shaq as a player.
[9:40] Speaker 2: I think this is also before he got like soft, big,
[9:45] Speaker 2: you go look at those clips of Shaq in his
[9:47] Speaker 2: early to mid twenties. Like when he first gets to
[9:49] Speaker 2: the Lakers, it is absurd what a physical specimen he is.
[9:53] Speaker 1: Like he is Jack diesel running.
[9:56] Speaker 2: The floor has incredible footwork, shockingly good touch around the
[10:00] Speaker 2: rim considering how bad he was at the free throw line.
[10:02] Speaker 1: But he was an athlete.
[10:05] Speaker 2: Like, the pound-for-pound athlete, we normally talk about like a
[10:07] Speaker 2: Nate Robinson type, like a 5'9 dude.
[10:09] Speaker 1: Or LeBron.
[10:10] Speaker 3: Right.
[10:11] Speaker 2: But he was a 7'1 guy in the same pound-for-pound
[10:15] Speaker 2: athlete competition.
[10:17] Speaker 3: Although I always say clearly the best version of Shaq
[10:19] Speaker 3: was this era we're talking about, you know, 99 through 2002,
[10:23] Speaker 3: et cetera. But the most exciting, the highlights were in Orlando. Yes.
[10:29] Speaker 3: And yeah, that was the physical specimen and just lean, tall, agile,
[10:34] Speaker 3: could run, jump. So that version of Shaq, which we
[10:38] Speaker 3: didn't have. And he'd also been dealing with injuries, including
[10:40] Speaker 3: his first year in L.A. So one of the years,
[10:42] Speaker 3: one of the reasons he didn't quite take off right
[10:44] Speaker 3: away was was he gets there and he's playing like
[10:47] Speaker 3: an MVP through the first couple months of the 96-97 season,
[10:51] Speaker 3: his first in L.A. And then he tears his groin.
[10:56] Speaker 3: And so it took him a while. He never quite
[10:59] Speaker 3: came back. It sort of derailed him and kind of
[11:01] Speaker 3: took him out of that year. And then physically, he
[11:05] Speaker 3: wasn't quite in shape. And then again, Phil Jackson comes
[11:09] Speaker 3: and you get a version that starts to look a
[11:11] Speaker 3: little bit more like the Orlando version.
[11:13] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[11:14] Speaker 2: The 2000 version, though, as good as he was, and
[11:18] Speaker 2: Kobe starts getting there, right? Like 2000, it starts kind.
[11:22] Speaker 1: Of feeling it.
[11:23] Speaker 2: But that year, it is very clear that Shaquille O'Neal
[11:26] Speaker 2: is the best player on that team.
[11:28] Speaker 1: The Western Conference playoffs.
[11:30] Speaker 2: bit of a slog right like they did not dominate
[11:34] Speaker 2: in the playoffs like one would expect they went i
[11:35] Speaker 2: think this is back when we still had a five
[11:37] Speaker 2: game series they went five against sacramento um they blew
[11:41] Speaker 2: phoenix away but then they had that portland series against.
[11:44] Speaker 3: Well well before we skip phoenix they're up three nothing
[11:47] Speaker 3: and then they get destroyed in game four that's right
[11:50] Speaker 3: which led to phil jackson saying hey teams that win
[11:52] Speaker 3: championships don't get blown out in a closeout game like
[11:55] Speaker 3: this yeah And then they move on to, yeah, the
[11:59] Speaker 3: Portland series, they go seven. So their record in closeout games,
[12:04] Speaker 3: you know, in early closeout opportunities, right? So 0-2 in
[12:07] Speaker 3: the first round, 1-1 in the second round, 0-2 in
[12:11] Speaker 3: the third round, and then 1-1 in the final round, right?
[12:16] Speaker 3: In the finals. So they're just a middling, if not
[12:20] Speaker 3: losing record in early closeout opportunities, which is far from dominant, right?
[12:24] Speaker 2: Yeah, dude, the Portland series, We always talk about that
[12:28] Speaker 2: team and we call them the jailblazers and everything that
[12:31] Speaker 2: went along with that. That is literally the deepest team
[12:36] Speaker 2: in the history of the NBA.
[12:38] Speaker 3: Especially the next year, right? When they get Dale Davis
[12:41] Speaker 3: and Sean Kemp.
[12:42] Speaker 2: But I think even the 99-2000 team, right? I'm going
[12:47] Speaker 2: to sort this by minutes per game. This is how
[12:52] Speaker 2: many people clock in at over 10 minutes a game
[12:55] Speaker 2: for this team. Rashid Wallace, Scottie Pippen, Steve Smith, Damon Stoudemire,
[13:00] Speaker 2: Arvita Sabonis, Detlef Schrepp, Brian Grant, Greg Anthony, Bonzi Wells,
[13:06] Speaker 2: Jermaine O'Neal, Stacey Augman.
[13:09] Speaker 1: That's 11 dudes. 11 dudes that.
[13:12] Speaker 3: Had- Got 10 plus minutes.
[13:14] Speaker 1: Yeah, and had.
[13:15] Speaker 2: Real live NBA careers, right? Like, not just guys that
[13:19] Speaker 2: got in here for a little while. If you step
[13:21] Speaker 2: it down one more, you get to a dude that
[13:23] Speaker 2: I know a lot of you ain't gonna remember, but
[13:25] Speaker 2: Gary Grant was a dude that played 10, 11.
[13:28] Speaker 1: Years in the NBA.
[13:29] Speaker 3: I forgot he was on that team.
[13:31] Speaker 2: Yeah, like, they had so many dudes. You can't typically
[13:35] Speaker 2: win that way in the NBA, right? Because guys need
[13:38] Speaker 2: more minutes than that.
[13:39] Speaker 1: But.
[13:40] Speaker 2: They were loaded and they had the Lakers.
[13:44] Speaker 3: Had them.
[13:45] Speaker 1: They had them. They're up 18 in the fourth quarter, right?
[13:49] Speaker 3: I think 18 in the third and like 15 in
[13:51] Speaker 3: the fourth maybe.
[13:52] Speaker 2: Yeah, and we've had Rashid on this show and he
[13:55] Speaker 2: blames it all on, and I quote, dumb believey.
[13:58] Speaker 1: D-U-M-B-L-E-A-V-Y. Mike Dunne leaving the head coach of Portland.
[14:02] Speaker 2: But this Lakers team looked like it was going to be, damn,
[14:06] Speaker 2: y'all got this all together and here we go.
[14:08] Speaker 1: Y'all about to blow it again?
[14:11] Speaker 3: So the weird thing with that game seven from the
[14:14] Speaker 3: Portland perspective is in the fourth quarter, they were getting
[14:16] Speaker 3: all the same shots that they had when they built
[14:18] Speaker 3: the league. You know, that Rasheed Wallace baseline turnaround, right?
[14:22] Speaker 3: Bonzi Wells was posting up. He was a matchup problem.
[14:25] Speaker 3: they're getting all the same looks and they're just not
[14:28] Speaker 3: going down. And then to me, the turnaround was Kobe,
[14:32] Speaker 3: like volleyball spikes, one of Bonzi shots. And that seemed
[14:37] Speaker 3: to trigger things. But the weird thing about that comeback
[14:39] Speaker 3: was this initially it, the Lakers, like Portland had just
[14:44] Speaker 3: stalled out and the Lakers went a couple of minutes
[14:46] Speaker 3: when they couldn't score either. And you're like, well, that
[14:48] Speaker 3: might've been their window. And then Portland just kept on
[14:50] Speaker 3: missing and kept on missing and kept on missing. And
[14:53] Speaker 3: you had that epic comeback that ended with the, obviously the,
[14:56] Speaker 3: the iconic Kobe to Shaq lob, which is probably the
[14:59] Speaker 3: most significant basket that wasn't significant. Like they were going
[15:03] Speaker 3: to win the game with or without that. But it's funny,
[15:06] Speaker 3: even Phil Jackson's not one for like hyperbole or, or
[15:09] Speaker 3: sort of poetic descriptions of things. He calls that, that
[15:12] Speaker 3: the statement play that Kobe to Shaq, cause it just,
[15:15] Speaker 3: crystallize everything that you wanted. Kobe could have shot it,
[15:18] Speaker 3: but he passed it to Shaq and Shaq gets the glory.
[15:21] Speaker 2: It was a measure of desperation or a moment of
[15:24] Speaker 2: desperation that meant that whatever the bullshit was couldn't matter
[15:29] Speaker 2: right now.
[15:30] Speaker 3: Right?
[15:31] Speaker 1: Like you think about it in that context, in that moment.
[15:34] Speaker 2: And it is also an incredibly high lob, an incredible catch,
[15:39] Speaker 2: an incredible bring down, and a classic Shaq reaction. Like
[15:42] Speaker 2: the moment it felt like, at least for them, the
[15:45] Speaker 2: moment they realized, oh, we've actually done this. You normally
[15:49] Speaker 2: see a kind of response like that from a team
[15:52] Speaker 2: after they've won a championship before, and then they can
[15:54] Speaker 2: dig into the reservoir and turn it on.
[15:56] Speaker 1: This team had never won one. And they were, I mean,
[16:00] Speaker 1: they were on the verge of a terribly embarrassing loss,
[16:04] Speaker 1: terribly embarrassing loss.
