Ringer NBA Lore: The 1999-2000 Champion Los Angeles Lakers

what's popping real ones homies logan murdoch here just here to have an announcement before this pod we are starting a new series within the real ones universe called nba lore where we talk about teams we talk about moments we talk about series and nba history and we get some of the experts on the sport to talk us through and the first edition of this is going to be the 1999 2000 los angeles lakers the beginning of the dynastic run between kobe and shack and we got some legends of the sport and legends of the writing game we have tim kawakami who covered the team for the los angeles times and we have howard mother effing beck who covered the team for the la daily news we get into a number of discussion points i really really hope you like this series because we're going to continue to grow it thanks so much nba lore los angeles lakers 1999-2009 up next what's good what's popping how y'all doing welcome to a new series that we are debuting on the real ones feed on the ringer nba feed a thing we like to call nba lore where we do a deep dive into a specific team moment or series of nba history and it's basically for a way for real and myself in particular to talk to legends of the of the sport and talk to them about specific teams so i got two legends here we are going to be talking about the 1999-2000 los angeles lakers i have howard beck who covered the los angeles lakers starting the 1997 season for the los angeles daily news up until the 2004 season and i have tim kawakami who also covered the team in 1999-2000 before he went on to do great things up in the bay area where i met him and was simultaneously scared and wanting to get his respect at all times so i'm really really excited to have both of you guys how you doing working on that logan you're still working on that part there but i'm still here we're figuring it out it's really dope to have you guys in here and i'm excited to have you guys in the real ones fold what was it like for y'all two before we get to kobe and shack and the and the finals and the start of a dynasty and all that what was it like for you two on the beat together how was that what was that dynamic like i'm very i'm still scared of tim kawakami so mortal enemies death glares anger no i i think well maybe howard would speak differently but when you cover something as intense as that you either go absolutely separate ways or you kind of fuse together just going through his stuff and we were competitors we were i think we you know was that sharp iron sharpens iron we both got better because of the other one but you get yelled up by jerry west at any point in your career uh you kind of share that moment together you kind of go through it together and that's that's shaquille o'neal you got kobe by whatever ll so i think uh howard and i did not know each other before we started on this beat i i had you know we'd both been in the area i'd bounced i'd covered various different beats i think this how is your first sports beat which was the first one that you did and i think it's was always interesting you throw your first sports beat is the freaking lakers of shaq and kobe but um it was great because howard became one of my closest friends certainly in in the business we got along great we had more than a few dinners together uh we know it with each other orders all the time we make fun of each other for that uh but uh it was it was all good and yeah i think i think we're still pretty good friends hobeck that's my understanding i think that's accurate i think that's accurate all of it and including the iron sharpening iron part of it it wasn't my first sports beat it was my first pro sports beat which is might as well be the same thing right if you've covered like you know high school football and lacrosse it's not quite the same thing as covering shaq and kobe and the nba so um fair tim was definitely much more experienced than i was um and he was the second beat writer he was at the la times the second beat writer from the la times that i competed against after scott howard cooper and the thing i like to say just from a professional standpoint journalism standpoint was that the thing that was most critical for me in those early years was scott howard cooper and some others really were kind in showing me the ropes in how to navigate uh the lakers and the nba in general including travel and stuff and then kawakami comes on and tim and scott very very different both incredible reporters but very different and you know i i always felt i had to raise my level i'm going to open the la times it's going to be on my doorstep every morning and it's like did kawakami kick my ass today or not right and if he didn't cool did i win a couple of battles along the way then then i feel okay about myself my self-esteem is intact but i think the main thing that i think about on the beat tim for you and me was we were both pretty newsy in the way we covered the league so we were both going to be pretty aggressive in our questioning when when the shit was going down um it's not to say that anybody else didn't ask questions but tim and i might you know kind of tag team it sometimes where it's like he's asking that the question of shack about kobe or whatever and then i'm following up like we were never letting anybody off the hook i think we both had that same mindset like we have an obligation here to cover the news of the lakers in addition to all the spectacular basketball of the lakers and so that was a really fun exactly there was time yeah it was really there was a ton of news absolutely and i think that kind of spirit is was met by the players like not all the time but jerry shirt accepted tough questions sometimes he'd yell back at you but he'd accept it and i think that kind of was throughout the team and i'll just i'll voice thought this like i was coming from the ucla beat and the boxing beat some big stuff national championship delahoy whatever but first time i ever heard the word the words sign and trade was howard beck asking a question to jerry west and i went holy shit i gotta learn what that means like i mean like i had known a little bit of it but like this or you're gonna sign and trade it's like it just that was a moment for me on the nba beat again you're around the ucla team like i knew arn i kind of knew kobe a little bit just because they work out at ucla like i you're kind of already in it i covered bob myers by the way when he was a walk-on for the ucla like you're kind of in it already but the terminology the pace of it i'll like when howard's asking questions i had to go i gotta figure out what these things are and it made me get to speed and i do appreciate that but yeah like we'd ask questions and uh you know maybe famously i was asking a lot of questions that's what shaquille always would point that out to me but i believe that i believe in that i believe that this is how you figure out stuff this is how you bounce off of people this is how they get to know who you are uh and howard was certainly right there in it and and there were a few others but uh big picture if you want to connect this anyway i know it's not about other teams but this absolutely was my guide to how to cover the kevin durant steph curry warriors there's no question it was very similar for me it was the circus it was everyone's going to look at them as this thing and they're going to look at them as this thing and they're going to over here there's this other thing over here but let's go down the middle exactly let's do a part of the cartoon elements let's do also part of the historical elements but also keep our eye on the ball of what this really is and it was much simpler for me because i'd gone through it because the lakers thing was unbelievable like we'll talk about it but like you just you're throwing into it and stuff's getting thrown up in every other website all over the place and if it had to do with shaquille o'neal or kobe bryant it would have been a lot easier to do it would have been it was massive and we had to react to it the story of the 1999-2000 lakers actually begins in the summer of 1996 right where jerry west uh engineers a trade um to get vlade divox and i know that people are we'll say we'll see it on the face value and say that oh easy deal to do but um it was hard to maneuver that deal because on one hand uh you're trying to get an unproven player in kobe bryant who's coming out of high school who's unproven at the professional ranks or the college and he's trying to get an unproven player in kobe bryant who's coming out of high ranks and then also you have vlade divox who is threatening to retire and then on the other end after that deal gets gets done um he's jerry west is back and forth with shaq's representatives trying to get shaq and pry him away from orlando as the architect of this this championship team what was jerry trying to build in 1996 how did he go about it in that summer how important was that that summer for him and what was it like in los angeles during that time yeah i mean he so those maneuvers come before either of us were on the beat so um but this is you know just a little bit from memory and from lore to use a word that's relevant uh to this episode um i was living in ventura then doing a much different job um and i guess i mean it couldn't have been bigger getting shaq it's funny because going back in context people just kobe was a curiosity the 13th pick of the draft right 13th like so he was a curiosity this was the preps to pros era was barely underway garnett hadn't become dominant yet and so i don't think most people outside of basketball and maybe clearly even a lot of people inside basketball really understood the significance of drafting kobe or trading for his draft rights i should say when it happened but shaq shaq was another matter shaq had been to the finals shaq was already one of the biggest uh athletes personalities celebrities in all of sports and prying him from orlando was a huge deal and it had been you know whatever uh not quite a decade since the lakers last championship or in last finals run and since showtime dissolved shack put them back on the map and kobe was at least on day one more of a curiosity there was a hope and a belief but not an not an absolute confidence that he was going to become the superstar that he did but jerry knew that's the thing nobody else was quite certain of it but jerry freaking west was absolutely certain what kobe bryant either would be or certainly could be and there's the the famous private workout that they had that they had where as uh the tale goes kobe busted michael cooper's ass michael cooper in later years i think has tried to downplay that and say it really wasn't all it was it was said to be but i've talked to people who were in that workout and they say kobe busted his ass so sorry michael cooper um you �but that's that was by the way by the way i want can i put some bail on michael cooper real quick it was 1990 it was 1996 right he was pretty old at the end there he wasn't it wasn't 1986 michael cooper he's older but still but the man's got pride and he was you know a great defender in his time and this is a 17 year old coming in so um that workout i i think i wrote a whole piece about just that workout one time um one of those years i haven't looked at that clip in a very long time but it was everybody who was in that workout who was in that workout who was in that workout who was in the room then basically was like yeah you knew you could see it and so what what jerry west pulled off in the span of of whatever it was 10 days 14 days is absolutely incredible i mean we've seen other holes right pat riley signing lebron and bosh and re-signing dwayne wade that's going to be one of those days where it's not it's not just the one acquisition it is creating an entire championship team in the matter of in a matter of hours um you know the warriors landing kevin durant um i know it doesn't look as good in today's light but the nets signing durant and kairi was a big deal at the time the clippers getting paul george and kawaii leonard like you have these sometimes these one-day hauls and what what jerry did in getting shack and kobe in the span of of a couple weeks of one summer that might be top of the list for all time and certainly i think of the modern era off the top of my head and then we'll get to it but i i think it