Interview with Roland Lazenby, Author of 'Showboat'

       Why Kobe Bryant?

He was a player I first became interested in years ago, in 1996 while writing about Jordan. I decided to take a look at the new generation of players coming into the league to see which ones might inherit the mantle. He wasn’t a prime player as a rookie, but he stood out because of his immense work ethic. After I finished Michael Jordan, The Life, I began looking for another subject to write about. Sonny Vaccaro, the basketball kingmaker, suggested Bryant. “He’s the most complicated guy in the NBA,” Vaccaro said. He was right.

      How long did the book take to write?

      The publisher wanted me to write it in 10 months. I finished it in 14, writing seven days a week, 10-14 hours a day. It was quite a grind, but his story was fascinating to me.

     

      Bryant transcends his sport yet he seems an introvert personality. Was it hard to get people to talk about him?

      Yes, some people were fearful of upsetting him, just as some media personalities have admitted being fearful of having me on their shows because they don’t want to anger him. It’s an independent look, a biography, which can be difficult for huge stars. They all like to control their narrative, but Kobe really wants to control his narrative.

      Did your opinion of Bryant change as you wrote the book and got to the end?

      It varied depending on what part of the book I was writing. I wrote a book about his adjustment to the NBA in 1999, called Mad Game, The NBA Education of Kobe Bryant, when he was 19 to 21. I thought I understood him. I had no idea.

      Do you feel the criticism that Bryant did not play well with others (O'Neal in particular) ring true?

      In the book, I lay out the criticisms over that. Jordan caught the same flak. It’s a function of their skill, their talent, their personalities, their alpha competitive natures.

      Where does he sit in your list of all-time great NBA players?

      I don’t make lists of all time greats. I’m just a writer. I let those guys settle it on the court. Kobe is 3 on the all-time scoring list. As he says, that puts him in the conversation. It’s hard to claim superiority over guys like Wilt Chamberlain, Michael Jordan, Bill Russell and Magic Johnson (in no certain order).

      What is the most impressive feat of his career? - 5 titles, the 81 game, the longevity of his career?

      Well, you’re supposed to play the game to win. I’ll take championships every time, especially five of them.

   

      Will he succeed if he ran a team? Will he be better than Jordan did?

      I admire Jordan as an owner. He took Charlotte, the Chernobyl of the NBA, and has revitalized that miserable franchise. Kobe’s a bright man, so he could certainly be an owner. He’s a bit aloof at times, but the people who work for his media companies seem to enjoy him. It would be a new gig, so I think we have to withhold judgment and see if that’s where he goes.

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      What is the state of the NBA right now?

      The NBA is a young league, and the game has gone to a new style. Some of it, the Warriors, is beautiful. But the pace and space style of today’s game also makes for some ugly teams. You just have to wait and see if post play makes a recovery in the game. Whatever happens, it’s going to take time.

Will we ever see another Kobe Bean Bryant?

Not in today’s game. It has changed. Kobe and Michael were very effective post players as guards. But the game is a jump-shooting game these days, make or miss. And fans deride the triangle offense as something from the past. One of the earliest offenses was screen and roll but people act like it’s a new invention.

Showboat is out now from Little Brown and Company now for £19.95 RRP, although the kindle edition is better with more pages.

Showboat: Book review

From the much heralded author, Roland Lazenby comes the sure to be seminal text about one of the generational icons of basketball.  Lazenby has written numerous tomes and novels about the stand out performers in the NBA culminating in his biography, Michael Jordan: The Life (2014).

Lazenby's knowledge over his subject is second to none having written five dozen nonfiction books mostly about basketball and American football.  In taking on the subject of Kobe Bean Bryant, he is attempting to make sense of one of the most difficult personas in professional basketball of the last 25 years.

Kobe Bryant is one of those lightning in a bottle talents that come along once in a lifetime. Unless you compete in basketball when there are talents such as his every 10 year cycle. Before Jordan, there was Magic Johnson, before Magic there was Dr. Julis Erving, before Erving there was Wilt Chamberlain.  And after Kobe there was LeBron, and now there is Steph Curry.

Talents such as the men just mentioned are seminal, they are awe-inspiring, they are able to do things on the court not seen before and not seen since.  They rekindle your love of the game, leave you gasping for breathe and adjectives to describe wheat they achieve. And yet this talent and gift to the public is single-minded, selfless and full of sacrifices.