[16:06] Speaker 3: Two things. Well, one on the lob, I remember thinking
[16:09] Speaker 3: he threw it too high. Yeah. And then Shaq still
[16:11] Speaker 3: somehow went up and still got it. But at some
[16:14] Speaker 3: point when they're down and just the whole life had
[16:16] Speaker 3: been taken out of Staples center, like they're just getting
[16:19] Speaker 3: completely disrupted and just dissected. And I'm thinking this thing
[16:24] Speaker 3: is over before it began. Like I, was just sure
[16:28] Speaker 3: that there was going to be a parade in two weeks.
[16:30] Speaker 3: You know, the Lakers were going to win their championship.
[16:32] Speaker 3: They'd been that team. They'd clearly been the best team
[16:35] Speaker 3: in the league all year. And then the Blazers were
[16:38] Speaker 3: about to beat them three straight times and just destroy them.
[16:42] Speaker 3: And I remember thinking this is going to be it.
[16:44] Speaker 3: I still go back that that game, one of the
[16:48] Speaker 3: most pivotal in the modern NBA, because I think if
[16:51] Speaker 3: they don't win that year, that, They don't win the
[16:54] Speaker 3: next year. That championship resolve that you could draw upon
[16:57] Speaker 3: that you mentioned, Bo, that certainly came into play next
[17:00] Speaker 3: year when they're down to the Sacramento Kings in the
[17:03] Speaker 3: conference finals, right? But they didn't have it yet. They
[17:07] Speaker 3: gained it in this game. But they wouldn't have had
[17:10] Speaker 3: that stamp of being a championship team that they could
[17:13] Speaker 3: have drawn on the rest of the time. And I
[17:15] Speaker 3: don't think they went– I think that was the difference
[17:17] Speaker 3: between three championships with Shaq and Kobe and no championships
[17:20] Speaker 3: because if it kept not working– then one of them
[17:22] Speaker 3: got to go.
[17:23] Speaker 2: But also keep in mind, they'd already made their big
[17:26] Speaker 2: move the year before. And that's when they finally got
[17:30] Speaker 2: Glenn Rice, got Eddie Jones out to make more space
[17:32] Speaker 2: for Kobe, which, by the way, at the time for
[17:34] Speaker 2: a lot of people was like, hey, are you sure?
[17:37] Speaker 2: You sure you want to get Eddie Jones out of here?
[17:39] Speaker 2: People really liked Eddie Jones, right? Nah, they went ahead
[17:41] Speaker 2: and made that move. And it's funny, in reading Jeff
[17:43] Speaker 2: Perlman's book about that time, one thing he points out
[17:46] Speaker 2: about like you go back and talk about Kobe and
[17:48] Speaker 2: the air balls in 97 or whatever with, with, with
[17:51] Speaker 2: some time to have passed. Shaq even said in that book,
[17:54] Speaker 2: everybody that said they was mad at Kobe Shaq, like.
[17:57] Speaker 1: None of them wanted to shoot.
[17:58] Speaker 2: Not a single one of them. And especially was talking
[18:01] Speaker 2: about Eddie Jones. They felt like he did not want that.
[18:04] Speaker 1: Shot at all. Yeah.
[18:06] Speaker 3: He'd start sniping. Like it's not a coincidence that Eddie
[18:09] Speaker 3: was the one to go. Cause cause Shaq would often
[18:11] Speaker 3: be disappointed in him and their playoff shortcomings.
[18:14] Speaker 1: Was that his horse Grant?
[18:17] Speaker 2: Michael Jordan was always disappointed in Horace Grant.
[18:20] Speaker 1: That was his disappointment guy.
[18:22] Speaker 3: But Michael would say it at the podium. Yes. So
[18:27] Speaker 3: he'd give me one of my favorite quotes. So remember,
[18:30] Speaker 3: the pass is shot to seal the three-peat, the first three-peat.
[18:34] Speaker 3: Michael passed to Horace. Horace was right under the basket.
[18:36] Speaker 3: But Horace would shoot like 20% or something in the finals.
[18:40] Speaker 3: So Horace passes up the two-pointer, which would have tied
[18:43] Speaker 3: the game. All they needed was two. Horace passes out
[18:46] Speaker 3: the layup and passes out to Paxson for the three
[18:49] Speaker 3: that wins it. So Michael at the podium just couldn't
[18:53] Speaker 3: let it go. And has to mention, I guess Horace
[18:56] Speaker 3: was afraid to shoot, which is sad. Why would you think.
[19:01] Speaker 2: He just won the championship?
[19:03] Speaker 3: Celebrate!
[19:06] Speaker 1: It's not Mike.
[19:07] Speaker 3: Which is sad. Because he can't relate.
[19:10] Speaker 2: He simply could not relate to the idea that you
[19:13] Speaker 2: were afraid of it.
[19:15] Speaker 1: Right. You just didn't want it. He's like, what are
[19:18] Speaker 1: you talking about? But yeah, all of that.
[19:20] Speaker 3: But the interesting thing is that Horace becomes, you know,
[19:23] Speaker 3: one of the veteran. So one of the things that
[19:25] Speaker 3: took the Lakers, you know, got him over the hump.
[19:28] Speaker 3: Not only is Phil Jackson and his staff with all
[19:30] Speaker 3: this championship experience come in. But he brings in players
[19:33] Speaker 3: with championship experience more. So you've got Ron Harper comes in.
[19:36] Speaker 3: Horace Grant comes in. A.C. Green. So you've got all
[19:39] Speaker 3: these vets who help that team get over the hump.
[19:43] Speaker 2: Yeah, because I think something that gets lost. We call
[19:45] Speaker 2: these the Shaq-Kobe Lakers. And there's a reason we call
[19:47] Speaker 2: them the Shaq-Kobe Lakers.
[19:48] Speaker 1: Because it was... really Shaq-Kobe and a bunch of dudes.
[19:52] Speaker 2: Like, Glenn Rice, when they got him, was viewed as
[19:56] Speaker 2: an upper echelon, like, three like scoring player, but it never,
[20:00] Speaker 2: it didn't really, as the number three, it didn't really work, right?
[20:03] Speaker 2: Like he was not a guy that moved really smoothly
[20:05] Speaker 2: into that because all it really was giving you was buckets.
[20:08] Speaker 2: So all he's giving you is buckets as the number
[20:09] Speaker 2: three option that doesn't really go as well. But other
[20:11] Speaker 2: than that, 36 year old Ron Harper, 36 year old
[20:15] Speaker 2: AC Green, young Derek Fisher, Robert Oring has, you know,
[20:19] Speaker 2: because he threw that towel at Danny Ainge that time
[20:22] Speaker 2: and Danny Ainge punished him by letting him be a Laker.
[20:27] Speaker 1: A very young Tyler.
[20:28] Speaker 3: It's funny, because Ori told me once, like, that was
[20:29] Speaker 3: one of the things when he looked back on his
[20:31] Speaker 3: career that he regretted. Obviously, it was not a good look. But,
[20:34] Speaker 3: I mean, he leads such a charmed life.
[20:36] Speaker 1: Best thing he ever did. Best move he ever made.
[20:38] Speaker 3: It gives him three more rings.
[20:39] Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[20:40] Speaker 2: It gives him five more rings because he becomes champion guy,
[20:42] Speaker 2: which then makes.
[20:43] Speaker 1: Him attractive to the Spurs so that he could go
[20:46] Speaker 1: and get the two more.
[20:47] Speaker 2: But these are not great rosters when you look through
[20:50] Speaker 2: the run outside.
[20:52] Speaker 3: They were top-heavy. But, again, they were guys who... had
[20:57] Speaker 3: championship experience, which matters. And you got a guy like
[21:00] Speaker 3: Rick Fox, who's a Dean Smith product, you know, like the,
[21:03] Speaker 3: these Dean Smith guys knew what they were doing. The
[21:06] Speaker 3: ultimate example, of course, being Michael. But I always said
[21:09] Speaker 3: like the, the real testimony of the Dean Smith was
[21:11] Speaker 3: like the Joe Wolfson, the Pete Chilcutt, who would have
[21:14] Speaker 3: like lengthy NBA careers, even though they weren't as talented
[21:17] Speaker 3: as Michael. And so Rick Fox is a Dean Smith guy.
[21:21] Speaker 3: And Rick plays a key role on those teams too.
[21:23] Speaker 3: He could score a bucket here and there, including had,
[21:26] Speaker 3: had a couple of, big baskets in the big comeback
[21:28] Speaker 3: against Portland in the game seven. And then, um, didn't
[21:31] Speaker 3: mind doing the dirty work in the battles with, uh,
[21:35] Speaker 3: with Sacramento. Like he would play defense on page of
[21:38] Speaker 3: Stojakovic and he'd also just mentally mess with them too.
[21:41] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[21:41] Speaker 2: Also John Sally on the one more for you go list.
[21:44] Speaker 1: He popped up, got, got him, got him.
[21:47] Speaker 3: Right. Great guy to locker room, go-to guy in the
[21:49] Speaker 3: locker room again, because one of the all time great
[21:51] Speaker 3: quotes in the NBA. So, I mean, we loved having
[21:54] Speaker 3: those guys as media, you know, having a John Sally, his,
[21:57] Speaker 3: his time in LA was so memorable to me. Just like,
[21:59] Speaker 3: remember he was on those bulls team. So, you know,
[22:01] Speaker 3: obviously we think of him as a piston, but he
[22:04] Speaker 3: was on the 95, 96 bulls had one of the
[22:07] Speaker 3: most memorable quotes of the finals, which I don't really
[22:09] Speaker 3: want to repeat. He said on one of the off days,
[22:13] Speaker 3: and then was just great in the locker room with
[22:14] Speaker 3: the Lakers. He hasn't even played. I barely remember him.