is almost just as important what they did after that to put the right guys around them yeah i was going to say just from what we know the pressure that had been building leading up to 99 2000 was immense because they had they got these two players together shaquille obviously the lead one and then we all could see what kind of kobe as a rookie we know that you know i was i covered those playoffs the air ball and in utah and then the second season they were not blowing up the league though like they were good they weren't great utah was better uh and this pressure had been building dell harris uh you know then kurt rambis we could talk about the crazy year that the the lockout shortened year that led up to the 99 2000 which was my first year uh and which was insane absolutely insane because it was dell harris dell harris fired dennis rodman signed bill burka is the interim coach kurt rambis is the next interim coach uh all sorts of insanity all this pressure people were just going just like you know rambis was just going crazy with the pressure on them uh and this was the thing because it started in the summer 96 like you're going to win championship not just one uh you are built up to be the next mega franchise and it hadn't happened yet that's really important to remember at least like if you're trying to discuss what 99 2000 meant it was not inevitable absolutely was not inevitable now phil jackson hiring certainly makes you think it was much more possible but it was like who knows if this is going to happen they trade eddie jones that opens up the full really rotation spot for kobe like there's all these things that had to be kind of manipulated to get them to where they were in 99 2000 and it was not at all a sure thing what if this doesn't work and jerry was going crazy and howard remembers the story that was i think the 98 99 the lockout shortened season and i wanted to talk to jerry things were not working out the rodman thing which jerry did not want to do that was a jerry bus thing i want to talk to jerry jerry wasn't talking john black was a pr director which you know very close to jerry and he was like then for something he took us to lunch right me and howard and maybe one other person at the forum club which is where people go to lunch and then jerry's there and then jerry's there and i'm like looking at john i go am i talking to him here he's like kind of nods his head so i said how you doing jerry's like something like oh you can just blame me that's what you do you blame me like okay like that he said he walks away and then i call black back later i go was that on a record he goes you talked to him you want to talk to him there he was that's what he said so i put it in the freaking story i remember howard even goes was that i think that was the headline in your paper i think it was quote blame me like i don't like 128 points yeah what was the pre-impetition for the story why what was the blame i think it was during the rob rodman rodman had joined the team then left the team you know things were getting offline and there was a shack and kobe the tension had begun for sure with those two that season remember in in the practices leading up after the lockout uh you know shack slapped kobe that was from olden paul and like this is when i really knew this was getting like this was getting huge because that became a national story that olden paul and he's who wasn't even on the team had told someone that shack had slapped kobe which was true uh and it just things had been building and building and building again that's why i just want to emphasize the tension not just between shack and kobe but between the war the the lakers not succeeding and everyone assuming that they had to uh so it was in that period i don't remember exactly but it definitely was oh remember they traded a eddie jones and eldon campbell for glenn rice that was a huge move that was a gigantic move eddie jones people don't may not remember but a really important player really good player really popular player by the way the closest person to kobe because philadelphia ties this was all happening in that mix of that era jerry was kind of going crazy everyone i think jerry would tell you he was going crazy so the blame me was in that in that thing like they weren't a terrible team they just weren't a good team a good enough team and so at the forum club as he's walking by or however that happened blame me became a very famous quote and howard and i will continue to say to each other all the time uh but it was one of those like john is this really that's what i'm gonna use like you want to talk to him that's the quote okay that's the quote i didn't jerry jerry wasn't mad he wasn't mad i used that quote at all it was just a perfect encapsulation i think of just the pressures that were set up it's always you know i think it's just a perfect encapsulation i think of just the pressures that were set up it's always full of pressure when you're lakers right it's it's every day that's what they are they're expected to win championships but this one was building and building and building to an explosive point because of all the talent they had so 1996 lakers trade for kobe shortly after the 1996 draft they also dropped derrick fisher and they signed shaquille o'neal they um paired them with guys like nick van exel and like you said eddie eddie jones both of which are traded nick van exel was traded for tony battee and tyron liu remember that name and in 1999 the lakers traded eddie jones and eldon campbell for glenn rice who will talk about him in a few but this all sets up right there's also the hubris that is involved with this right um there's the the incident at la southwest college when as you guys said kobe gets slapped by shaquille o'neal um and odin polonese by the way who was just trying to get a tryout he wants to be a laker that is his favorite team and he ends up at this uh at this run at la southwest at this random day and he winds up being in the middle of the field and he's like oh my god i'm and not only does this mess up the relationship between kobe and shaq going into the lockout year it messes up olden polonese's chance to become a laker um and so you're having all that then you go into the lockout year where dennis robin for no reason i don't even know if he's in basketball shape uh gets a prorated uh deal to become a laker and i think it was a prorated veteran veterans minimum deal and he has to play his way into shape it's like a whole two-week fiasco of him even they won games by the way yeah he didn't show up half the time exactly but they won and then you go into that um season and it's basically the the the lakers seem like they have crapped out on every single thing except for the coach and you have phil jackson who is who has won six titles with the chicago bulls won a few titles with the knicks as a player and he's taking a year off he's in montana but he's you know he's kind of flirting with the idea of getting back into coaching right he's flirting with the knicks a little bit he's showing up to lakers games and it seems like they're the lakers are kind of circling each other and it culminates um at a press conference at the beverly hilton where a lot of things are going on kobe bryant actually goes up to phil jackson's room in the suite and uh tries to you know just say how excited he is to play with them shack is obviously excited to play with them tim what was what did this dawn in this press conference mean uh as in terms of the transition from what the lakers were as a family-run organization into what they were becoming as phil jackson is becoming the coach at this point very different obviously yeah it's been a very jerry west front office kind of directed team I mean, you know, clashing with Pat Riley in years before, but that was part of like Jerry West won that one when when he and Riley kind of head butted. Even Riley was the figure that he was. I think Jerry said it maybe off the record or I can't remember now, but it was like, OK, he's going to hire someone who Shaq and Kobe can't get fired. That's what we need. Like, that's when he can convince that Phil was the guy he I don't think he was convinced about the triangle. He was convinced about exactly what Phil's strategies were going to be. But he wanted to hire a guy that was going to be the coach if they go, you know, 60 and 22 or if they go 22 and six, literally not 22 and 60. But they could not undermine this guy. This guy was the coach. They paid him way. More money than any other coach in Laker history. He comes in with this bull's background. He comes in with the, you know, the whole philosophies and the mindset. And you have to do it now. Obviously, was Shaq going to get traded? No, I mean, it just was much more a normal situation where it wasn't going to be. OK, you guys are unhappy. This guy's not working. He's fired like Phil Jackson was not that. I think there was a fear that Kurt Rambis was going to be another line of that. Maybe more influence. Then Del Harris or whatever. But it just was a kind of redirecting of the power center away from the players and Jerry to at least partially. And knowing the way Phil operated, that maybe they didn't even know how much he was going to take control of the way they were going to play, the way they were going to organize the locker room, the way they were going to organize the entire setup. And Phil did that. And Phil had every intent to do that. And I think. Shaq and Kobe needed somebody. That they understood had outside authority, not just because he was a coach like it's because he was who he was. And there aren't many people like that. Chuck Daly was the only other one that I could think of who had that. Pat Riley at the time. Obviously, that wasn't going to come back. That's it. And I think they they hadn't really gone through that. They hadn't. And they realized they needed that. Didn't mean it was absolutely going to work. But with Phil and knowing Phil, as we know. Now, that personality, he does not bend. He does not look around. He was going to figure out how he wanted to do this and they were going to do it. And it might not have won the way they won, but that's the way he was going to it again. I connect this to the Warriors at Steve Kerr. Like it just if you're going to different personalities, but obviously in an interesting connection of philosophies, this is that you're not firing these guys, you're not figure it out because this is not just another coach. This is. This is a special coach who is going to do it the way he's going to want to do it. Now, obviously, there's moderation and there's, you know, compromises, whatever. But just the general knowledge that this wasn't a guy that you can just figure out. This wasn't Brian Hill, former Shaq coach. This wasn't, you know, somebody that just was disposable. Phil Jackson, not disposable. And I think that was the thunderbolt through the whole organization that people cared what Phil had to say. People showed up for the press conference. Victor. Brick showed up for that press conference and dominated it. And it just was a signpost that this was going to be different. And I think that was really important. The thing about Phil Jackson going into this season was feel he's obviously a master of mind games in all ways, shapes and forms. Right. And then the players also on their end really felt like they wanted to find time to respect him or figure out a way to get on his good side, at least early on. Right. Howard, how did you experience at least during that training camp? I think it was. You see Santa Barbara. How did did you see Phil trying to make those mind games happen between these two stars in particular? Just the backdrop of this, I think, is is a note we haven't really hit necessarily, which is Phil to Kobe and Shaq. Phil represented different things to Kobe. He represented Michael's coach. And so Kobe wanting to be like Mike and and in that time, you know, the triangle offense meant something. Right. It's it's it's. Kind of denigrated now, but at the time it meant something. And it certainly meant something to Kobe who had studied it and who I think had reached out to text winner even before text ever came to the Lakers, if I'm remembering correctly. And so Kobe was just intellectually curious, basketball, curious about the triangle offense. And he admired Phil from afar. And Phil was Michael's coach for Shaq. Shaq