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The Last Season
by Phil Jackson with Michael Arkush
The L.A. Lakers lose their way.
Coaching in the National Basketball Association is a high-stress job where championships are expected, players' egos are enormous and fragile, and the media is relentless in covering the latest gossip. Yet for 15 years Phil Jackson was able to take the Chicago Bulls and the Los Angeles Lakers to 10 NBA Finals and win every one except the last.
In The Last Season, Jackson chronicles the 2003-4 NBA season from the moment he heard Kobe Bryant was facing rape charges in Colorado to the disappointing loss of the NBA Finals in Detroit and to the loss of his job when the Lakers refused to re-sign him.
What happened to the 2003-4 Lakers? The rape trial surely had its effect on Bryant, and by the end of the season he was exhausted. But the trial wasn't the only thing to bring the Lakers down. A simmering feud between Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal boiled over into a war of words in the press. Veteran players such as Karl Malone and Horace Grant were injured in crucial times of the season. But the biggest factor, according to Jackson, was the Lakers, despite winning four NBA championships in five years, had no team identity. What they had were individuals who were unwilling or unable to adapt to a team system of play.
"In the 1960s and '70s, players asked: Where do I fit in? How can I help this team win?" writes Jackson. "Now they ask: How do I get what I want? Given this selfish mind-set, it is remarkable, actually, that teams play with any cohesiveness."
When you read a book about a sports team you usually read about a team that overcomes serious obstacles by relying on each other to win. Jackson, a man accustomed to winning, writes about losing. But The Last Season is more than about a game and not taking home another trophy. It's a poignant, revealing study of a team searching for its soul. And that makes it a great story.
Title: The Last Season
Author: Phil Jackson with Michael Arkush
Publisher: The Penguin Press
ISBN: 1594200351
Review written by: John Neal
Reviewer's Rating:9
Reader's Rating: 9.33
Reader's Votes: 3
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