[22:17] Speaker 3: I can't remember him anything he did on the court
[22:19] Speaker 3: with that team, but I do remember him going, spending
[22:22] Speaker 3: a lot of time in his locker.
[22:23] Speaker 2: Sally, also a pioneer of New York dudes who moved
[22:26] Speaker 2: to Atlanta and realized that they love it.
[22:29] Speaker 1: Um, like that's a, that's a, that, that's it. That's it.
[22:32] Speaker 2: That's an archetype that came to define the latter part
[22:35] Speaker 2: of the eighties that he was in.
[22:36] Speaker 1: Like he was a dude.
[22:37] Speaker 3: He was in Kenny Anderson too.
[22:39] Speaker 1: Kenny Anderson's after him. Right.
[22:41] Speaker 3: Like, like, but like, would you, would you put him
[22:43] Speaker 3: in that category? Yes.
[22:44] Speaker 1: Yes.
[22:44] Speaker 3: Kremins. Fife.
[22:45] Speaker 1: Yeah. That was Fife. Fife lived around a quarter from
[22:48] Speaker 1: my parents when he came down.
[22:49] Speaker 2: Fife and Eric Sermon are very early in that, but no,
[22:53] Speaker 2: Cremins was like, hey, man, I know players in New York.
[22:56] Speaker 2: And Cremins figured out, hey, man, I can bring them
[22:58] Speaker 2: down here. They're going to love this shit.
[23:00] Speaker 1: The ACC was all fueled by get the players from
[23:03] Speaker 1: New York at that point, get them out of trouble
[23:04] Speaker 1: or whatever it was. But Sally was one of the
[23:07] Speaker 1: very first. They retired his jersey at Georgia Tech.
[23:11] Speaker 3: Quiet. Yeah, yeah.
[23:12] Speaker 1: Like, Sally was that dude.
[23:13] Speaker 3: Stephon Marbury? Oh, yeah.
[23:14] Speaker 1: Well, Stephon, yeah. Stephon. It's a tradition unlike any other.
[23:21] Speaker 1: But we get to 2001. And to me, that year
[23:27] Speaker 1: is interesting. And I want to build this up. We'll
[23:29] Speaker 1: break in the middle and we'll talk about it.
[23:31] Speaker 2: But you tell me what it was like around the team,
[23:34] Speaker 2: because from a distance, it felt like the first time
[23:37] Speaker 2: that we on the outside truly got a handle on
[23:39] Speaker 2: the fact that Shaq and Kobe really didn't like each other.
[23:43] Speaker 2: And in particular, that Kobe thinks the Shaq is fat
[23:46] Speaker 2: and lazy.
[23:48] Speaker 3: Yeah. So this had been going on. We knew about
[23:50] Speaker 3: in LA and we would write about it. No one
[23:52] Speaker 3: was really on the record, but again, you're spending time
[23:54] Speaker 3: in the locker room. You're talking to all the players.
[23:56] Speaker 3: You're pretty plugged in at that point. And so we're
[23:59] Speaker 3: writing about it. At one point, I even tried to
[24:02] Speaker 3: like broker like a summit meeting between Shaq and Kobe
[24:04] Speaker 3: and have it be on the record. And that couldn't
[24:07] Speaker 3: come through, but it was clear. Like this was one
[24:09] Speaker 3: of the things hindering this team. And the, the, Local
[24:13] Speaker 3: people in L.A. would get mad at me for talking
[24:15] Speaker 3: about it, and they would just kind of deny it.
[24:17] Speaker 3: Everyone was living in denial, the fan base. And then
[24:20] Speaker 3: Rick Buecher does the story for ESPN Magazine. It comes
[24:23] Speaker 3: out in December or January of that season. And it's
[24:26] Speaker 3: the cover story, and Kobe just is really all out
[24:30] Speaker 3: talking about it. Like, when I read it, I reread it,
[24:32] Speaker 3: getting ready for this, and I'm like, wow. I couldn't believe, like,
[24:35] Speaker 3: how strong it came in. You know, and Buecher really
[24:38] Speaker 3: took Kobe's side. It's funny, Buecher said in a podcast
[24:41] Speaker 3: not too long ago that, one of his strategies, like,
[24:43] Speaker 3: he told Kobe after the air balls in Utah early
[24:46] Speaker 3: in his career, they're like, you know what, I like
[24:48] Speaker 3: that you had, you know, the balls to take those shots. So, like,
[24:51] Speaker 3: Buecher had access to Kobe that very few, if any,
[24:54] Speaker 3: anybody else had. Like, he had his number. He'd go
[24:56] Speaker 3: to the house. Like, so Kobe bears all to Buecher.
[25:00] Speaker 3: And you're right, Bo, the rest of the country finds
[25:02] Speaker 3: out what we've been trying to tell y'all in L.A.
[25:05] Speaker 3: that these two guys aren't getting along and they're fighting
[25:08] Speaker 3: for control of the team. And it's... Getting worse, and again,
[25:13] Speaker 3: it's nearing a breaking point. The team winds up winning
[25:15] Speaker 3: 11 fewer games than it did in the 99-2000 season.
[25:19] Speaker 3: Shaq starts off the season, I think, injured, might miss
[25:23] Speaker 3: a few games early on. Derek Fisher notably misses like
[25:27] Speaker 3: 60 games. And then he comes back in March. And noticeably,
[25:33] Speaker 3: Kobe starts missing some games with ankle injuries. And so
[25:37] Speaker 3: they go like 7-7 through the stretch through March and April.
[25:41] Speaker 3: But Kobe goes out, Derek Fisher's back, and they win
[25:46] Speaker 3: four straight games without Kobe. And now, and they're playing
[25:50] Speaker 3: really well. And it becomes apparent when Kobe comes back
[25:53] Speaker 3: that if things go sideways, it's going to be on him. Yeah.
[25:57] Speaker 3: So that kind of keeps him in line the rest
[25:59] Speaker 3: of the way, and that's what enables them to go
[26:01] Speaker 3: on this incredible run.
[26:02] Speaker 2: Yeah, like, I don't think what we could grasp from
[26:04] Speaker 2: a distance was the idea that Kobe was good enough
[26:08] Speaker 2: to where this would be even a discussion about who
[26:11] Speaker 2: would be good enough. Because again, 2000 Shaq was the
[26:14] Speaker 2: best player on earth, right? There was no question that
[26:17] Speaker 2: he was the best player on earth.
[26:18] Speaker 3: And what I remember- Imagine now Dashley needed Kobe to say,
[26:20] Speaker 3: all right, that's nice, but let me run things now. Right.
[26:23] Speaker 3: I'm going to take over from here.
[26:24] Speaker 2: But I think there are two things about Kobe that
[26:27] Speaker 2: I didn't, it was difficult for me to grasp these
[26:29] Speaker 2: things about Kobe myself in that time because he's my age, right?
[26:33] Speaker 1: And so I saw him as being- more grown than
[26:38] Speaker 1: he was.
[26:39] Speaker 3: Right.
[26:39] Speaker 1: Because I saw myself as being more grown than I was.
[26:42] Speaker 2: So I'm not like, he's not, I'm not viewing him
[26:44] Speaker 2: in the context of a young guy trying to find
[26:47] Speaker 2: his way.
[26:47] Speaker 3: Right.
[26:48] Speaker 2: Because that's not how I view myself, even though I
[26:50] Speaker 2: definitely should have, but it's Shaq, but it's Kobe coming
[26:53] Speaker 2: out and saying, Hey man, I've been working all off-season
[26:57] Speaker 2: on my game. I've been coming up with new stuff.
[27:01] Speaker 2: I want to show people what I've been doing. I've
[27:04] Speaker 2: been working to be... Kobe's soft skills were not good, right?
[27:09] Speaker 1: Like, this is why it's funny to me.
[27:10] Speaker 3: And, Bo, the key thing, like, that's a great way
[27:13] Speaker 3: to paraphrase it, but it's all first-person singular, right?
[27:16] Speaker 1: Yes.
[27:17] Speaker 3: So I wrote a story for the Sporting News in
[27:19] Speaker 3: the middle of that. I called it the Kobe quandary because, yeah,
[27:23] Speaker 3: this guy is great. He works on his game. And
[27:26] Speaker 3: I ended that story with, you know, Kobe, it's after practice,
[27:30] Speaker 3: Kobe's shooting, he's getting better, he's working, he's improving, he's dedicated,
[27:33] Speaker 3: but he's alone.
[27:34] Speaker 1: Yes.
[27:35] Speaker 3: You know, and Phil Jackson used to tell him, Kobe
[27:36] Speaker 3: wants to lead the team, but Kobe, who's going to
[27:38] Speaker 3: follow you?
[27:39] Speaker 1: Right.
[27:39] Speaker 2: And that's why when I hear people now romanticize Mamba mentality,
[27:43] Speaker 2: I'm like, guys, we're not talking about this.
[27:46] Speaker 1: Mamba mentality is great for the summer.
[27:48] Speaker 3: Right?
[27:48] Speaker 1: I'm going to keep working hard. I'm going to keep
[27:50] Speaker 1: getting better.
[27:51] Speaker 2: But everything with Kobe was, yeah, for him, the team
[27:55] Speaker 2: game was a vessel for personal expression and a personal
[27:59] Speaker 2: demonstration of what he has worked to show to the world.
