Welcome to the greatest show on hardwood: Produced in collaboration with the Lakers, this authorized illustrated history is the definitive portrait of the most glamorous franchise in sports: seventeen championships, seven decades, and a dynasty that turned a team into a cultural institution. This is basketball as spectacle and style, grit, fierce competition, fashion, and how a team learned to define and entertain Los Angeles- a city that expected nothing less. More than a record of banners, this massive book is the portrait of an indomitable and enduring dynasty. An illustrated history years in the making, built from exhaustive research through franchise vaults, league archives, and private collections. Rare and never-before-published photographs, vintage ephemera, and original artwork fill its pages, much of it revealed here for the first time. Stunningly illustrated with hundreds of images by photographers like Neil Leifer, Andrew D. Bernstein, and Walter Iooss Jr., and featuring rarely seen memorabilia and artifacts from the renowned David Kohler Lakers Shrine. Lakers is told by the people who built it — a foreword by iconic champion Kareem Abdul-Jabbar; an introduction by Lakers' governor Jeanie Buss; and an afterword by one of the greatest head coaches in the league's history, Phil Jackson. Detailing all the guts and glory are exclusive essays and reflections from legends Magic Johnson, Michael Cooper, Byron Scott, Pat Riley, Shaquille O'Neal, Pau Gasol, LeBron James, and Luka Doncic, alongside the courtside icons who made Lakers basketball a cultural phenomenon: Jack Nicholson, Dyan Cannon, Lou Adler, Paula Abdul, and Flea. Inside, the book traces the full arc of the Purple & Gold, from their scrappy origins in Minneapolis to icon status. From superstars to the fans in the stands, the Lakers story belongs to everyone who ever bled Purple & Gold. Starting with George Mikan and the league’s first dynasty; the hard-fought years against Boston, rich with rivalry lore, when Elgin Baylor, Jerry West, and Wilt Chamberlain carried the fight; and 1979, when a new owner named Dr. Jerry Buss decided a great team wasn’t enough. The Lakers needed to entertain, and to match the glamour of their new home base. What followed was the dazzling Showtime epoch of Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, James Worthy, Michael Cooper and others; the unforgettable three-peat of Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant; the Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol championships; and the LeBron James era that carried the Lakers into a new century, onward to Luka Doncic and the team’s future. This hefty tome is a game changer for basketball books, paying homage to the heroes of the hardwood and their fans. A landmark work for every Lakers fan, collector, and lover of sports. This is the definitive visual chronicle of a franchise that turned basketball into spectacle, and spectacle into history.
