Three-Ring Circus: Kobe, Shaq, Phil, and the Crazy Years of the Lakers Dynasty

First off I hate the Lakers, have hated them my whole life, started when I lived in NoCal as a kid in the 80s and just continued when I moved away. That being said I love basketball and you can't love the game as I did growing up and not like to know the behind the scenes shenanigans that go on. So after watching Winning Time on HBO earlier this year I wanted to know what was real and what Hollywood made up, and it started with Jerry West freaking out on how he was portrayed so I decided to go to the source and that led me to Pearlman's first Laker book then this.I also grew up hating Shaq and Kobe as Jazz fan, but that hate turned into admiration for Shaq after he retired and started doing TNT. However it was never personal with Shaq, he was just too damn dominant as a player but he was always entertaining and I liked his personality and heard of his generous personality for many years. Also his years on TNT have only made me like "Mr. Sensitive" all the more because you can tell when he genuinely gets mad but he doesn't hold a grudge. That said I can tell when Shaq isn't giving a fully truthful account of a story, and to be specific when the TNT crew talked about Dramond punching his teammate, he had some stories but wasn't willing to give details. This book gives those details... and Shaq can be petty at times but the worst you can say is he's fat and lazy towards the end, exactly like Chuck but frankly I like Fat and Lazy guys.Now Kobe is another matter because I always respected his game more than him as a person, he had never said anything remotely interesting (one thing he did was dig Westbrook when he went after fans disrespecting him by saying something like "Utah always gave me a ton of disrespect when I played against them..." so he got some kudos for me in that instance) or amusing in all the years I've followed sports, and when the Rape happened and you read that apology this book says what I have to tell people all the time, you can't read that and not come away that and believe he's innocent.However reading this book you can't help but dislike the Kobe that won championships with Shaq, frankly he's probably the most unlikeable person, other than LBJ, I've ever read about and Pearlman deals with this up front saying this is the Kobe of those years and it appears he changed. So his untimely tragic death really threw cold water on this, and it appears Kobe genuinely changed as a person... maybe.... perhaps... I don't know but since he's dead and the way he died I will give him the benefit of the doubt.But why the Kobe hate? Read this and you'll see how he treated people like trash, sorry the stories are too vast! Kobe treated rookies like trash, he treated mid level players like trash, he treated his best teammates like trash, his coaches like trash, Shaq slapped him once it got so bad, he punched another teammate over $100 but had to back down because he knows he's not an actual fighter, he's a basketball player.Kobe is also as phony as they come, acting completely against type to get street cred everyone knows he doesn't have, Jeff doesn't say this but I seriously wonder if he made the rap video to meet his wife, but he'll fight like hell on the basketball court... as long as he gets his though because he cared more about his points than actually winning most of the time, the Lakers won at times because of him but seems like more times in spite of him.So these are Shaq's championship years and Kobe is this spoiled brat you just want Del or Phil to bench or someone to just beat his ass. He's seriously downgraded for me as a basketball player during these years, maybe he learned more as he took over driving the bus, but Shaq has 3 MVP finals and 1 as a sidekick, Kobe has 2 MVP finals and 3 as sidekick.Lastly Phil Jackson I really downgrade as a coach because he's not even close to anything Zen in this book, he's 2nd behind Kobe as a narcissist and mostly unlikeable as well, also we all know Tex came up with the Triangle and the scheme that has been adapted by Kerr in GS, share the ball spacing all that, not Phil he's best is he can get egomaniacs to work together but he has no real magic to reign Kobe's in, in fact the best coaching he did was tell the Bus driver to pull over so a teammate Kobe sucker punched could beat his ass and Kobe finally had to back down and ask forgiveness... which makes you realize about his rape...