[28:03] Speaker 1: It was important to him that the world see these things.
[28:05] Speaker 2: And so now he's saying these things out loud and
[28:09] Speaker 2: also implicitly, and then here come this fat motherfucker over here,
[28:13] Speaker 2: but y'all say he's supposed to be in charge.
[28:15] Speaker 1: And Kobe's Phil Jackson's saying to Kobe, well, who's going
[28:18] Speaker 1: to follow you?
[28:19] Speaker 2: And Kobe's saying, why should I follow somebody who doesn't work?
[28:23] Speaker 2: It's hard to respect somebody who doesn't work as hard
[28:25] Speaker 2: as you.
[28:26] Speaker 3: And Shaq was like- He can't make his free throws.
[28:27] Speaker 1: Right, right.
[28:28] Speaker 2: Which to Kobe is just, why don't you get out
[28:30] Speaker 2: there and shoot a thousand free throws until you start
[28:32] Speaker 2: making them, right? And so that is the backdrop coming
[28:36] Speaker 2: into this season. And they did not finish the season
[28:41] Speaker 2: with the most wins in the West.
[28:42] Speaker 1: They were second.
[28:43] Speaker 2: Sacramento was only one game below them. We were not
[28:46] Speaker 2: looking at the Lakers going into the postseason as being
[28:51] Speaker 2: a team that would dominate.
[28:54] Speaker 1: Well, what happened? Coming up next, we're going to tell you.
[29:00] Speaker 2: You can predict the playoff action all the way to
[29:02] Speaker 2: the finals with FanDuel Predicts. All you have to do
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[29:58] Speaker 1: hyphen offer hyphen terms. All right, we are back with J.A.
[30:03] Speaker 3: Adande.
[30:03] Speaker 2: Check out the podcast, Dynastic, J.A. Adande and Chuck Todd.
[30:07] Speaker 2: And so now we're talking about we have reached the
[30:09] Speaker 2: 2001 postseason for the Lakers.
[30:12] Speaker 1: It was a stumbly road.
[30:16] Speaker 2: But one thing that's interesting to look back on also,
[30:18] Speaker 2: before I forget, while we talk about Shaq and Kobe
[30:21] Speaker 2: and like the fight for who would be in charge,
[30:23] Speaker 2: It always felt to me that it's a no-brainer. The
[30:25] Speaker 2: best player on this team is Shaquille O'Neal. Shaq finished
[30:29] Speaker 2: that year with 28.7 points per game. Kobe had 28.5.
[30:34] Speaker 2: What is crazy is that Kobe took three more shots
[30:38] Speaker 2: a game than Shaq did. The year before, Shaq took
[30:41] Speaker 2: three more shots per game than Kobe did.
[30:44] Speaker 1: The all fucking dastardly. In an era that still, the
[30:49] Speaker 1: rules had not changed yet.
[30:50] Speaker 3: Right.
[30:51] Speaker 1: So we're still greatly prioritizing the big man.
[30:54] Speaker 3: Right. Basketball is still very much inside out. I will
[30:58] Speaker 3: say part of it though was Shaq, Shaq, you know,
[31:01] Speaker 3: put it all out there for that MVP season. He
[31:03] Speaker 3: was kind of content to lay back a little bit
[31:06] Speaker 3: in a regular season. Right. But not only to an extent.
[31:09] Speaker 1: Yes.
[31:10] Speaker 3: Right. He was ready to let Kobe have his shine,
[31:12] Speaker 3: but only to an extent. And then especially not once
[31:14] Speaker 3: playoff time came around. Two games that kind of preceded
[31:19] Speaker 3: and maybe precipitated this was that Game 7 comeback against
[31:24] Speaker 3: Portland in the Western Conference Finals, Kobe led the Lakers
[31:28] Speaker 3: in every major statistical category that game. And the numbers
[31:32] Speaker 3: weren't huge. It was a low-scoring game, but he led
[31:34] Speaker 3: them in points, blocks, rebounds, everything, right? And then in
[31:39] Speaker 3: the middle of the finals, Kobe misses a game because
[31:41] Speaker 3: he sprains his ankle in Game 2, I think, misses
[31:44] Speaker 3: Game 3, comes back in Game 4, Jack fouls out.
[31:48] Speaker 3: They go to overtime. And Kobe leaves. Well, I think
[31:51] Speaker 3: he scores eight points. Famous bucket he gets when he's
[31:54] Speaker 3: doing the kind of, hey, calm down. I got this. And,
[31:57] Speaker 3: you know, Brian Shaw, one of the vets on that team,
[31:59] Speaker 3: later said that that's the moment that Kobe arrived. So
[32:02] Speaker 3: even though that was Shaq's year, it also was Kobe's arrival. Yes.
[32:07] Speaker 3: So that kind of changes the mentality going into the
[32:10] Speaker 3: next season.
[32:10] Speaker 1: Yeah, Kobe's like, finally.
[32:12] Speaker 2: He's like, all right, there we go.
[32:15] Speaker 1: What I thought this was going to be two years
[32:18] Speaker 1: ago is finally taking place.
[32:21] Speaker 2: And so, like, I think it is a thing about
[32:24] Speaker 2: Kobe that I think is important to note, especially at
[32:26] Speaker 2: that point. My criticism of Scottie Pippen always is there
[32:28] Speaker 2: is no Scottie Pippen game, right? Kobe had the games
[32:32] Speaker 2: where the man was out and he's like, all right, cool.
[32:35] Speaker 1: Mom and daddy ain't here. Fine. I'll cook dinner. Don't worry.
[32:39] Speaker 1: We're not going to starve, baby.
[32:40] Speaker 3: Right.
[32:40] Speaker 1: We're going to get this going.
[32:41] Speaker 2: So they get into the old one post season and
[32:45] Speaker 2: they just start destroying people like they, it was a
[32:48] Speaker 2: run through the West.
[32:50] Speaker 1: Unlike just about anything that we had ever seen. There
[32:53] Speaker 1: are a couple of close games in there, but otherwise
[32:56] Speaker 1: it was just sheer destruction.
[32:58] Speaker 3: Yeah. So first round, it's interesting because they played Portland.
[33:02] Speaker 3: Portland had loaded up in the offseason. I remember when
[33:05] Speaker 3: they made all these moves, I was covering the U.S.
[33:08] Speaker 3: Open and all these things went down and I stopped
[33:11] Speaker 3: and wrote a column and I'm like, all right, the
[33:13] Speaker 3: only question now is where are they going to put
[33:14] Speaker 3: the banner? Because they'd taken the Lakers to seven and
[33:18] Speaker 3: now they just loaded up and then it just did
[33:21] Speaker 3: not fit the chemistry. So I went up and did
[33:23] Speaker 3: a story on the Blazers right before the regular season
[33:25] Speaker 3: ended and just what a mess it was and just
[33:28] Speaker 3: how it hadn't meshed. And people were disgruntled, and people
[33:32] Speaker 3: didn't like their roles, and Dunleavy lost control of the team,
[33:34] Speaker 3: and the players were mad at Mike Dunleavy and all
[33:36] Speaker 3: this stuff. So after taking the Lakers to seven the
[33:39] Speaker 3: year before in the conference finals, they get swept by
[33:41] Speaker 3: the Lakers in the first round. Get them out. And
[33:44] Speaker 3: then Sacramento comes in. Hold on.
[33:47] Speaker 1: Sacramento had won 50.
[33:48] Speaker 2: The Lakers won 56 games that year. Sacramento won 55,
[33:51] Speaker 2: and they had taken the Lakers to the limit the
[33:53] Speaker 2: year before.
[33:54] Speaker 3: The year before. That was 2000. Those Lakers weren't these Lakers.
[33:58] Speaker 3: These were championship-proven Lakers. And again, it all clicked, and
[34:02] Speaker 3: they just smoked them at four. Jack goes 40-20, 40-20
[34:06] Speaker 3: the first two games. Goes back-to-back Wilt Chamberlain. Like, we
[34:09] Speaker 3: hadn't seen that done.
[34:10] Speaker 2: And this is in an era where 100 points was
[34:13] Speaker 2: not happening very often.
[34:14] Speaker 1: Right.
[34:14] Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, so Shaq goes 40-20, 40-20 in the first
[34:18] Speaker 3: two games. Then they go to Sacramento, and this was interesting,
[34:21] Speaker 3: and this was one of the reasons why Shaq was
[34:24] Speaker 3: willing to let Kobe have his time to an extent.
[34:27] Speaker 3: Kobe was a lot better on the road, right? Look
[34:31] Speaker 3: at the home road splits. Shaq's numbers went down, Kobe's
[34:34] Speaker 3: numbers went up. Shaq explained, it's funny, I didn't realize
[34:37] Speaker 3: it was actually, he said this during this playoff series
[34:40] Speaker 3: to me, that a problem for him on the road
[34:43] Speaker 3: was that he couldn't sleep comfortably. Like, he had custom
[34:46] Speaker 3: beds at home. You think of a dude that size,
[34:48] Speaker 3: he's got custom beds. Now he's got to go sleep
[34:50] Speaker 3: in hotel beds. He attributed that. You know, at the time,
[34:53] Speaker 3: we were kind of dismissive. We've come to have a
[34:55] Speaker 3: better understanding of the importance of sleep. But I think
[34:57] Speaker 3: it's somewhat valid. But no matter, because you get a
[35:02] Speaker 3: maybe slight decreased version of Shaq, and you get a
[35:04] Speaker 3: Kobe who lives for those moments. Again, you think of
[35:07] Speaker 3: the Kobe games, a lot of them are on the
[35:08] Speaker 3: road in the playoffs, similar to MJ. And it peaks
[35:12] Speaker 3: with a... He goes 48 and 16. I think it
[35:17] Speaker 3: was in game four of that series. One of the
[35:19] Speaker 3: best statistical Kobe games you'll see. The game score in that,
[35:22] Speaker 3: that's a metric that takes into account all the different
[35:25] Speaker 3: categories and gives you a single number for him. So
[35:27] Speaker 3: a game score of 30 is great. 30 and above.