always talked about he basically needed an authoritarian. He needed somebody who was as big in their walk of life as a coach, as he was as a player. So Shaq was always saying, like, I need a. Chuck Daly type. I need Pat Riley, who he eventually seeks out in place for in Miami. Shaq needed somebody who could command his respect because I'm sorry if it was Kurt Rambis, if it was Brian Hill, if it was certain other people like Shaq was not going to. It wasn't going to listen the same way. You know, Shaq always he was raised by the Sarge, right? His stepfather and Phil Harrison. And that's what Shaq. I mean, there there's a complicated relationship there, too. But Shaq needed somebody to basically like. Metaphorically smack him upside the head and tell him when he was doing stuff wrong and to get with the program. Phil Jackson represented that. So Phil had the gravitas, the authority, the track record, not for nothing, the rings. To be able to get both of these guys to pay attention and to get in their lanes and to at least try to work together, which, as we know, sometimes went well and sometimes didn't. So to me, that's the significance of Phil arriving is that he's the one guy probably in the league. At that time, who could command the respect of both of these guys for somewhat different reasons. The the mind games part of it is hard to like. The first thing I think about actually is Robert Ori, because in in Chicago, Phil would single out Horace Grant and and criticize him publicly for stuff that Horace wasn't doing as representative of things that the team wasn't doing because he thought Horace could handle it. And it was the same with Robert Ori, where it was like, I there are times I can't just like call out Kobe for being. Selfish or Shaq for being obstinate or whatever. I'm just I'm going to make an example of Robert Ori. I'm going to I'm going to call him out. And I think Rob even joked about this at times in real time and certainly since. So it was it was things like that. But it's hard to remember anything concrete. I do remember going to Santa Barbara for that training camp. I don't recall where like I do. There was definitely something, Tim. Do you remember like Phil? I did think. Yeah, well, the first practice, they didn't have ball like they didn't. Put basketballs out to theoretic. I think there was some. But the idea was we're going to start this and you're just going to be movement without the ball. It's going to be non-basketball. And, you know, that's took on a metaphorical thing. I don't think it was a huge deal, but it hit the players that this is going to be, you know, and Phil has this whole metaphysical thing and this whole, you know, you know, peace pipe. And we're going to, you know, we're going to I think there was some wasn't there some yoga or meditation, right? There's a meditation room. And I just think those. Those ideas were floating around to kind of reset some of the ways that, you know, this wasn't just going to be basketball. But, you know, your agent says this and you're, you know, your rival over here and your contract means it was going to be a little different than that. And I think that was like the big part that I got out of the training camp. And the training camps are short in the NBA. You know, they're not like bunked down and everyone sings Kumbaya. That's not an NBA training camp. They're short and you have games. But the other thing I remember, I think Kobe break his hand in preseason Kobe. Yeah. So, so that, that was really interesting because it kind of like reset some things knowing Kobe is coming back also Kobe started shooting left handed like I am now going to be able to shoot left handed, which he took for the rest of his career was amazing. That was one of my first like this guy's special, this guy's like he was telling me, like those are the times that we could chat in the locker room. Especially when Kobe's hurt, I would just chat with you. Yeah, I'm gonna start shooting left handed now and I could shoot pretty good free throws left handed, I might even start shooting free like it was one of those things like, okay, and then he starts being able to shoot left handed is at least finished left handed was one sign to me that this guy is just a different kind of cat. This guy is going to do some ridiculous things in this world and he wants to do it. And like beyond whatever, you know, theoretical things and emotional things. They just started forgetting. You can win it like they were just winning from the get go and nothing proves everything is correct more than winning basketball games. Nothing makes everyone feel like this is the right direction, like winning basketball games, maybe if they were 20 and, you know, 12, they still felt that but I don't think they were I think they were, they started off very well. They were winning big road games they were winning showcase games. It just felt right, the offense was working well. And I just think, you know, whatever you can say about how things started in camp, they had to win games and the winning games was a huge part of it Kobe was playing real well kill obviously starts it was just this dominant incredible role we'll talk about you know winning almost unanimous MVP. He's the only player still to this point that I've covered, where I could watch the first three series and go, they're going to win, because this team can't stop you kill like that was just the right. I mean, I think that's the only thing that's going to happen. against so many including indiana and the freaking vinyls like there were just some games that that shaquille was not to lose because of who he was because rick smith wasn't going to stop him because whoever else down the line chris dudley wasn't going to stop him uh and you knew it period end of story i don't know that i i don't know howard logan you covering like you get three possessions down three buckets three you know three jump hooks that's over one miss he rebounds it throws it back down for putback game is over i've covered football players like that reggie white was like that uh maybe bo jackson this short period like you can just look at five plays and that's it i don't know that i've ever covered another nba player and it was just that season i think for jack so the the thing that's so interesting about this mvp season from from shaquille o'neal was he always had the numbers right he didn't always have the drive during the regular season to work on his craft or you know stay in tip-top shape especially in the off season that was much to kobe's chagrin and that's going to get to the divide that we're going to talk about in this in this series but what was different about this particular shaquille o'neal and during this particular season right and i think the answer lies in the fact that phil was in his head he told him to lose he had to lose i think 30 pounds over the summer right he didn't go out which i don't think he did which i don't think he did by the way okay oh but he had he had to do that and then there's another thing that's going into that season you mentioned the 11 and 4 start that the lakers had to start this season while kobe was out with a broken hand it kind of eased this lakers team in a lot of ways right where they don't have to deal with the pressure of the kobe and shaq thing kobe can kind of learn the team dynamics around the triangle he came into the the season already knowing what the triangle was right there's a famous anecdote in the biography uh called showboat uh kobe bryant biography where he goes and he says in uh in preseason he says how do you guys not know the triangle haven't you not watched tnt all last season the bulls were on tv all season so he knew the triangle but there was a you know there was the kobe hubris that came along with him his arrogance and all of these things so you have that smooth sailing approach going into 11 and 4 they play golden state they beat golden state on december 1st and they're kind of just off to the races from there and they're kind of like from there but there is a bit of a dynamic during um the mvp season of shaq just being everywhere howard what was the biggest difference that you saw from shaquille o'neal from when you first started on the beat in 1997 to what this particular version was in the 99 2000 season so the first thing that happens of course is because kobe's not playing to start the season or misses that full month the lakers were able to think to settle into the triangle and the pecking order sooner there was a lot of talk about the triangle and the pecking order sooner there was a lot of talk about the triangle and the pecking order sooner there was a lot of talk about the triangle and the pecking order sooner there was a lot of talk that that um in that first month or so that you know kobe's benefiting from getting to watch and see how well they play off of shaq and operate off of shaq shaq had also been hurt really important part of this like shaq's first couple of years in la um he had the knee the first year he had the abdominal strain that had dogged him i think during that lockout season in 99 that's when alex mckechnie comes along so shaq's finally it's not just that he's in shape he's healthy so the things that we saw him do that mvp season were the things you always you always saw in shaq biggest baddest strongest mfr on the court and nobody can guard him one-on-one just ask him um on the nights that he would struggle if he did or have it be less efficient it he would immediately point out to us how many guys were guarding me he was being double teamed triple teamed no one was was holding him up one-on-one there were some guys who were strong enough to but he put those guys in the basket too so i just think that it was a culmination of shaq being healthy uh shaq being super motivated being in shape for sure and also being established within the triangle offense which you know phil jackson wanted that ball to go inside out that was his his view or his vision of basketball um spacing offense starts inside and if shaq's doubled he'll kick it out and then you know you pull the defenders off of him and you kick it right back to him you reset or you go to the you know swing it around to the weak side and then and then you go to the you know swing it around to the weak side and then you go to the you know swing it and put him on the other on the other block so i it was just it was everything and i do think the triangle offense and phil jackson believing in going inside first and in feeding shaq and believing in shaq as the clear number one option the most effective option all fit into him becoming mvp that season yeah and he's also talking about the pecking order phil jackson in that in that uh training camp says the ball is going into shaq there was a particular pecking order of what this was going to be tim how was coach jackson doing in that training camp dealing with that part of it right because he's having to both bring his game down when he at 21 years old to accommodate shaq and there's one thing to say that when kurt rambis is your coach one thing to say that when dale harris is your coach but now that phil is your coach there's there's no firing phil how is he dealing with this coming back where he's trying to get his own shot but also has to cater to shaq because there is a very clear pecking order at this particular point yeah we gotta remember put this in context he's not kobe he's not a coach he's not a coach quite yet he's getting there and again we can talk about like what happened in the finals but it wasn't like oh my god kobe has throttled back like he was throttling up right coming up you know in his third season at that point but it wasn't like he was scoring 30 a game it wasn't like he was an mvp it wasn't like he was like even his all-star burst people are like on our you know this guy's not even starting and he makes the all-star team um yeah he had to make some concessions i think the broken hand certainly was a you know call it a very accidental fortuitous moment again at the start of the season look we're going to succeed like this but i think he got it i think phil was i think phil one point that season told me that you know kobe's a wild horse i just gotta figure out how you know not to rein him in too much but rein him in a little bit she kills the guy who needs to feed he's the guy who needs he's much more you know i guess needy would be a