Lazenby makes not of this following Bryant's young life following in the footsteps of his father Joe, a talented player in his own right who left the NBA to play in Europe, primarily Italy.  This brought young Kobe into contact with players of flair and individuality but also showed him a lifestyle he did not want to replicate. Bryant wanted to be better than his father, and that meant succeeding in the NBA, a place his father could not.

Bryant, along with LeBron, was the last great player to forego the route of College Basketball and jump straight into the big time. Since LeBron, the rules have changed as the NBA and NCAA agreed that any player must complete a minimum of one year in college before declaring for the NBA draft (in football it is two years).

Bryant was always going to make the jump when he was mixing it up with pros at his junior year of high school culminating in a state championship of Pennsylvania as he was the talk of Philadelphia.  The leap to the Los Angeles Lakers was a dream come true and a meeting of two great world views, with the end of Magic Johnson due to his HIV illness, the Lakers were a big team struggling to be relevant as Jordan and the Chicago Bulls ran the show. The Lakers needed to be relevant and with the acquisition of Bryant in the draft they had a large piece of the puzzle to regain a championship banner.

Throughout the novel, Lazenby goes to great lengths to make sense of Bryant's supposed selfishness and bloody single mindedness throughout his career; an individual who cannot play well with others, not a team player, shouting at team-mates for not passing him the ball.

These accusations followed Bryant throughout his career with him taking too many shots, ultimately missing too many shots and yet when he was hot there was probably no hotter shooter in the NBA. Bryant could score 30+ in halves of games quicker than others, from all regions most famously his fadeaway from 12 feet over the despairing arm of a defender.

Lazenby goes deep into the relationship with Shaquille O'Neal, an unbeatable tandem that garnered three straight NBA titles together something to rival Jordan's Bulls of the mid 1990s and yet O'Neal had to leave as it was Kobe's team and his alone.

By the end of the career, injuries mounted up onto a body that had played non-stop in the NBA for close to 20 years and the years of preparation before that.  His contract crippled the Lakers when they needed to rebuild and his last season turned into a farewell tour as he took to the floor of many courts for the last time.

It culminated the only way Kobe knew how to, bringing down the curtain on his professional career with 60 points in his last game at Staples Centre. Bryant brought the house down and left you wanting more. Yet Bryant could not give anymore in his desire to succeed and to be the best; his ambition was reached yet he broke some hearts along the way.

A great book and read for lovers of the NBA and Basketball for one of the more complicated players of all time.

Showboat is out now from Little Brown and Company now for £19.95 RRP, although the kindle edition is better with more pages.

The Black Mamba slides away

33,583 points before tonight his 1,281st NBA game

And so it comes to this. Wednesday 13th April 2016. A day I am sure not many of us thought would occur, and one the man this essay concerns would have wanted to avoid at all costs.

Kobe Bean Bryant is finally retiring from the NBA after 20 seasons with the Los Angeles Lakers, five NBA championships, two Olympic Gold medals and 18 All Star appearances.

It is always sad to see a veteran have to ride off into the sunset one more time and when that veteran has had such an illustrious career as Bryant, you do get time to reflect of his career peaks and influence.

When Bryant did announce his retirement shortly after the start of 2015/16 season it came as little surprise. Three years ago Bryant suffered a torn Achilles' tendon, and since the. His play has been limited by season ending injuries to his knee and shoulder. 

Bryant is an all-time Laker, the highest points scorer for the franchise, 4th highest in NBA history and a one team man which is becoming rarer and rarer. Bryant is one of the most tenacious and competitive individuals who could seemingly score at will; yet as Father Time caught up with him that tenacity has waned as has his figures.

Bryant won 5 NBA championships

A combination of injuries and playing on a lesser Lakers side (this season's side is statistically the worst in franchise history) has seen him become a playoff fixture to a forgotten thought. The mark of a legend is sometimes being able to write your own script, your own perfect ending as say Peyton Manning was able to with his Super Bowl victory.

You got the sense from Bryant that he wanted his talent to grace the playoffs one more time, and yet a mixture of poor off court decision making coupled with the burden to match Michael Jordan's six rings became paramount in the twilight of his career.

Bryant could have done more himself by taking a pay cut which would have allowed the Lakers to entice a viable free agent like Chris Paul instead Bryant took the maximum contract (two year extension worth $48.5 million) thereby hamstringing the team to his want of a better and greater legacy. Yet you look at his contemporaries like Dirk Nowitzki who reshuffled his contract in Dallas to exist in the West or even Tom Brady in the NFL a man who always takes a pay cut to help his team in the off season.