[35:31] Speaker 3: Kobe's game score in that game was a 43. It
[35:36] Speaker 3: might be the peak Kobe game. So the.
[35:41] Speaker 3: The kings get dismissed there's a lot of speculation that
[35:44] Speaker 3: this is it for them chris weber is going to
[35:46] Speaker 3: leave in free agency he hadn't given any indication that
[35:48] Speaker 3: azira to come back remember the maloops had that oh
[35:50] Speaker 3: yeah billboard like we'll mow your lawn yes and so
[35:54] Speaker 3: stack i remember talking to him by the bus he's
[35:56] Speaker 3: like that's it for the kings they're going back to
[35:58] Speaker 3: expansionism so they're just reveling you know creating words expansionism
[36:06] Speaker 3: to describe the state of the Kings. Of course, you know,
[36:08] Speaker 3: we'll find out that was very much not the case,
[36:11] Speaker 3: but they're gone. But then the thing that we forget, Bo,
[36:14] Speaker 3: going into the next series against the Spurs is the
[36:16] Speaker 3: Lakers were the underdogs in that. As well as they'd
[36:19] Speaker 3: been playing these first two rounds, everyone expected the Spurs
[36:23] Speaker 3: to win. They, you know, they had the number one seed.
[36:26] Speaker 3: They were a great team, and they had championship experience themselves.
[36:30] Speaker 3: As you said, the last time they faced each other
[36:33] Speaker 3: in 99, the Spurs swept the Lakers. Right. Now, a
[36:35] Speaker 3: key thing, one of the pivotal, the untold story, the
[36:39] Speaker 3: unknown story, is that so the Spurs won the championship
[36:43] Speaker 3: in 98. The Lakers are the team in 2000, but
[36:46] Speaker 3: as we saw how vulnerable they were in the 2000 playoffs,
[36:49] Speaker 3: they didn't have to play the Spurs. Why? Because Tim
[36:51] Speaker 3: Duncan hurt his knee. Pop sits him. And so they
[36:55] Speaker 3: lose in the first round to Phoenix. And Phoenix was
[36:57] Speaker 3: trying to do this small ball stuff way ahead of
[36:59] Speaker 3: its time. And that wasn't working at all. And Phoenix
[37:02] Speaker 3: just gets destroyed. But I believe if the Spurs had
[37:06] Speaker 3: played the Lakers and they'd been healthy, I think the
[37:09] Speaker 3: Spurs would have beaten that Laker team. And we'd change
[37:12] Speaker 3: the whole history. Right. But now, now that the Lakers
[37:16] Speaker 3: had that championship experience, they go down, they win game one.
[37:20] Speaker 3: Everyone's like, oh, the Spurs are going to win game two. Like,
[37:23] Speaker 3: there's no question. Like, that was the most locked, the
[37:25] Speaker 3: Spurs are going to win game two. No way the
[37:26] Speaker 3: Lakers are going to come down here and win game two.
[37:28] Speaker 3: It's a close game. Kobe hits a three from straight
[37:32] Speaker 3: away late that just, you know, the ultimate dagger shot.
[37:37] Speaker 3: And I'll never forget, we're walking to the, they're at
[37:39] Speaker 3: the Alamo Dome. We're walking. It's a long walk from
[37:42] Speaker 3: the locker rooms to where the buses used to be.
[37:44] Speaker 3: The buses would come inside the Alamo Dome. And I say, Kobe,
[37:48] Speaker 3: I think he hit an artery with that one. He
[37:50] Speaker 3: just said, let him bleed. It was so cold, but
[37:55] Speaker 3: it was true. That shot broke that version of the
[37:58] Speaker 3: Spurs because they go out to LA. The Lakers, I think,
[38:02] Speaker 3: I know the Lakers scored 111 in both of the
[38:04] Speaker 3: games in LA and the Spurs scored like 82 and 92.
[38:06] Speaker 3: Like it wasn't even close. And I remember, I think
[38:10] Speaker 3: it was game three. It was, maybe it was four.
[38:12] Speaker 3: The most bored I'd ever been at a playoff game.
[38:15] Speaker 3: So I made the mistake of, of the first two
[38:17] Speaker 3: games were in San Antonio and the TNT had the
[38:20] Speaker 3: Western Conference that year. So Barkley's there. We go up
[38:22] Speaker 3: there and he goes, hey, they're doing a roast for
[38:24] Speaker 3: me in Vegas on Saturday. You should come. So I
[38:27] Speaker 3: go up there. I go to the roast. Game three
[38:30] Speaker 3: is Friday, I think. Game four is Sunday. So Saturday night,
[38:34] Speaker 3: I go up to Vegas for the roast. Wind up
[38:35] Speaker 3: going all night. Wind up in a limo with Matt Kuchar,
[38:39] Speaker 3: the golfer. Yeah, he just come up winning the U.S. Amateur,
[38:44] Speaker 3: I think. And, yeah, very random night. But I'm out, like,
[38:48] Speaker 3: all night, literally. And then go to the airport, and
[38:52] Speaker 3: I get back, and I'm struggling. It's a day game,
[38:55] Speaker 3: and I don't even have time to take a nap.
[38:57] Speaker 3: And I'm sitting there like, why did I come back
[38:58] Speaker 3: for this? Because it just wasn't close. The team, the
[39:02] Speaker 3: Spurs just got broken.
[39:04] Speaker 1: Yeah, and this is San Antonio had the home court, right?
[39:07] Speaker 2: And I think that incarnation of the Spurs is underrated
[39:11] Speaker 2: because I think people misunderstand how good David Robinson still was.
[39:15] Speaker 2: Like he was not playing the heavy minutes at that
[39:18] Speaker 2: point after the back surgery, but all his advanced numbers
[39:21] Speaker 2: checked out higher than.
[39:22] Speaker 1: Tim Duncan at that point.
[39:23] Speaker 2: Like he was still an, a legitimate force as a
[39:27] Speaker 2: player when he was out there. So you've got Tim Duncan,
[39:30] Speaker 2: who's now moving toward MVP caliber, Tim Duncan. He'd been
[39:33] Speaker 2: a second in the MVP voting that year. They had
[39:35] Speaker 2: Derek Anderson, who was a pretty good player at that point. Now,
[39:39] Speaker 2: you know, it's a bit of a collection of.
[39:41] Speaker 1: Spursy guys, right? Like you got Steve Kerr hanging around there,
[39:44] Speaker 1: but they were still a really good team and the
[39:48] Speaker 1: Lakers were, destroyed them. An interesting quirk about the Spurs
[39:52] Speaker 1: in that run, either they were going to beat you
[39:55] Speaker 1: or you were going to destroy them. That was kind
[39:58] Speaker 1: of how it worked for most of those teams.
[40:00] Speaker 3: And in the middle of this, the Lakers, next year
[40:02] Speaker 3: they win in five games. The Lakers win eight out
[40:04] Speaker 3: of nine playoff games against the Spurs in this stretch
[40:07] Speaker 3: after having been swept by them. The Lakers, they were
[40:10] Speaker 3: just on one. They shot 44% from three in this series.
[40:13] Speaker 3: Derek Fisher, 15 to 20. So the numbers weren't big, right?
[40:16] Speaker 3: Because of the way the game was played. but the percentage.
[40:19] Speaker 3: So Derek Fisher shoots 75% from three, 15 for 20
[40:22] Speaker 3: in the series, right? Like that's how much they were on.
[40:25] Speaker 3: And it's funny, this team, this run became sort of
[40:29] Speaker 3: the ultimate example of, you know, flipping the proverbial switch, right?
[40:33] Speaker 3: Because they were not, they were a good team, but
[40:35] Speaker 3: they were not a great team. They were not a
[40:37] Speaker 3: historically great team during the regular season. And then this
[40:41] Speaker 3: is one of the great playoff runs that you'll ever see.
[40:43] Speaker 3: And the funny thing is that it kind of lulled
[40:45] Speaker 3: the Laker fans into thinking that this team could do
[40:47] Speaker 3: it at any point. And I remember in the 2004 season,
[40:51] Speaker 3: I wound up before a game in Phoenix and it
[40:53] Speaker 3: was Rick Fox, Kobe, I think Derek Fisher. Somehow we
[40:57] Speaker 3: started talking about that 2001 run. And it was just
[41:00] Speaker 3: understood that that's the type of thing that could never
[41:02] Speaker 3: be repeated. Right. It just all came together in a
[41:04] Speaker 3: way like as professional athletes, you know, you could easily
[41:08] Speaker 3: go your whole career and never find a groove like this.
[41:11] Speaker 3: And it just happened. And they understood how rare it
[41:14] Speaker 3: was and how special it was. And so when it happens,
[41:19] Speaker 3: They just look back fondly on it because they were like,
[41:21] Speaker 3: you just don't get those. And it happened then.