weird word to say but a little like he needs to feel necessary like that's shaquille and he was certainly set up to do that to be the the center of everything and kobe could be you know i think at the time phil kind of envisioned kobe to be like michael at the end of shot clock if it's not there early doesn't work we get it and that's when the triangle goes out the window because sometimes michael did that too just get it to me five i'll figure out something and i think that was sort of kobe's role i think it developed into more than that but i think because phil could say this is kind of like a michael role i think that's how you know like every time i think producer used to say if i wanted kirk obain to do something he didn't want to do i said this is what john lennon used to do well kobe this is what phil phil would tell him this is what michael used to do okay that makes sense it's what michael used to do with the understanding that into the future that was going to be a large role and that became the greater tension in seasons into the future and one that season they had not won it yet nobody's got a ring they can point you except for one guy phil jackson so i just think it was easier again it's not kobe the kobe that won mvp or led the league as well that's not who this was this was 21 year old 22 year old whatever his age at that point was i think it's 21 year old kobe where things were still uncertain right nothing had been filled out about his career shaquille was the larger figure shaquille in you know in the near future would break down and not work hard and all the things that pissed off kobe but that hadn't really happened yet uh so i don't think it was a big pressure i think it was it kind of topped out later in that season but as it was happening it was shaquille it was going to be shaquille he was scoring with such efficiency he was in such a good mood he was passing the ball i think that was a big deal he was you know he wasn't afraid to shoot free throws that was another thing that was a big deal for him uh it was all just how he was going to play and how he was going to play happening for him and i don't think kobe was at the point of his career and logically wasn't going to get in the way then he had phil telling him you're going to be there right you're going to be this is don't worry about it at this point i think michael was probably you know still at north carolina you know and so like this is still your future is still there for you this ain't going to prevent it winning this is going to help you all right and up next we are going to talk about the competition on the beat in los angeles covering the los angeles lakers during the 1999-2000 season i want to talk about something that i found fascinating about the lakers be from a media standpoint the competition part right and there's a famous picture i will use this picture to um to illustrate it on the screen you could put it right there victoria uh of you uh tim howard beck uh bill plasky ja don day and uh brad turner the legend and you have so many different types of beat writers right you got brad turner um who was coming from i believe he was in riverside at that point right covering the lakers and you have tim kowakami um scott howard cooper you have um tim brown you have mark uh mark hessler right and um you that's the institution of the times right and then you have the daily news howard beck who is trying who's probably at least in terms of circulation is probably like number two on that list right but they're still trying to everybody's establishment of the times but like how is that for you two who are howards on the daily news tim's on the times like how did being on a and paper um and structure coverage and then also like when you're seeing the brad turner who ends up being a legend on that beat from riverside trying to come up into the fold and you have plaskey like can you howard can you tell me how from your standpoint how are you approaching this beat and it's if you can go right after i wonder if um this dynamic still exists to the same degree but you know when it was primarily a newspaper ecosystem there's a pecking order to some extent right the la times was was the big bad right like they were the biggest kid on the block by far they're a national paper um and if you're at the la daily news or the riverside press enterprise or even the orange county register which had a big circulation you you do get to know each other's kind of styles in a in a reporting scrum in an interview scrum um the way we wrote about the team i think varied too which was really interesting but in terms of being at like the smaller paper smaller relative to the la times look i knew that the first of all tim's tim's an incredible kick-ass reporter so i'm already um fighting up a battle at times but also they had adande and plaschke and mark heisler and steve springer who covered the lakers back in the showtime era who would jump in sometimes and just this army of reporters and i was often a one man band and even when we threw you know everybody in the mix for the finals we would be outnumbered by probably three to one by by la times staffers at the same event so um you're feeling that a little bit of that underdog thing which meant that when i did beat them on a story or if i wrote it better that day that wasn't something i always judged myself on too like you know did i write it better nope nope tim's lead was better than mine today and then occasionally like i get it and i'm like ah cool like i i think i had the better angle today like you you do that and i think it's part of what makes you sharp and it's also part of the fun of it part of the stress of it but definitely i'm always i was always cognizant for those seven years at the la daily news that we had fewer bodies and we had fewer people and we had fewer people and we had fewer people and we uh a much smaller budget um and you know that the la times had a lot of kick-ass reporters and so you never forget that i also do think and tim may disagree with me but i'll just say it like i think there were times when whether it's the lakers or kobe and arn or whoever there were times when they were definitely going to cater to the times more because the times was the more prestigious paper and i bring that up to say like that's the reality of our business that might be espn now probably is uh it's it's natural for players coaches teams leagues to sometimes cater it doesn't mean it's unearned but to cater sometimes to the to the biggest uh you know biggest kid on the block and i got the flip side of that when i moved from la to new york to work for the new york times and i got to like wield that and i definitely think there were and i i know this for a fact there were people who called me back much faster or called me back period when it was howard beck from the new york times than it was howard beck from the la daily news so i so i think that's a reality of it i don't know if you would uh disagree with any of that too it's not wrong but one thing i definitely had on my mind throughout my time at the la times was that you know i started the philadelphia daily news which was the second second paper in philadelphia but aggressive and aggressive you wanted that edge you want to take on those the slow poke fat cat inquire not that it always was like that but you just that was in your head so when i was at the la times like i'm going to take advantage of this like i'm i ain't have an advantage i have bill plasche with me too i have whatever uh and i'm going to press it and i'm going to keep going and if howard knows me i don't lack for pressing i don't lack for trying to take advantage of things trying to get the edge and then keep going with it there's two things with that though like you have that and and you absolutely know that jerry cares about what's in the in in the la times and jerry bust absolutely did i had the other advantage i had is i knew jerry bust from boxing so i have a relationship with jerry bust um so you know there's all these elements that you you take into everything but the other thing though is they freaking read everything you wrote so like you can't get away with a little one-liner a little stray thing and uh you know there were certainly moments when it was uncomfortable because something that was mentioned in the la times maybe not even something that i wrote was getting called up and i was getting i was hearing about it and that was one thing about the lake that might not what was the biggest call you got cow copy what was the what was the call again this is a little sensitive but i'll say it i mean when kobe got engaged uh and vanessa was young i wasn't going to put her name in in the paper i wasn't and i didn't you know i had not approval for that and then news side got the name and my name was on the story and they just inserted vanessa's name in there and kobe went i don't know if you remember this howard kobe went crazy about that and i understood that and i was like oh my god i'm so sorry i'm so sorry i'm so sorry i'm so good but there's only so much you can say like it's my name's on it but i didn't do it like i did not do it and an editor i will never forgive just said i said you know you gotta run that past me you can't just put her name in there and he just said oh this is what we do news is what we do it's like you haven't broken a freaking story in your entire life i have don't tell me how to do this and i will never speak to this person again and like kobe was like iced into howard's kobe was iced to me for like two days i didn't go to get a call from him i got a call from representatives i got a certainly got a call from john black it's like you are persona non grata you are dead to kobe right now he might get over it but he's not over it now uh and that was rough and i think that was that the first championship it had to be because i only covered the first season uh and i got it i totally understood it was that really awkward thing where i can't kill my paper to kobe because i did talk to him and he like wanted nothing to do with it but it's like it wasn't me it was in the paper though like i can't just completely crap on my paper although maybe i would have been willing to but he was like that was as mad as he could possibly be over something he's only 18 at the time 19 how old he was 20 maybe he was 20 but it was like i still feel it because it was that angry and i felt it ripple through the entire organization they understood it but they also understood how mad kobe was and this was family stuff yeah this wasn't basketball stuff uh and that man i will that was uh that was as angry as any player has ever been at me and he didn't even really say a word to me it was just how under how angry i we all understood him to be uh so yeah and i know phil i got to be pretty close with and i i had a couple sit downs with phil one during the finals where i asked him on the record about his relationship with genie but that was like that was negotiated like i am going to ask you about genie bus if we sit down and he finally agreed to do it i remember is like todd musburger's age was like phil doesn't understand what the angle is for him what what is his ang like what coach thinks about that media wise what's my angle what's my angle with this they do now but they definitely didn't do it back then you know and some of them still don't uh but uh steve does but um it was like a negotiated well it's going to come out you know it's going to come out and it's going to come out and it's going to come out you just put in your terms i'm not going to be the whole it's not going to be the whole thing it's going to be part it was one of those conversations but you definitely understood that phil is looking at things through an angle and you can't you know you kind of scramble to try to keep your side through how wild is it can we just do a quick detour how wild is it that the head coach of the team is beginning to date the owner's daughter and how wild was that and and how did you guys girl whose previous whose previous boyfriend was dennis rodman like that was this panorama of this if you know the lakers it's not as surprising i saw it begin like i think i literally like during some practice there's genie and phil sitting up like there's like this second level at staples back then and they were talking together and you could tell there was a spark i don't know if