“Ain’t No Tomorrow,” was the mentality, the driving force, the inspiration, and the trigger for the greatest run through the post season the NBA has ever seen. The 2000-2001 Los Angeles Lakers were an interesting spectacle. Injuries, a new cast, and most of all, a loss of harmony and togetherness between it’s two main characters make this season sound like a popular soap opera one would tune in to watch on NBC. Also on NBC, the NBA was the main sports broadcast, and so were the Los Angeles Lakers who in a season went to hell and back to leave us with the greatest showing of post season dominance we as fans have ever seen.

I was a seven year old living in Los Angeles who loved basketball. I went to the Staples Center whenever I could to watch one of the greatest scoring tandems go to work with a memorable supporting cast. This was a team where I could remember everyone’s name and number. Still, little did I know what problems lurked behind the slam dunks and three pointers every other night.

My first book review is about a sports non fiction entitled, “Ain’t No Tomorrow” written by Elizabeth Kaye. The book chronicles the journey and backstories of the Los Angeles Lakers team, franchise, and management from the moment the final buzzer sounded in game 6 of the 2000 NBA finals in Los Angeles, to the same sound a year later in game 5 in Philadelphia. Both were won by the Lakers in this, their second win of a three peat of championships. On paper, they were the best in the league, but for a while it seemed as if it was not to be.

The book tells the story of the troubles of being a champion, of how it is harder to defend a title than to win one. Kobe Bryant‘s tale is one of determination, greed, misunderstanding, alienation, and fragile greatness. His tireless work ethic, high pain tolerance, and unrelenting drive to be the best led him to be one of the best players in the game. “The all star thinks all the pressure is on him, so he has to do it all by himself.” This drive gave him endless amounts of alienation by his teammates and peers, coming to a head when he exploded for 51 points against Golden State, but failed to produce a win. This resulted in hard feelings with his heavily ignored teammates such as Rick Fox, Robert Horry, Mark Madsen, AC Green, Brian Shaw, Ron Harper, and Horace Grant. Yet none of them took the change to heart more than Shaquille O’Neal, the Lakers’s celebrated, jubilant, and dominant center. The previous season’s regular season and finals MVP had hard feelings about the loss of fragile harmony the Lakers had achieved on their road to becoming the NBA champions. Much like a childish game of tug of war determining how the glory should be distributed, the conflicting goals on how to achieve perfection resulted in a plethora of hostility and inconsistency until after a painful loss to the Atlanta Hawks in March, head coach Phil Jackson told his team, “I can’t watch you anymore, you sicken me.”

That was the true turning point. With an injured Derek Fisher, the team’s emotional leader, returning to the fold, the Lakers found a restored sense of order. They were playing as a team, and more importantly, they were winning. Between the 8th game to go of the regular season, to game 1 of the NBA finals, they went undefeated. The Lakers won in 5 over the Philadelphia 76ers and kept their seat atop the NBA’s mount olympus.

The book captures the true emotions of the season through countless interviews with players and staff alike. It tells back stories to which most are unfamiliar with to back up a point or to demonstrate a reason. The stories of Shaq and Kobe are told extremely well and they even intermix. Here’s an example. Shaq made a habit of being nice to fans after his idol, David Robinson, curtly and hastily signed an autograph for him as a kid. This made Shaq a true gentleman to autograph seekers, especially children. When he played for the Magic and saw fellow star Penny Hardaway being rude to a kid asking for an autograph, Shaq intervened, gave his signature, then conversed with the kid, asked where he went to school, how old was he, what his name was. The kid’s name was Kobe Bryant.

Stories like this, true inside factoids give this book its unique flavor and character. Fred Alvarez can be quoted as saying, “if you want truly great examples of journalism, check the sports section.” I’d imagine this book to be a 230 page plethora of knowledge and drama in a season review located in a massive sports section. Jimmy Breslin described the book as “a wonderful story that happens to be about basketball.” It is an easy read, much like the papers and is genuinely entertaining with through details from start to finish, from opening tip off to final buzzer.

I have already lent this book out to Amit Pandya, a friend of mine and fellow senior/basketball freak/ knucklehead, and he read it in 2 days. “It was awesome,” he said to me.