[41:24] Speaker 2: I mean, they just ran through and swept the first
[41:27] Speaker 2: three series. They were so good that we treat Allen
[41:32] Speaker 2: Iverson and those Sixers winning game one like he won
[41:36] Speaker 2: the championship.
[41:38] Speaker 1: Like winning one game validated a career that can be
[41:43] Speaker 1: very difficult to validate.
[41:45] Speaker 3: Right. Right.
[41:46] Speaker 1: And people did not. And people like him.
[41:48] Speaker 3: Validated his MVP. Yes. Yes.
[41:50] Speaker 2: And people like him a lot more now than they
[41:52] Speaker 2: did at the time. There was a much more polarizing
[41:54] Speaker 2: figure in real time. Allen Iverson was that he is
[41:56] Speaker 2: right now. But that team was so good that losing
[41:59] Speaker 2: that one game, the only game they lost in the playoffs.
[42:03] Speaker 2: It made Iverson.
[42:04] Speaker 1: That's all it took. Man, remember that time Iverson won?
[42:06] Speaker 1: Can you imagine?
[42:07] Speaker 3: Stepped over Tyronn Lue?
[42:08] Speaker 1: Yeah, can you imagine if James Harden got one playoff,
[42:11] Speaker 1: I mean, one win in the finals, and we were like, see?
[42:14] Speaker 1: Told you.
[42:15] Speaker 3: What? And winning game one, right, at that. Right. That's
[42:19] Speaker 3: the only win is game one.
[42:21] Speaker 1: In game one. Now, of course, there wasn't another. What
[42:23] Speaker 1: was the other team?
[42:25] Speaker 2: The 83 Sixers had the one loss, and I want
[42:27] Speaker 2: to say one of those Kevin Durant Warriors teams.
[42:29] Speaker 1: Ran through the first.
[42:30] Speaker 3: Year with kevin durant they went all the way and
[42:32] Speaker 3: remember lebron hadn't lost in the east right up until
[42:35] Speaker 3: the finals and then the warriors we thought they were
[42:37] Speaker 3: going to run the table they lose game four it
[42:40] Speaker 3: took a all-time like we we saw the best the
[42:43] Speaker 3: calves could possibly play in a game four i think
[42:45] Speaker 3: they're like a missed free throw or two away from
[42:47] Speaker 3: scoring 50 in the first quarter right right so and
[42:50] Speaker 3: like that was the only way you're going to beat
[42:52] Speaker 3: those warriors you're going to have to had 50 point
[42:54] Speaker 3: quarters to get them down by like 30. And then
[42:56] Speaker 3: the Warriors still, the funny thing is in that third quarter, that,
[42:59] Speaker 3: that game, the Warriors made on a little run. People
[43:02] Speaker 3: are like, they might do this. Right. Like that's how
[43:04] Speaker 3: highly we thought of those Warriors. But yeah. And to me,
[43:08] Speaker 3: the only reason we, we, the, the Lakers lost that
[43:11] Speaker 3: first game was they had that long layout because it
[43:14] Speaker 3: was sweeping everybody. The Eastern conference finals went seven. And then,
[43:19] Speaker 3: you know, the rest versus rest argument, And so it's
[43:22] Speaker 3: funny because when the Lakers won, so they were running
[43:26] Speaker 3: my columns. We were doing an exchange with John Smallwood
[43:29] Speaker 3: of the Philadelphia Daily News. So my column was running
[43:31] Speaker 3: in Philly. Smallwood's column was also running in L.A. And
[43:34] Speaker 3: so when I... You know, when the matchup was set,
[43:38] Speaker 3: I was like, all right, now we know who the
[43:39] Speaker 3: Lakers are going to sweep in the finals. You know,
[43:41] Speaker 3: because that's how dominant, you know, now we've got the details.
[43:44] Speaker 3: We know they're going to sweep. Now we know who
[43:46] Speaker 3: they're going to sweep. And so the Philly fans were
[43:48] Speaker 3: mad at that. They were sending me all these emails. Then,
[43:50] Speaker 3: of course, Sixers win game one. And I get all, oh,
[43:53] Speaker 3: what do you say now? What about your Lakers? And
[43:56] Speaker 3: then as the series went on and the Lakers are
[43:58] Speaker 3: winning and winning and winning. And it's funny because. The
[44:00] Speaker 3: Sixers and Brown and Larry Brown and Allen Ivers kept saying, like, oh,
[44:04] Speaker 3: we're playing with heart. We're playing with heart. They kept
[44:05] Speaker 3: losing that. So I wrote, hey, sooner or later, it
[44:08] Speaker 3: ain't about heart. It's about winning these games. And now
[44:10] Speaker 3: the Philly fans, being Philly fans, they're agreeing. They're like, yeah,
[44:13] Speaker 3: that's right. You tell them. They started turning on their team.
[44:18] Speaker 3: And so Matt Geiger was the backup center on that team.
[44:22] Speaker 3: He had missed, I think, the first couple games of
[44:24] Speaker 3: knee injuries. So I'm in the stands in Philly. I
[44:26] Speaker 3: went up to see someone I knew. And I'm talking
[44:29] Speaker 3: to them before the game and Geiger is like stretching
[44:31] Speaker 3: out his knee on the on the scorer's table. And
[44:34] Speaker 3: the Philly fans are like, yeah, that's right, Geiger. Stretch
[44:37] Speaker 3: out that knee, you pussy. This is like you're supposed
[44:42] Speaker 3: to be supporting your team. So as the series going on,
[44:47] Speaker 3: you know, and Shaq is just like pounding away. on
[44:53] Speaker 3: Dikembe Mutombo, who was the defensive player of the year,
[44:55] Speaker 3: is that my memory of that is Shaq one time
[44:58] Speaker 3: just like turns, elbows flying, hits Dikembe in the nose
[45:02] Speaker 3: with the ball and just like goes through him and scores.
[45:05] Speaker 3: Like he was going through Dikembe. Robert Ory had one
[45:08] Speaker 3: of his Robert Ory shots, not quite as dramatic as
[45:11] Speaker 3: the more memorable ones. And it, you know, just by
[45:14] Speaker 3: game three, it's just feeling inevitable, you know, four and
[45:18] Speaker 3: the Lakers went in five and, The interesting thing with that, though,
[45:22] Speaker 3: there's a lot going on behind the scenes. So there's
[45:24] Speaker 3: that iconic shot of Kobe wearing the Jeff Hamilton leather
[45:27] Speaker 3: jacket in the showers with the trophy that everyone likes
[45:29] Speaker 3: to recreate. And they think it's like this great moment, like, oh,
[45:33] Speaker 3: you know, I'm walking the show. Like, you didn't want
[45:35] Speaker 3: to be Kobe in that moment. If you look at him,
[45:37] Speaker 3: he's sort of, he doesn't look like a guy that
[45:39] Speaker 3: just won a championship. The only indication that he just
[45:42] Speaker 3: won a championship is the Larry O'Brien trophy sitting there.
[45:44] Speaker 3: But he was dealing with a lot of stuff and
[45:46] Speaker 3: he later admitted, or talked to Bill Plasky about the
[45:50] Speaker 3: fact that it was difficult for him. He called it
[45:53] Speaker 3: bittersweet because he's back in Philly, in his town, and
[45:58] Speaker 3: his family isn't there. Right.
[46:00] Speaker 1: And he's getting booed.
[46:02] Speaker 3: Yeah, he's getting booed. But more importantly, the family members
[46:06] Speaker 3: aren't there to see it because there'd been the split
[46:09] Speaker 3: because of the marriage to Vanessa, which, you know, the
[46:12] Speaker 3: family took him a long time to come around on,
[46:15] Speaker 3: and they weren't quite there yet. So Kobe... A, I
[46:19] Speaker 3: think he thought this would be his championship. He'd be
[46:21] Speaker 3: the Finals MVP. To his credit, he had deferred to
[46:26] Speaker 3: Shaq when necessary because he recognized that that was the
[46:29] Speaker 3: path to win a championship. And so I think he's
[46:33] Speaker 3: a little disappointed at the fact that this wasn't his
[46:36] Speaker 3: Finals MVP, that he only had the Larry O'Brien and
[46:38] Speaker 3: not what would become the Bill Russell Finals MVP.
[46:42] Speaker 2: If I'm not mistaken, it's not just that he didn't
[46:43] Speaker 2: win Finals MVP. I don't think he got a vote.
[46:45] Speaker 1: And they were....
[46:48] Speaker 2: As close to equally as good as one could ask
[46:51] Speaker 2: for two people to be under those circumstances.
[46:53] Speaker 1: Even the advanced numbers bear out. Like, win shares per 48.
[46:56] Speaker 3: In that series?
[46:57] Speaker 2: Win shares per 48 in the, I'll say this, for
[46:59] Speaker 2: the whole postseason. Win shares per 48,. 260 and. 260. Like,
[47:06] Speaker 2: that's how in lockstep they were for that whole postseason.
[47:08] Speaker 3: But I think, Kobe, a lot of it was more
[47:10] Speaker 3: in that Sacramento and the.
[47:11] Speaker 1: San Antonio series. Yeah, that's fair. That's right, because he
[47:13] Speaker 1: did dial it back. He did dial it back. I
[47:15] Speaker 1: do remember that. And the Nets series the following year.
[47:19] Speaker 3: Yeah, but he does get kind of the series icer.