The conventional wisdom about the great Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal Laker teams of the early 2000s goes like this: Shaq was content for basketball to be one of his many interests, while Kobe was solely focused basketball above anything else. They were a poor fit as teammates, and ultimately went their separate ways, dooming the dynasty.This is how I remembered it and I don’t think I’m unique. The Lakers were the first great team I knew as an NBA fan. While I have hazy memories of the second Bulls dynasty, I clearly recall the unstoppable force of the Shaq / Kobe Lakers clearly.After reading Three Ring Circus, I realize that my understanding of these teams, why they succeeded and fell apart was wrong. Shaq and Kobe weren’t too different to effectively coexist. Like a basketball episode of the Good Place, they were perfectly calibrated to torture each other.Three Ring Circus is the story of the Lakers championship teams from the early 2000s. Shaquille O’Neal, the star center. Phil Jackson, the wise coach, and of course, Kobe Bryant, the kid. The book tells the story of how they came together, dominated the league, and ultimately collapsed under the weight of their egos. It’s incredibly well sourced and a must-read for NBA fans. In a way, it acts as a sort of spiritual sequel to The Last Dance, picking the league up and some of the main characters where the documentary series left off.Because of the period it covers, it also serves as a biography of the first 26 years of Kobe Bryant’s life, from his childhood in Italy through his rape trial in Eagle, Colorado. While Shaq is the key to the team’s dominance on the court, Kobe is the key to understanding what was happening off the court and why this dominant team just couldn’t stay together. He is as arrogant and selfish as Shaq is out of shape, if not more so. If Shaq’s critical flaw is that he isn’t willing to put in the work in the off season to take care of his body and extend his prime, then Kobe’s critical flaw is that he would rather be the star of the team than work with Shaq to win.I entered the book thinking that Shaq and Kobe were too different to coexist for longer than they did. I left it thinking that they were too similar — ultimately both men only wanted to win on their own terms. For Shaq, this meant enjoying life off the court; for Kobe, this meant being the star of the show with the ball in his hands. Both men expected to be the center of attention in his own way. Unlike MJ and Scottie, they never could manage to get beyond it for the greater good of the team.The book’s greatest strength is the way that it tells this story for all of the characters that enter it. Del Harris is tactically brilliant, but unable to adapt his style to a new generation of players. Nick Van Excel has all the physical gifts, but he lets little slights from others convince him he’s unvalued. J.R. Rider has all the physical gifts, but can’t figure out the work habits of being a professional. The tension between one’s own strengths and flaws, the desire to do something special as a team and desire to shine as an individual are immensely relatable.It’s impossible to read this book and not think of Kobe Bryant’s untimely death and the eulogizing that happened afterwards, particularly from other athletes. Even before the alleged rape (which the book strongly suggests should’ve resulted in a conviction), Kobe comes off particularly poorly. While Shaq’s flaws are relatable, Kobe comes off as arrogant to the point of being delusional and cruel to those less talented than he is. The question hanging over the book is, “How did this kid who everyone hated become that guy everyone loved?” That it is never answered is the book’s greatest flaw.In the preface of the book, Pearlman tells the story of how the book was finished when Kobe’s shocking death happened. He goes out of his way to explain that who a person is from seventeen to twenty six isn’t the sum total of who they are to avoid the charge of speaking ill of the deceased. Answering the question of how and to what extent Kobe changed over the second half of his career would’ve led to a different book and it’s certainly certainly understandable why an author, having just completed a book as thoroughly researched as this one, wouldn’t be eager to start over. But as it is, the ending of the book feels incomplete, like it’s only part one. Despite this, I enjoyed the book immensely. Sign me up for a sequel.

I would definitely recommend to other sports lovers.

Very well written and hard to put down! A book for any basketball fan!

Wow, what a letdown! I thought a look at a threepeat NBA championship team would offer great insight in to how they pulled that off. Nope. All I got was a book all about the Shaq vs. Kobe feud. I get that would be in there but given my love of the '70s A's and Yankees who fought amongst themselves but still won championships, I expected more characters and better stories. Again no.Wait till you read the chapters on the Kobe rape trial. That is stomach churning to say the least.I guess Jeff Pearlman is just not my cuppa as I tried reading his Bad Guys Won about another dysfunctional off the field but functional on field '86 Mets championship team and that was a mess as well. This must be Pearlman's jag to find the worse possible group of players that win and write about them. Not knocking it but his books are depressing. Where is the joy at all in any of these pages? After all, these teams actually WON! This is not tales of the sadsack Clippers. Come on!Anyway, apparently, Kobe took a lot of shots, did not pass to his teammates and Shaq was out of shape. Yet, miraculaously, the Lakers won three titles in a row. What was needed was to get beyond that and find out how despite all that what really made them tick to win.

The book itself is fantastic, well written, engaging and insightful. The copy I ordered came quickly, (from Book Depository) but I am sad to note that the pages are misnumbered and out of sequence. About 40% of the book is this way, I'm going to see if I can read it, but it's looking like an unpleasant experience. This is no fault of the author, who is fantastic, and who would be getting 4-5 stars otherwise. I just wanted to warn others that they may be better going somewhere else.

The first 43 pages are brilliant... then the pages are out of order.

After reading Showtime I knew what sort of book this was gong to be, in fact it was better than I expected. The portrait painted of Kobe is brutal and if it wasn't for his untimely I wonder I am sure the author would have enough material for another book. How Phil managed to stay sane is probably why he is the greatest basketball coach ever, if you like basketball and love the Lakers this is a must read. It is entertaining and unlike some many other books on basketball not a statistic bore.