Did Kobe play well with others?

Bryant is for this writer a top 10 all time talent based on his capacity to win and his frequency of scoring, but it is probably his unwillingness to play well with others, you need only see the unseemly fall out of his relationship with Shaquille O'Neal for evidence followed by his shutting out of Dwight Howard in a misguided super-team endeavour. 

Even the recent debacle on the Lakers between Nick Young and D'Angelo Russell needed an elder statesman to shepherd them through the mess, yet Bryant has remained mute when his words may have spoken volumes. Bryant always wanted to take the shot and will always be remembered as a scorer than a distributor or team player, for a man who was the first great player of this millennium and has five rings.

Bryant plays his last game 13th April v Utah Jazz

Bryant maybe the Black Mamba but in recent years the player has lost his bite. A career more memorable for sustainability than credibility.

Bold Boston sign Brad Stevens

As if Boston has not had enough awe inspiring sporting headlines in recent months.  Starting with the Boston Marathon bombings, then the Aaron Hernandez murder charge, then fan favourite coach Doc Rivers leaves Boston after ten years to become Head Coach of the Los Angeles Clippers, then on draft night the Brooklyn Nets trade for Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett in a move that ended a golden era that brought one NBA title coupled with the continuing trade rumours involving Rajan Rondo.

Writers of the Boston Globe must have been hoping for a little bit of downtime following all the news, and we nearly forgot that the Boston Bruins lost the Stanley Cup finals to the Chicago Blackhawks. And then the Celtics GM Danny Ainge announced another blockbuster, with news of the replacement for Doc Rivers.

Many people speculated it would be Brian Shaw, a worthy assistant due his time at the helm, but Ainge surprised everyone by hiring a man from College Basketball, and not just anyone, but the highly regarded and proficient Brad Stevens from Butler, who has guided the Bulldogs to two National title games and game one long range three shot away from upsetting Duke.

Stevens has been at the helm for many Cinderella stories, but now he himself is living a fairytale. This is Cinderella staying for the night, getting drunk on Jager bombs and waking up next to Prince Charming and not minding the look of each other.

Stevens is 37 years old, he will be 38 on October 22nd, a few days before the season begins.  He is now the NBA's youngest head coach and will more than likely have players nearer to his age, than other coaches.  Yet he comes to the big dance (the proper one) with an amazing record behind him from his College days, taking Butler from the Horizon League nobody to tournament wonder story to college mainstay.  This has been cemented by Butler being inducted into the newly restructured Big East.

Butler liked the guy so much they gave him a contract to remain the head coach until 2021-22 and leaves with a .772 percentage after six seasons.  Stevens must heed the warnings however from past college coaches who have had less than thrilling times in the NBA such as Rick Pitino whose own time at Boston was one of infamy, a four year stint that ended 102-146 from 1997-2001 before he returned to the college ranks and Louisville.

For Boston, it can be construed as a gamble to hire a player who has only worked with college athletes and one without any experience of working with professional players either as a player or assistant coach (very similar to Chip Kelly's hiring) and yet they have a young, highly professional man of integrity and character who will get his players drilled.  Luckily, he will mostly be starting from scratch with new players and faces - even if they keep Rondo, the Celtics are one of the teams expected to be in the NBA draft lottery next year to get the No.1 pick which is expected to be Kansas Jayhawk, Andrew Wiggins.

In the worst case scenario, Stevens should be given at minimum two years with this and next year's draft picks to create a mood and positive environment; Boston is going through a transition and young Brad deserves a little bit more than the title of transition or a flash in the pan.  Should it all end in tears, Stevens will easily snap up any high end Division I college basketball job due to his great work ethic and results.

Think of it like David Moyes replacing Sir Alex Ferguson at Manchester United; the young new manager needs time and no sense of impatience nor upheaval.

This article first appeared on UK American Sports Fan website, click here for link

Celtics v 76ers preview

Feel free to follow the link below, I wrote a piece about the Game 2 preview between the Boston Celtics and Philadelphia 76ers in Boston this evening. Boston won Game 1 92-91 thanks to a triple-double by Rajan Rondo and double-double by Kevin Garnett.

Philly need a win to take back to the homecourt on Wednesday evening:

http://1amsports.com/nba/celtics-v-76ers-game-2-preview

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