[47:23] Speaker 3: So the crazy thing, I was looking in the San
[47:25] Speaker 3: Antonio series, he took 20 more field goal attempts than Shaq.
[47:29] Speaker 3: But again, Shaq was content with that. A, they started
[47:32] Speaker 3: on the road. Kobe's better on the road. B, they
[47:35] Speaker 3: had the twin towers of Dave Robinson and Tim Duncan.
[47:38] Speaker 3: It wasn't as easy for Shaq to dominate against San Antonio.
[47:41] Speaker 3: So this is also when Shaq... So Shaq wants to
[47:44] Speaker 3: encourage Kobe... to play the way that he'd been playing
[47:47] Speaker 3: in those playoffs. So he starts saying stuff like Kobe's
[47:50] Speaker 3: my idol. You know, I love the way he's playing.
[47:53] Speaker 3: So he, he, he was, it just was all working
[47:58] Speaker 3: and clicking. And Phil at the end of the, the,
[48:01] Speaker 3: the final says that it was in some ways his
[48:04] Speaker 3: most satisfying, but also his most difficult of his championships.
[48:08] Speaker 3: So this was number at this point, number eight for
[48:11] Speaker 3: Phil Jackson. And you know, he, It was challenging because
[48:15] Speaker 3: there had just been this tension all year. So Shaq
[48:17] Speaker 3: was mad at Kobe. Kobe was mad at Shaq. They
[48:19] Speaker 3: were both mad at Phil. Shaq wanted Phil to say, hey, Kobe,
[48:24] Speaker 3: dial it down. Let's run the offense through Shaq. Kobe
[48:28] Speaker 3: wanted Phil to acknowledge him, right? And recognize that, hey,
[48:31] Speaker 3: this guy's putting in all the work and this guy's
[48:33] Speaker 3: more disciplined. Maybe we should give him more of the
[48:35] Speaker 3: share of the offense. And what Phil did not do,
[48:40] Speaker 3: Phil's response was, you know, laissez-faire. So he let the
[48:43] Speaker 3: guys resolve it and it did work out. But then,
[48:45] Speaker 3: you know, Phil liked to poke people through the media
[48:47] Speaker 3: rather than through direct confrontation. And Kobe didn't really appreciate that.
[48:51] Speaker 3: In fact, when Phil came back a few years later
[48:54] Speaker 3: after having written that book in which he called kobe
[48:57] Speaker 3: uncoachable yes kobe is like all right we can do
[48:59] Speaker 3: this but i don't want you criticizing me publicly and
[49:03] Speaker 3: if you notice the second stint that phil was in
[49:05] Speaker 3: la he never said a bad word to kobe in
[49:08] Speaker 3: the media because they had this agreement which i got
[49:10] Speaker 3: him to confess to finally on the last day before
[49:13] Speaker 3: he left in the second.
[49:14] Speaker 2: Step And then they win this championship, and then the
[49:18] Speaker 2: next year comes, and they win the next championship, but
[49:22] Speaker 2: it doesn't... On fumes.
[49:24] Speaker 1: On fumes. I mean, the most memorable.
[49:26] Speaker 3: And on the residue of being champions, right? Yes. The
[49:29] Speaker 3: only thing... Sacramento was a better team. A deeper team.
[49:32] Speaker 3: The Kings were better, but the Lakers won that on
[49:34] Speaker 3: the residue of being champions.
[49:36] Speaker 2: There's the residue of being champions, and the most memorable
[49:40] Speaker 2: game of this Lakers run in the postseason is the
[49:46] Speaker 2: one that felt like it was fixed. That's not to
[49:50] Speaker 2: say the game six against Sacramento was fixed because I
[49:53] Speaker 2: would never say such a thing. Tim Donaghy did say
[49:56] Speaker 2: such a thing, but he is an unreliable narrator.
[49:58] Speaker 1: But as one of our colleagues once.
[50:00] Speaker 2: Said, but if there was a game that I ever
[50:04] Speaker 2: thought was fixed, it would have been that one.
[50:09] Speaker 3: So that game, yeah. Fishy, dubious, all of that stuff, right?
[50:16] Speaker 3: And just like, oh, wow, it's going to be like that, right?
[50:18] Speaker 3: You see some of the calls, you're like, okay, that's
[50:21] Speaker 3: how it's going down.
[50:22] Speaker 1: It was some WWE shit, man. There's no other way
[50:24] Speaker 1: around it.
[50:25] Speaker 3: It's funny because the first year, the game five, the
[50:29] Speaker 3: decided game five in the first round, they call two
[50:33] Speaker 3: illegal defenses against the Kings or defensive outlet, whatever it
[50:38] Speaker 3: was called at that time. Like in the first quarter,
[50:41] Speaker 3: and I remember Chris Webber was looking around like, okay.
[50:44] Speaker 3: And this felt like that on the other end of
[50:45] Speaker 3: the court, right? Where like you couldn't look at Shaq
[50:48] Speaker 3: and without a foul being called. So there was that.
[50:51] Speaker 3: My thing is everyone likes a point to the fishing
[50:52] Speaker 3: in this series. The bottom line is the Kings still
[50:55] Speaker 3: had game seven at home in which at that time,
[50:59] Speaker 3: home court in game seven, you were winning like 83%
[51:02] Speaker 3: of the time. It's come down now, I think largely
[51:04] Speaker 3: because of the three-point variance. But back then, you get
[51:07] Speaker 3: a game seven at home, you're supposed to win that.
[51:10] Speaker 3: And then I think they missed 13 free throws. That
[51:13] Speaker 3: game was very well officiated. No one was talking about
[51:15] Speaker 3: the officiating at the end of that one. Goes into overtime.
[51:18] Speaker 3: Great game. But the Kings had all the chances, and
[51:21] Speaker 3: they just couldn't make free throws. Some people didn't want
[51:24] Speaker 3: to shoot the ball. They went out like some suckers.
[51:27] Speaker 3: There's kind of no way around it.
[51:29] Speaker 1: The end of that game.
[51:29] Speaker 3: On your own court. So I don't want to hear
[51:31] Speaker 3: about the refs after that season. And Doug Christie later
[51:35] Speaker 3: admits to Elian Boisan, the columnist in Sacramento, that he
[51:38] Speaker 3: was scared to death in that game.
[51:40] Speaker 1: They were terrified.
[51:41] Speaker 2: Like it was very easy to watch and see that
[51:46] Speaker 2: whole roster was terrified at the end, including their best player.
[51:51] Speaker 3: Right.
[51:52] Speaker 1: Like the one guy that wasn't scared was Mike Biddy.
[51:55] Speaker 3: Yep.
[51:56] Speaker 1: That was it.
[51:57] Speaker 3: Who had made the game-winning shot in game five.
[51:59] Speaker 1: Right, right. Because, look, the thing about Mike Bibby was
[52:01] Speaker 1: if Mike Bibby.
[52:02] Speaker 2: Was a little bit better, Mike Bibby could have grown
[52:03] Speaker 2: into being like an all-time great clutch player.
[52:06] Speaker 1: And you saw it from him in college, for example.
[52:08] Speaker 1: He had that. He just wasn't good enough for it
[52:10] Speaker 1: to matter but so much. But you saw guys running
[52:13] Speaker 1: away from shots.
[52:14] Speaker 2: You saw guys shooting air balls, as I recall, in
[52:17] Speaker 2: the games that mattered.
[52:18] Speaker 1: Not just at home. At home in one of the
[52:20] Speaker 1: most daunting environments in the NBA.
[52:22] Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. Bo, my head was ringing for like an
[52:27] Speaker 3: hour after that game. It was so loud in there.
[52:30] Speaker 3: And like my stomach was curled up. I had no
[52:32] Speaker 3: stake in it. You know, like the only thing to
[52:34] Speaker 3: me that made a difference was if the Lakers won,
[52:37] Speaker 3: I was going to get to be at home for
[52:38] Speaker 3: half of the finals instead of having to hit the
[52:40] Speaker 3: road immediately. But like I had no, you know, real
[52:43] Speaker 3: stake in it. But there was so much tension. that
[52:47] Speaker 3: like my stomach was out and I swear my ears
[52:49] Speaker 3: were ringing and I had a headache pounding. That's how
[52:51] Speaker 3: loud it was in there. Uh, it was so dramatic. And,
[52:55] Speaker 3: and I remember, so Shaq had the line the year
[52:57] Speaker 3: before about expansionism. And I remember I'm walking out with Kobe.
[53:01] Speaker 3: We're by the vending machines at Arco arena. And, and
[53:05] Speaker 3: I'm asking him about the rivalry. And, Kobe's like, rivalry?
[53:08] Speaker 3: She's like, they got to beat us first. You know
[53:10] Speaker 3: the rules. So one of my favorite things about that
[53:14] Speaker 3: series was Kobe and Shaq's reactions after those series were over.
[53:19] Speaker 1: I mean, it was... You had to be there, man. Like,
[53:23] Speaker 1: the Lakers.
[53:25] Speaker 2: We saw something similar to this with LeBron with the heat,
[53:27] Speaker 2: which I do think because it was in the Eastern
[53:29] Speaker 2: time zone was a bit more like the sun in
[53:32] Speaker 2: a heliocentric media environment in a way that the NBA,
[53:35] Speaker 2: I don't think can capture attention in the same way.
[53:37] Speaker 1: But that team, those teams mattered so much. Part of
[53:42] Speaker 1: it was the Lakers.