that was the absolute start of it why am i going okay no what time of year is this what time of year is this this is this is like before the season starting or just as the season is starting jerry jerry west was very bothered by this that genie is going to start dating phil and phil is going to get more and more power and then phil is going to want to take over the team like he was very very outright about this off the record jerry being you know that's that was my guy like jerry was my guy like literally was like i would get yelled at but i would get information this was just something that happened and he was very concerned about that phil getting into the bus family because there was that obviously we just got a little bit the bus family tension with jerry jerry never felt he got enough credit or the contract and then he finally got the big contract and then he left before that contract ever started which was just this very jerry west element to this but um no the phil genie thing i think developed as the season was getting going and they became a very you know important significant thing later in the season everybody kind of knew it phil also liked to have an executive he could blame things on though like he very much liked that like he was like i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't like and and i think you know would have done that at some point with jerry you know this is like he he liked to have that we're rallying against this person and it happened to be an executive for the team all the better uh but uh it was a looming thing over everything genie wasn't running the team right he she she she'd be later but not then everyone kind of knew she probably would end up running the team you didn't know so there's some context of that too but it was happening People knew about it, people talked about it, they weren't really hiding it. It seemed like this was making Phil a very happy person. And if he's a happy person, it feels like that would bring the good vibes to the team. But there's another interesting thing that you said, Kawakami, about the Jerry West of it all, right? And their clash, which Jerry Buss was fine with it. He was all good. It was the Laker way in Jerry Buss' mind. But Jerry West really just kind of opens a wound again that he has with Phil Jackson. They've had a longstanding beef going back to their playing days, right? I believe that Phil Jackson caught him with a bow in one of their games back in the day. And he did not want Phil Jackson. But Jerry Buss, as you alluded to earlier, just was like, no, overwrite it. We need Phil Jackson on this team. So let's go into the playoffs. Playoffs, the first round they played the Sacramento Kings winning five games, which was kind of a precursor of things to come, right? The Kings pushed them to the. Brink and Chris Webber kind of falters down the stretch of those games. And then we go into the Phoenix series where midway through that, Shaquille O'Neal was presented with his lone regular season MVP award before the game on May 15, 2000. This is after he averaged 29 points per game, 13 rebounds and shot 57% from the field. When did you see him for the first time after this boat happens? And like, what is he doing? Definitely was that the presser? I don't remember. Howard, do you remember? I don't think he had. I don't think we saw him until the presser. But, you know, that was when he first started rolling out. I think that was the first day he did that from here on. I want to be known as the big Aristotle, right? And it was that whole season he was doing big, this big that. I think you compiled the whole list for a book that you did on the L.A. Times imprint of all of his of all of his nicknames he invented. But I think he was truly moved. Like, you know, whatever bitterness he had about not being unanimous. I it was a huge deal for him. This meant a lot, right? Like they didn't they didn't have the championship yet. He'd been you know, he was already on the the NBA 50th anniversary team. He was already in every commercial on Earth. He was a celebrity. He was larger than life physically and figuratively been a movie and been in movies. He'd done all these other things. And he was, you know, definitely one of the greatest players in the NBA. But he didn't have the ring yet and he didn't have an MVP trophy yet. And he'd been hurt. For some significant portions of his of his Laker time until then. And, you know, he wins MVP before he wins the championship. So I just think that level of of, you know, just accomplishment was hugely important to him. And I, you know, he has there's so much braggadocio and just, you know, the way he projects himself that it's it's it's harder to know. It's not like a Kevin Durant. It's kind of getting a little choked up or something, right? Like Shaq was not going to do this in front of us at that time. But I think it meant a lot to him. And thus they had they had to finish it off like they this is just early in the playoffs. They can't be getting too out of control here. You still they had a journey to make, you know, then we'll get into Portland. They knew the Trailblazers are going to be a bastard to play like they knew it. They had battled with them. They knew how tough it was to play them. My line I kept using is. The, you know, the Lakers play a wonderful version of the triangle offense, but the Trailblazers play an almost better version of the triangle defense. They just knew where the ball was going to go. They had Scottie Pippen. They had all, you know, Rashid Wallace, like the names of that team that left shrimp. I guess RV to Sabonis. Like it's unbelievable how many players they had on that team. Damon Stoudemire, Brian Grant. I'm missing so many others. It was something the Lakers knew. Who was going to be a big deal. Maybe they underestimated the Kings because that was a passionate series. I was like that was those two games that was back of the old Arco were as close to violence. I've ever been in an NBA and that was the precursor. That was a precursor to O2. Yeah, exactly. Like the energy was coming and that was that was white chocolate. That was all that other stuff. But they knew what was coming with the Trailblazers. They knew that was going to be a difficult series. They've been battling with. The Trailblazers, even in this incredible season for, you know, the top of the West to go in and win the home court advantage, which they hundred percent needed to finish off that series. So the MVP was great. Everybody was understandable what it meant, but it's just in the middle of this thing and they still had a lot to go. Yeah. So bring up the Portland Trailblazers. That's a great segue going into this because it really exemplifies how much those Chicago Bulls were really. Like looming over this 1999 20 season, because, you know, before the season, Phil is just trying to get all of his guys right now. He succeeded in getting Ron Harper and John Sally onto the roster. But he also like he made a call to Jordan like, hey, you might want to. Do you want to come here? We also tried to trade for Scotty Pippen. I believe the deal was on the table is Robert Ori and Glenn Rice to Houston for Scotty Pippen. Instead, he goes to the Portland Trailblazers. After the Lakers end up saying, no, we actually feel gets overruled. And so that is all looming over this particular series. It was similar in a lot of cases to me. Tim will know this firsthand, but it was similar in a lot of ways to the Rockets and the Warriors all season long. You feel like these two teams are probably going to go neck and neck to each other and they're going to end up playing each other. And this is going to be a version of the NBA finals. Right. What is Howard? What is the average? Attitude right now of this particular Lakers team going into this conference final. So the funny thing about the ninety nine two thousand season period is that they weren't supposed to be this good. They weren't supposed to be sixty seven wins and going to the finals. You know who said they weren't supposed to? Phil Jackson from day one of training camp back in Santa Barbara was like the triangle takes time. It's going to be a year or two before we're really hitting on all cylinders. I don't expect we're going to fix this whole thing overnight or become, you know, like he was. Downplaying the whole thing, maybe for manipulative purposes, maybe the truth. But I do think the consensus before the season was they weren't the favorites. The Spurs were the defending champs. I wrote about some of this a couple of years back for when I was at Bleacher Report. And so just to cut and paste it real quick as I picked the Spurs to win the championship to repeat Vegas favored the Spurs. A lot of newspapers were picking the Spurs. Others were picking the Blazers. The team we're about to talk about to make the finals. The L.A. Times, Tim Kawakami's paper in their preseason rankings had the Lakers fifth in the Western Conference. Wow. That wasn't me. That wasn't me. Because the Lakers, they were there was questions about their maturity, about their chemistry, of course, with Shaq and Kobe. Also the supporting cast. So let's get to the Blazers here in this series that we're about to talk about. Back in the day in newspapers, we did this thing. Every newspaper did it. Playoff series is coming. You put the starting five side by side and you put a checkmark by who wins the matchup. And then you do the coach and you do the bench and maybe some intangibles. Lakers. Shaq. Check. Kobe. Check. Blazers. Every other position. Check. Bench. Blazers. Check. Coach. Phil Jackson. Check. Over Mike Dunleavy Sr. Sorry, Mike Dunleavy. Intangibles. Who knows? But the Lakers would always lose. These on paper battles. Oh, yeah, they've got Shaq and Kobe, but everybody Laker fans every year. I swear, even after they won the first championship, they were always ready to trade Robert Ory and Derek Fisher. Robert Ory is too small to guard Carl Malone and Chris Weber or Kevin Garnett and Tim Duncan and all the other big boys. He can't handle it. He's a converted small forward. What are we doing with Robert Ory? Derek Fisher is too slow to guard Damon Stoudemire of the Portland Trailblazers or any other number of quick guards. The Lakers were always knocked. For the supporting cast. And in fact, as we know, in retrospect, one of their greatest strengths was that supporting cast. But the Blazers had two starting fives. That was the theme of their team that year. They had literally 10 guys who you could, you know, not exactly the same level, but they had their entire bench were guys who could start for another team. And so they were just super deep. And, you know, it's Scotty and it's Rashid Wallace and Steve Smith, Detlef Schramf, a very young Jermaine O'Neal, Bonzi Wells. Damon Stoudemire, like just super tender on Arvita Sabonis, who was one of the few guys in the league who could actually stand up to Shaq physically and had the height and also had a three point shot to try to pull Shaq away from the basket. So I didn't go to the depth of looking up how many people picked the Blazers to beat the Lakers in that series. But I'm betting you it was probably more than half, despite the fact that the Lakers had won 67 games. These teams tied throughout the season. They'd won five games each. Can't remember why they'd played 10. Oh, no, no, no. 10 games was the combination of the regular season and the six games, excuse me, of the conference finals. So by the time they get to game seven, seven, seven, seven, yeah, by the time they get to game seven of the conference finals, they've won five games each regular season and playoffs like they were just that close. The Blazers were really freaking good. And, you know, in an alternate timeline, absolutely in multiple alternate timelines, since we now live in an age when we talk about multiverses and a lot of those multiverses, the Blazers win that series. And I'll tell the story. It's a famous story. Howard Beck tells it, too. But you know who was advising the Portland Trail Blazers? who had been hired by them in February or March. Del Harris had been named as an advisor. And it was an interesting thing. We knew this was going to be a clash. They're fighting for the number one seed. Shaquille was mad at me. Had been pouting through this wintertime, the typical Shaquille, not talking. And then Del Harris, we found out. So I asked Shaquille in