[53:43] Speaker 2: Part of it is the star, the star power of
[53:46] Speaker 2: those guys, like everything else.
[53:48] Speaker 3: And the drama. Yes. Interior drama. Yes.
[53:53] Speaker 1: It was like, that's the thing.
[53:54] Speaker 3: Again, like I said, the Thunder are very much looking
[53:57] Speaker 3: like and statistically like those Lakers, but they're nowhere near
[54:01] Speaker 3: as compelling.
[54:01] Speaker 1: No, they like each other.
[54:03] Speaker 2: Like you don't, you don't have the sheer force of
[54:05] Speaker 2: personality of those two guys that you had. It's impossible
[54:09] Speaker 2: in a lot of ways to recreate the circumstances. that
[54:14] Speaker 2: got us there like it was like anybody Perlman's book
[54:16] Speaker 2: Three Wings Circus I don't know if you read it
[54:18] Speaker 2: it was really interesting and really good it just had
[54:21] Speaker 2: it is not a flattering portrayal of Kobe Bryant and
[54:23] Speaker 2: it was set to come out right after.
[54:25] Speaker 1: Kobe died that is a really tough break.
[54:29] Speaker 2: Because that book is full of people who could not
[54:31] Speaker 2: wait to shit on Kobe Bryant page after page after page.
[54:36] Speaker 3: Well it's funny because I always wanted to do like
[54:38] Speaker 3: that year the 0304 year Uh, which again is the
[54:42] Speaker 3: year Kobe's facing a sexual assault allegation and, and you've
[54:46] Speaker 3: got bills in the last year of his contract and,
[54:49] Speaker 3: and Shaq starts the season in the training camp demanding
[54:52] Speaker 3: a contract extension, all the stuff going on. And, um,
[54:57] Speaker 3: So I kind of kept detailed notes and I wanted
[54:59] Speaker 3: to do a book on that year, just focusing on
[55:01] Speaker 3: that year. And then I found out Phil Jackson was
[55:04] Speaker 3: doing his own book about that year. So I said, well,
[55:06] Speaker 3: I think that one would do a little bit better
[55:08] Speaker 3: than mine. So I called it down. But I wanted
[55:10] Speaker 3: to revisit it. Like I thought it would be something
[55:12] Speaker 3: that would be fun and maybe go back and talk
[55:14] Speaker 3: to the people and get that benefit like you had
[55:16] Speaker 3: in The Last Dance. So the perspective and the distance
[55:19] Speaker 3: and the increased honesty that comes with time. So I'd
[55:22] Speaker 3: always kind of entertain thoughts of revisiting that year in
[55:25] Speaker 3: a book. But then Kobe passed away and died more
[55:31] Speaker 3: accurately in the helicopter crash. And again, it would not
[55:36] Speaker 3: have been a flattering portrayal of Kobe, right? With all
[55:39] Speaker 3: the stuff that was going on to him. So I
[55:40] Speaker 3: was like, yeah, I can't do the book, you know,
[55:43] Speaker 3: the way that things went down because, you know, you
[55:47] Speaker 3: don't want to speak that way of the departed. So yeah,
[55:50] Speaker 3: the aftermath of that. It's funny, and kind of wrapping up,
[55:54] Speaker 3: you know, that the championship in 2002 was a foregone conclusion, right?
[55:58] Speaker 3: The Western Conference Finals were really to decide the championship.
[56:01] Speaker 3: The Lakers go through the nets and sweep the nets.
[56:03] Speaker 3: And I just remember, just kind of to make it personal,
[56:09] Speaker 3: Brad Turner, who covered the Lakers at that time, Riverside
[56:11] Speaker 3: Press Enterprise, now he's with the LA Times. We're back,
[56:14] Speaker 3: the media hotel was the Marriott Marquis in Manhattan. And
[56:17] Speaker 3: we get back, and we wanted to go out, you know, after...
[56:21] Speaker 3: You know, they won and we're in New York City
[56:23] Speaker 3: and we just collapsed in the elevator. We were so
[56:25] Speaker 3: tired that those three years of, you know, every series
[56:30] Speaker 3: going all the way through June, like it takes toll
[56:32] Speaker 3: on the media, too. Yeah. You know, and what it
[56:35] Speaker 3: takes out of you. That's why I have so much
[56:38] Speaker 3: respect and admiration to LeBron for going to the finals
[56:40] Speaker 3: for eight straight years. Because the run ends the next
[56:44] Speaker 3: year in the second round against the Spurs, and the
[56:48] Speaker 3: Lakers were just out of gas. You could just tell, like, collectively,
[56:52] Speaker 3: all those things. And same way when the Lakers lost
[56:54] Speaker 3: to the Mavericks in 2012, I guess, or 2011. 2011. 2011,
[57:01] Speaker 3: when that run ended with Kobe and Pau Gasol, they'd
[57:05] Speaker 3: been to three straight finals. And then, same thing. You're
[57:07] Speaker 3: just out of gas, man. So... Man, what a ride
[57:11] Speaker 3: while it lasted, but these things cannot be sustained. And,
[57:16] Speaker 3: you know, it really peaked in that game seven in Sacramento. Yeah,
[57:20] Speaker 3: that was kind of the dramatic conclusion of it.
[57:23] Speaker 2: Yeah, like I think the thing that Perlman said in
[57:24] Speaker 2: the epilogue of that book was the part that was
[57:28] Speaker 2: interesting about writing that book is that everybody loved to
[57:30] Speaker 2: talk about it. that everybody who had been around it called, like, hey,
[57:33] Speaker 2: I'm doing this book, and they just couldn't get it. Like,
[57:36] Speaker 2: it was a time that no matter what it was
[57:38] Speaker 2: in the moment, everybody seemed to appreciate the fact that
[57:41] Speaker 2: they were there and loved to reminisce on it, whether
[57:43] Speaker 2: it be J.R. Ryder, whether it be Phil Jackson, whether
[57:46] Speaker 2: it be Shaq, right, Jerry West, all these people extensively
[57:49] Speaker 2: on the record because they just loved talking about that time.
[57:52] Speaker 3: And, again, because at the core of it, that 2001
[57:55] Speaker 3: run in the playoffs– was some of the best basketball
[57:58] Speaker 3: you'll see and some of the greatest team play that
[58:01] Speaker 3: you'll see. So I'm sure if you talk to those guys,
[58:05] Speaker 3: you know, yeah, winning the first one is special, but
[58:08] Speaker 3: that 2001, it just stayed with them. I'll just never
[58:12] Speaker 3: forget that, just that impromptu locker room conversation in Phoenix
[58:16] Speaker 3: with those guys and the way they looked back on
[58:18] Speaker 3: that run because lightning in a bottle seems too trite,
[58:22] Speaker 3: but it was just when it all clicks. And you
[58:27] Speaker 3: practice and train for your whole life to hope something
[58:30] Speaker 3: like that will happen. You know, and you also, you're
[58:34] Speaker 3: fortunate to get to cover something like that, like I did.
[58:37] Speaker 3: You know, like a lot of people never get to
[58:39] Speaker 3: cover a championship team in their lives. You know, I
[58:42] Speaker 3: got to cover multiple in LA, but again, that run,
[58:47] Speaker 3: you know, we rarely see something like it. We saw
[58:49] Speaker 3: it with Golden State, you know, the first year Kevin
[58:53] Speaker 3: Durant was there. But again, it just wasn't, you didn't
[58:56] Speaker 3: have that history. And as you mentioned at the very beginning,
[58:59] Speaker 3: the buildup to that, you know, and you don't have
[59:04] Speaker 3: that as much now because you just have so much
[59:06] Speaker 3: change and you have these instant teams and things can
[59:09] Speaker 3: change dramatically. quickly. I mean, I'll give the Thunder some
[59:12] Speaker 3: credit in that they've had a mini buildup, but it
[59:14] Speaker 3: was nothing like the buildup because the expectation from the get-go, right,
[59:19] Speaker 3: from the moment Shaq arrived and then disappointment after disappointment
[59:22] Speaker 3: after disappointment before they finally break through in 2000 and
[59:25] Speaker 3: then the benefit of that championship experience and what it means.
[59:29] Speaker 3: And the fact that it could have very easily, a
[59:32] Speaker 3: couple more shots go down for the Blazers in game
[59:35] Speaker 3: seven in 2000 and we get none. And instead what
[59:38] Speaker 3: we had was that, that three ring circus as promo called.
[59:43] Speaker 1: All right.
[59:43] Speaker 2: Jay Adande, check out dynastic podcast, Jay Adande and Chuck Todd.
[59:47] Speaker 1: Available where you get your podcast. My brother, I appreciate you.
[59:51] Speaker 3: Great reminiscing with you both.
[59:52] Speaker 1: I appreciate it.
[59:53] Speaker 2: And ladies and gentlemen, thanks so much for joining us
[59:55] Speaker 2: here on the right time. We do this four days
[59:57] Speaker 2: a week, Ryan Brumley handles everything behind the scenes.
[1:00:00] Speaker 1: Thank you, sir.
[1:00:00] Speaker 2: Hit the voicemail line 323-596-7767. Remember, follow the right time. Subscribe, like,
[1:00:08] Speaker 2: rate us, review us, give us five stars. You only
[1:00:10] Speaker 2: give us four stars. I'm inclined to believe you are
[1:00:13] Speaker 2: a hater.
[1:00:13] Speaker 1: We'll talk to you guys in a couple of days.
[1:00:15] Speaker 1: Take it easy.

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