the Laker logger room before a game, what do you think about Del Harris being hired as an analyst or a strategist for the Portland Trailblazers? And that's when Shaquille looked at me and said, Tim asked a good question. Tim asked a good, you asked a good question. And that's when he lowers himself, grabs me, picks me up and twirls me around the locker room. Like is the most uncontrolled experience of my life. I had no idea what was happening. I can't see, I can't hear, I can't breathe. Literally, you can't. I wish I was there to see that, man. That will never happen again. I don't know what other player can do that now. He put me down and I like, I like, I'm just stunned. Howard was there and I was like, I think I said this. I know I thought this. Like Shaquille, if that's you liking me, I'd rather you not like me. So going into this series, right? The Lakers go up 3-1, seems to be dominating the series. And then they gave up a game six and then it sets up the game seven that we all know, right? Where? The Blazers go up about 20 points going into the fourth quarter. And there's a lot of tension going on in Staples Center, right? All the ghosts and all the demons that we have been talking about to kind of come into the fold right here, right? Where guys are getting a little tight. Like, is this going to happen again? Are we doomed? We got Phil Jackson into the fold. We got everything working. We got Shaq being an MVP season. And you kind of have these types of games whenever you go in the bowels of NBA history, where it's the biggest test comes at this particular time, no matter how much playoffs success that you get or how much regular season you get. When you are a new team to this stage and you haven't overcome, there's jitters that come around. And then the Lakers go on a bit of a huge run. They outscore the Blazers 31-13 in the fourth quarter of that game. You have everything coming together. Everything that the Lakers have been wanting to happen, right? They want Kobe to play under control. They want a defense to shut down a team. And then they want their role players to play really, really well. And you see that in this particular frame where Barnstall hits a three that just randomly banks in, right? That's the end of the third quarter. Oh, end of the third quarter, exactly. Huge, huge. Banks in a three-pointer, right? And then all of a sudden, blazers are up 15 and then you start seeing shots start to go in you start to see a block uh at one end by kobe right then you see him start to play under control hits a huge shot over scotty pippen um who kind of had been his nemesis growing up uh into in this league right he's always um you know scotty pippen wasn't there to replace um kobe when he was in trade rumors that the goal wasn't to replace kobe but it was to kind of show kobe the ropes and kobe was like i don't need that i do not need that so it all culminates within 54 seconds left in the game where scotty pippen meets kobe bryant they're going to duel and kobe has one of the best crossovers i have ever seen and then out of nowhere you think that kobe's just going to go in for a dunk and then he sees shaq coming out of nowhere and he just throws the ball as high as he can and shaq dunks it that is what i remember as a child watching this on tape but you guys were there can you i will go with i'm gonna go with howard first because he tells the story so great i want to get kawakami's commentary but tell me what it was like seeing the iconic play between kobe and shaq the the uh the alley-oop of all alley-oops and what was that like in in the staples center um where were you at who was next to you what was going on so i you know i wrote like many many thousands of words about that play about what we now call the lob and about that series and about everything that came with it uh for bleach report like five years ago six years ago now my gosh um i remembered that play so if when you see the replays there's a couple different angles but one of them is from behind kobe as he's crossing over scotty and it looks from that angle like kobe's going up for a jumper and that's the the angle that we had on the baseline the beat writers at that time sat on the baseline on the opposite side of the line and they were like oh from the laker bench right and so i'm looking at kobe's back i thought he was going up for a shot i did not see shaq bound you know bounding down the baseline for what ends up being the alley-oop dunk it's almost like he came in from out of out of you know off camera for me because i was so focused on kobe and years later 20 years later when i'm reporting for this this feature to do an oral history of the lob i was like is my memory faulty on this or did i was was i just like blind about this so i asked a bunch of the the guys who played for the blazers and a bunch of the players uh for the lakers i'm like guys what did you think when kobe went up and at least half of them thought he was going up more than half i think it was thought he was going for a jump shot also because that was kobe right kobe's gonna take it himself and i don't know at what point kobe made the decision unfortunately you know that's also the year that kobe died i don't get the chance to ask him about this for that story and i don't know if he's ever talked about that particular moment about whether he was gonna shoot until he saw shaq or at what point he knew he had the lob there but it's almost like it came out of nowhere and i think that was the way the whole arena felt because there was just like this okay kobe's crossing over scotty they're now they're up four points i think at the time they've already wiped out the whole 15 point deficit in the fourth the ball goes up and suddenly again feeling like out of nowhere shaq comes in and just like and it's a little bit behind him to the lob not perfect just boom bangs that thing through the place fucking explodes as loud as i've ever heard an whatever you want to say about you know oh la fans hollywood this that that place freaking exploded it was incredible it was like a sonic boom and then shaq comes running back down the court with his eyes bugging out pointing up into the stands do his family doing that whole thing um it was incredible it was it was just it's funny because of the faultiness of memory you think that like oh that must have been the game winning basket or that must have been the one that put them finally ahead after wiping out no they were already up the blazers were crackling just disintegrating before our eyes and that was the final dagger and it was it became the most symbolic uh moment of that entire run bigger than anything that actually happens in the finals that come after it it's you know really when we think about that first championship i think the first thing we think about is not beating the pacers it's beating the blazers and it's about that lob and like that was the moment symbolically and i think even spiritually if i can go that far and again i think it's a very important moment for us to be able to see that and i think it's again in the story that i did six years ago a lot of lakers talked about it that way rick fox robert ory derrick fisher they all talked about it as like that's the moment that's when we came together that's when we knew what was possible and that launches the dynasty where were you sam where were you in the media section yeah sitting next to howard that's the baseline thing opposite so we're looking down right we're looking across the court and it's kobe and kobe's gonna take a shot and what he just looked like he just what was he doing like what you didn't know he did that like he just seemed like he threw the ball in the air like it's kobe the ball goes up in the air and then you just see the finish of it you see the shaquille arm go up somebody's aren't like i just saw somebody's arm goes up is that rashid who is that is shaquille and the ball goes down and as howard said it's detonation a staple one thing about staples it's not a really loud arena but when they're nervous it's really loud it's it's so many people in there and even the people in the suites maybe they would you know they're into it too and that was like the floor starts bouncing the whole thing is like this is happening this is happening but i'll just talk about some of the other things going in that was a day game this is the weird thing that was a day game it wasn't a night game so it was like this weird like less than 48 hours after game six you're traveling back everyone's worn down you're playing a day game shaquille did not tend to play great in day games if you remember correctly um there was a real weird energy can they just do it again and again and again and again and again and again and again and defend themselves the other thing i remember is thinking phil jackson doesn't lose these series like this is in my head i think the same thing about steve kerr now steve kerr hasn't since lost some series but there's just certain guys you don't think they're going to lose a series in my head how what's phil jackson going to be like on a losing podium i don't know what that's i don't think that's going to happen shaw throws in that bank shot you're like okay this this is possible then they just squeeze and they squeeze and they squeeze you know they just squeeze and they just squeeze and they squeeze you know they just squeeze and they squeeze you know they just did not have that go-to score they did not have that guy can go get his own the lakers had two of them and i just think that's what the lesson i've always taken from that is when it comes down to that moment which is that's a historical moment right well maybe we're going to get into this later that's an either or moment that is a threshold moment for shaquille and kobe for this trailblazers team which we all thought was just as good as the lakers home court became the point to dig out points and who's going to play the best defense and the should the kobe to shaquille thing is simple because it's Kobe throwing it to Shaquille. That's what's the thing, right? That's it. After all this ball hogging, I trust you. Guy who shot the Arab ball to end the Utah series, which again, I respected Kobe for that because no one else wanted to take, Shaq didn't want to take that shot. Kobe took that shot, won a great shot. I had no problem with him doing it. This is the guy though, who wants to win every game himself, right? We know that about him. We know the wild horse, the Phil Jackson, just trying to rein him in a little bit, making the pass when everybody thought he was going to shoot the ball and throwing it to Shaquille, who was in the right place and knew that he could run there and get the pass from Kobe. That was, other than just the points, it was the symbolism of what this connection could possibly be and what it had to be to beat the Trailblazers. So we all felt it. We 100% felt it. I wrote the next day, it was like, this is when the NBA, the finals feels like summer school. It's like, oh, they're going to play the Pacers now? Who the fuck cares? You know, it was a little harder than that. And we know, you know, there were some injuries, whatever. But after that, after the regular season, that ridiculous King series, which was amazing to write about and experience, the Suns series wasn't that big. That was Phil Jackson after their one loss coming out and going, happy Mother's Day to all you mothers out there. It's still an incredible Phil moment. And then the Trailblazers series, like the Pacers thing, it felt like nothing. It felt like it was going to be like a Mediterranean cruise because it just wasn't going to be the same. It did have some drama. The closest thing you can get to a Mediterranean cruise in Indiana, but sure. Yeah, very good. Very good. Very good. But the pent up stuff was released by the Kobe lob to Shaquille. The anxiety, the, you know, the historical weight of everything because they were going to get through Indiana. They just were going to. They didn't know exactly how, but I mean, I remember the interviews on maybe how are you to like the talk, the conversations I was having were like retrospective pieces almost. It wasn't like, oh my God, what are you going to do against the Pacers? It was what's going to happen next. And that, and that, and that sit down with Phil, where he like said, we're going to trade Glenn Rice. You can't write that till after, but we're going to trade Glenn Rice. This is like game four, you know, before game four of the NBA finals. But that's the spirit of where they were. They were just that good. And then they can get through the trailblazers, which was fucking hard. They were going to be everybody knew that whoever won the Western conference finals that year was winning the championship. I, there was no disagreement about that. We've glossed over the fact that the Lakers, in addition to having been up three, one in that series, then losing the next two to force that game seven back at Staples center. This is what they did. They, they, they were always playing with their food. They were dramatic beyond belief and beyond the, you know, the, the, uh, tolerance of a lot of their fans. Like they just, they were flirting with disaster a lot. Like that was back when it was a best of five first round and they needed a fifth game to beat the Kings. They were up to, Oh, the Kings won the next two at home. And it was suddenly a game five where like, I mean, they blew them out in that game, but for a moment it was like, Oh shit. Are the, are the Lakers going to go from 67 wins in the top seat in the West to losing to the eighth seated Kings in the first round? Like that was on the table for a minute. They go up three on the suns. It ends in a gentleman's suite, but to Tim's point, yeah, they get blown out in game four and Phil Jackson, one of the rare times he didn't take questions, just walks out and says, you know, well that, that game was whatever, blah, blah, blah. And so I have nothing to say except happy mother's day to all you mothers. And yes, he meant that both ways. No question. And we knew it. That was the game where Phil didn't even talk to him at halftime. Right. I think so. He just stayed outside the locker room during that halftime. He was like, this was like, they, you know, they, they were dominant, but they were also, kind of, you know, just irresponsible, inconsistent lapses. Just it, it, it happened. So, you know, I always say they're this close to not winning it in year one of the three Pete. And they were this close. Cause it was game seven, of course, on the road in Sacramento in 2002, like either of those could have gone the other way. And instead of a three Pete, it's one championship and, or they don't get there in the first place. Cause if you don't win it the first time in 2000, who knows one of the other things we have not covered, but real quick, because we are sports writers working for newspapers in the year, 2000 on deadline, we're all writing. Cause they're down 15 with 10, 28 to go in the fourth quarter of game seven, we're all writing the season obituary. We're all like, well, 67 wins season goes for not kind of stuff. And then you're, you're just, Oh wait, Oh shit. Oh wait. Oh, Ooh, lob boom. And like, now you're writing Lakers, when going to the finals for the first time with Kobe and Shaq and you know, everything changes in the course of about, you know, 10 minutes of, of, of real time. Just don't forget that Brian Shaw bank shot, Brian shot of bank. So it was freaking huge. It really is just like, Oh no. Oh no. Okay. Also they got a shot. They really really doubts it. These are the quotes I got several years ago. Shaq said of that blazers team quote, they were the toughest team. And they were the only team that wasn't scared of us. And Robert Ory for that story said, it's probably the best team I've ever faced playing basketball period. And obviously Rob's won a lot of championships. So like they were that tough, that blazers team does not get its due. So going into the, to the NBA finals they're playing against Reggie Miller, playing against the Reggie Miller, who had gone through so many playoff disappointments and didn't get to the finals throughout the nineties. And they go when they they're playing against the Davis brothers. And then they're also playing against Rick Smith's, but by and large, you kind of knew what was going to happen, but that doesn't mean there isn't any drama, right? Lakers take the first game, beat the crap out of the Pacers. And then the second game, Kobe Bryant sprains his ankle when Jalen Rose steps underneath, it. And then we'll get to that ankle injury in two games later, but the series is two, one, and the Lakers still seem to be very firmly in control of this series. This paints the picture and takes us into game four where Kobe misses one game and he's returning in a game four. It's a really ugly game. Yeah. They lose game. Yeah. They lose game three. Kobe's out. Yeah. Kobe's out. Kobe comes back for game four, still trying to work off the rest of that, that that ankle doesn't really, get going until the fourth quarter. And then like you guys say, Shaq fouls out in the, in the overtime, very early in the overtime series, the famous story, Kobe says, I got you big fella. And then he rattles off 28, but he has eight points in that final overtime. It's an incredible just jumpers. Everything. It was one of those things. It was similar to LeBron in game six of the 2013 finals, where it was like all of your deficiencies, I'm going to shoot. I'm going to show you that I can overcome them. He hits the jumpers. He, he passes, he takes over the game in a more responsible way. Everything kind of comes together in that moment. And it leads to the embrace between him and Shaq. And what was it like Howard seeing that coming of age in person? And then also what was it like to see them kind of embrace in that way? Because there was always this tension, but within that tension, there was always some level of respect. What do you remember about that? Finish the embrace. I remember is the one where he jumps into his arms after the championship. Um, I don't recall on with game four. The thing with game four was this thing still hanging in the balance. It's a two, one series. Kobe's already missed one game. He's playing on the bum ankle and there's no guarantee, you know, at this point, yes, we all thought it was a foregone conclusion that they were going to roll the Pacers. But once Kobe, you know, injures his ankle, um, everything is now up in the year. Potentially the game goes to overtime. If they lose this, it's a two, two series. And yeah, they've got home court and all that, but like it could have slipped away from them. Kobe being able to step up at age 22 at that time and take over with Shaq, having fouled out was the first real test of his basketball leadership. Forget the voice of his leadership. He wasn't ready for that yet. And he was still too young. And Shaq was too big of a, of a figure in that locker room, but Kobe making all the clutch plays, including like the big putback of the Brian Shaw miss, which I think was one of those key baskets in overtime. Like that was Kobe's real coming out moment. He'd had other, other big games, playoffs and regular season. He was already a sensation, but what I remember most about that game was the discussion after which of it, which was, Oh, all those Michael Jordan comparisons do just validated them. He just did the thing that he was supposed to do. The thing that Michael does come up with every big play in a game that could still go either way. And on the big end, the biggest stage at the biggest time, all that Michael Jordan stuff. Yeah. Kobe's validated. That was, that was what I was writing the next day. I think probably a lot of people were writing the next day. And I do think it, it helped engender that much more respect and admiration from Shaq because, you know, Shaq took it personally when he fouled out. No, he probably was blaming the refs for fouling him out. They probably, you know, complained about at least two of those calls or something, but Shaq fouling out every time he felt the two things that Shaq was vulnerable on, right. If he fouls out or if he's missing key free throws and he hates being vulnerable, he hates having to ever have this be about him or that it could have been his fault that he could have let anybody down. Kobe picking him up that night was absolutely critical for their relationship as well as the championship run, as well as Kobe's then still kind of young and forming legacy. You know what? I don't want to put an incredible, like negative, not negative, but like cynical spin on this. But I do think the first, time it came into my head and and maybe others, and maybe Kobe's, maybe not the first time that Kobe said, but it was practical, that he might be better than Shaquille. He might be more important than Shaquille. I don't think he was at that moment. But down the road, if it had to be a pick between one or the other, I don't think it would have been anybody but Shaquille until that moment. And that moment happens. That putback, I remember, it's like, this kid is going to do whatever it takes. This is not going to be anything except for Kobe Bryant leading the Lakers to win this game. I did not at the time think he was better than Shaquille. I did not at the time think, oh, you just get rid of Shaquille. I'm not saying that. I'm saying the genesis, though, of what happened in the next playoffs, when Kobe just utterly annihilates the Spurs. That was an unbelievable performance. A year later, whatever, this is the beginning when you started to think, if they got a pick between the two. If they do, whenever they do, I'm going to go with Kobe. That's the first time I really started thinking about that. Again, it's in the grander Lakers industrial complex vision, right? Usually, you just think about the championship, right? You win a championship, that's enough. But as you're thinking about Kobe at that age, you're thinking about how this plays out. You're thinking about the tension that's been there. Yes, I agree with Howard. If this was a fusion of those two, they understood it, how great they could be. 0-1 was mostly about that, although I think you saw Kobe beginning to push at the edges of that. I'll just say the beginning of the time, I thought about it. And then I asked Kobe about it, like I mentioned. I asked Kobe about it at the beginning of the next season. He said, yeah, that's when I started thinking that this is the beginning for me. He literally said that. And I think he meant to say it to me. He meant that this was going to be an important interview, which is another reason why I'm pissed off that I never wrote it. Damn it, San Jose Mercury News. Strikes again. I'm like that. He's like, yeah, write this Jameson thing again. Write another Jameson column if you could. How about Eric Dampier? That this was the start. Not that Kobe didn't think these thoughts. He always thought these, right? He had his family telling him you're the greatest player of all time. But that's when it became a practical thing to understand, acknowledge, and think about into the future. If there's going to be a choice between these two, or if you had to go alpha and not alpha, certainly was alpha. Shaquille that season, as it had to be, and probably was into the next season a little bit. But as this thing was going to change, as these two players were going to move in different directions, that's the first time you really thought, okay, that's fine if you go with Kobe. That's exactly what is going to happen. And at that point, it was a big deal to think that. Shaquille is like 27, right? Near unanimous MVP. Like I said, you just opened up games and you knew he was going to destroy somebody. That wasn't over. But the thinking that this could change, I think, had really begun. And it began just in those plays, in that game. And not that Kobe wasn't going to push against it no matter what, but I think that was the proof to him that on that moment, Shaquille couldn't bail him out. Shaquille was off the floor. Was Derek Fisher going to win that game? Was Ron Harper? No, it had to be Kobe Bryant against a really good player. A really good team. This is part of the beginning of the larger conversation of the post kind of bloom Lakers into, okay, what's the mature Lakers going to be like? And then what's the post Shaquille Lakers going to be like? Two quotes that stick out to this. One in the LA Times from Sam Perkins, ain't nothing wrong with that man's ankle. I've been trying to tell y'all that. The second one is from Kobe Bryant himself. This is the game that I've been dreaming about, to be honest with you. I dream about it. I dream about it every day. And then two games later, it was a little Jalen Brown energy. Just a little bit. But game six, they wrap it up at Staples Center. The champion, they are champions. What do you guys remember about the locker room and just the celebration, the utter chaos that happens? It was weird because it was the first championship in 12 years for LA for the Lakers, but it seemed like an eternity by their standards. What was it like? What was the sigh of relief in that locker room afterwards, Beck? That was the first championship I ever covered. So it was the first time I'd been in that locker room. And back then, the NBA would give like a little sticker to put on the credential of a handful of people, the beat writers. And of course, you know, the network gets to go in early, but we got to go in before most of the media masses. So we got to see the champagne celebration all three of those years that I covered. And that was really cool to be in there where it was not that crowded yet. And it was just, and by the way, back then, ain't no goggles, ain't no like, whatever tarps and stuff up. It was just, and there was no beer and there was no sponsorships and there were no signage. Now it's all very staged. But back then it was completely organic. I mean, they wheeled in the champagne. That part is not organic. Somebody had to go buy the stuff and put it on ice, but it was just a lot of champagne and a lot of people, you know, just dunking it on each other and the place just going nuts. I, the one thing I remember most actually was talking to Kobe and I think this is by this time he's in the training room, Gary Vee's training room, sitting on one of those tables and we're at a place we're never allowed, but it's post celebration. And I, I could just walk in there now and he's sitting there with Vanessa next to him. And it's the first time I met her. And the quote from Kobe was something to the effect of, I didn't know champagne stung your eyes so much. He was 21. He was 21. Also not for nothing. You don't normally spray it in your eyes, even if you were of age. But he's like, I didn't know it stung so much. And so, and he's just sitting there just looking blissed out and Vanessa's sitting there and she's just looking like happy as can be. It was just this really, really nice moment there. You, there's still those photos you see now of Shaq and Kobe with the trophies sitting. I think it's still on that same table in the training room at Staples Center. And I remember that. I remember, yeah, just like, there's just, you know, corks and bottles everywhere and it's a mess and you leave there smelling like champagne. I don't remember if that was a year where they did cigars. Cigars have become a real thing. Cigars have become a really big thing too now. So you, if you, if you cover championship celebration, you usually leave smelling like champagne and cigars. It's, it's kind of gross. What was, Kyle, tell me, what was the, what was it like going to your car after this? Well, no, I remember writing my story and watching the TV news coverage and there are fires in the parking lot and I'm looking, is that near my car? Is Mike, I'm riding the Lakers championship gamer and wondering if my car is going to be there. I think we were advised not to leave right away. I mean, we had to wait. Also, yeah, we stayed in. Yeah, we stayed in. I just want to do a quick disclaimer on this one. Just want to do a quick disclaimer. There was no LA Live at this point. There's nothing around Staples. This is the beginning of the downtown construction. No, it's a parking lot. There's a parking lot. And it's just everything going on. So guys, I just want to make that disclaimer for the audience. Yeah, it's a weird, I will always remember the feeling of writing this very important game story. Obviously, this is the one that's going to go on posters and t-shirts, theoretically, and I might remember it. And there's such, I mean, my car is literally like 20, 20 yards away from where the fires are. Like, that's a pretty important thing. Then we're told to stay in. So we go upstairs, we get invited to the suites. So we're just kind of hanging around the suites and everyone's, you know, the employees are hanging around too. Like, we can't go anywhere. Now, that wasn't all night, but it was not a short time. So that was a very interesting moment. I remember like having to put like loud music on the headphones to try to get back into the mode to write because it just, like, this is a pretty important story here, guys. And feeling good. I remember being in the locker room, not too much. I just remember like they got in a circle. Remember this, how they got in a circle and they just kind of ran around each other. Like you just saw this unified fusion of people. And even within that, like Shaquille and Kobe were just in that. They weren't like just Shaq and just Kobe, which, which impacted me. And I remember mostly Shaquille having this look of peace. Like you don't, he had, he had always been anxious all season in the years before that too. It'd been like, what does he have to achieve? What can he get there? Can he get there? And that moment you see it in the pictures, but I remember feeling it. Like he feels that he completed something that he did not know he could do. And this is like, you know, you want more, you want to achieve everything. You want to keep going. But I think for him being, you know, the people person that he is, right? He's like, he likes people. He likes people. He likes being complimented by people. Kobe less so Shaquille was that. And he was like, this is it. I've just done it. And that really struck me about that moment that he, as he called it, what the, the, the big picture trophy, which is the finals MVP, which he said was more important than the regular season MVP. I was really struck by that, struck by that and also by the possibility that I might not have a car when I came back out afterwards after the championship. And then I think, you know, it was a little bit of a, I think it was a little bit of a shock for me. And I think it was a little bit of a shock for him. of this incredible quest that he's put together, it was that there were these many, you know, riots not riots but there was these you know things burning and people over celebrating and he was disgusted by that and that's what he wanted to talk about very jerry very jerry to be away from the celebration because he is going to be nowhere near a celebration and also jerry the next day fuming in his dark office that everything wasn't so good because people misbehaved the previous night all right let's go into categories biggest what ifs i i have a few listed right now what if co what if michael jordan and scotty pippen became lakers before the season if then phil jackson got his which big biggest what ifs um there was also a trade on the table or it was a trade discussed for kobe bryant for grant hill in the middle of the season um phil jackson uh did considered it for like two seconds was like nah he loved kobe's um competitive drive and he was six years younger than grant hill and he was like nah he loved kobe's um competitive drive and he was um there's one uh what if uh the lakers don't win this series probably both shack and kobe there's probably have one more year before they gotta go um what if a smaller one probably in consequence of what if the lakers miffed on shack's free agency uh he had the hawks nicks pistons heat and the lakers were reportedly in the mix for his services and the free agency that basically means that there's just kobe on the roster and they are coached by dale harris and none of this actually those are my biggest what ifs you guys have any biggest what ifs for the audience howard beck well i'll just say this jerry west was never trading kobe bryant ever as long as he was there of course jerry west was only there as it turns out for a few more weeks or months um after that championship but um but during the season like the idea of them trading him like i i don't think so um i know the biggest what if is just simply game seven of the western conference finals like if the blazers win that they win the championship scotty gets a ring away from michael uh you know arvita sabonis detlev shrimp steve smith damon stoudemire bonzie wells rashid wallace before he ever gets to detroit those those guys all have rings i have no doubt in my mind and the lakers it if shack and kobe are still together it's not the same supporting cast there would have been hell to pay somebody was going so that robert ory rick fox uh derrick fisher brian shaw supporting cast something's getting broken if they don't win it and also i think if you don't win the first one there's really no guarantee that you now have the confidence and the chemistry and everything that comes behind it to win the one the next year and of course they were absolutely dominant in 2001 the year they beat the sixers and they win the first 11 games of the playoffs without losing a game but i think if you lose game seven it's so devastating and it rocks their their their their foundation i don't know that they're winning one period after that you just don't you just don't know not saying they wouldn't have you just don't know so to me that's still the biggest what if yeah that's the biggest what if because it almost didn't like that really almost didn't happen and maybe we think of the trailblazers organization in a very different way uh maybe you know i still think the lakers probably figure out how to win one but it might just be one uh and maybe phil doesn't come back the second time because he's only won one uh maybe the shaquille kobe flashpoint comes quicker uh that is a that's the biggest one the other one i'll say is what if they don't hire phil jackson because they were ready to hire rambis yeah and what if kurt rambis is the head coach for this season there's so much talent there but there was some tension there were some issues uh i don't know if jerry could have held it together i think there would have been a much bigger focus a spotlighting of grant hill i mean i'm sorry not grant hill of glenn rice could glenn rice have been like thought of differently if he's the lead you know one of the lead figures instead of just kind of pushed aside by phil jackson i don't know if he's the lead figure but i think he's the lead figure i don't think they would have won the championship i don't think they would have got past portland but i think kurt rambis had a lot of backing in that franchise so he wouldn't have been fired just after a year it would have been really interesting it would have been very laker very lakery to have kurt rambis we we know that because the ties he continues to have with this team his wife is genie buss's best friend that one was really close i think that was close to happening and i think we wouldn't have had sustained lakers run but it would have been something and um it would have been very much more in the laker family and phil jackson was the departure from that and obviously it was a successful departure from that but man it almost didn't happen and kurt rambis really could have been a coach of that team by the way i just want to go back to the 61 points in the la times uh article from there the levy white game story let me read it i gotta read it r.i.p to the great um if the clippers were hoping lakers center shaquille o'neal would take it easy on the lakers center shaquille o'neal would take it easy on the lakers center shaquille o'neal would take it easy on the lakers center shaquille o'neal because monday was his birthday they surely were wrong o'neal who turned 28 ripped through the clippers collection of big man as if they were wet food stamps is scoring a career high 61 points to lead the lakers to a 123 103 victory over the clippers phenomenal um script to that one the clippers pr led by joe safety was furious because they say that shack got the tickets that he requested and that this was one of those shack embellishments and they were furious with this side side note to the side note i was doing some freelance stuff for sports illustrated at the time where they would ask a bunch of beat writers to send it on they'd pay me for a certain amount of notes per week and yeah they wanted to drill down on that one and i got the the clipper said no no it's not what happened here's what happened s i ran with their version of it anyway where it's just shack getting revenge and joe safety blew up at me all over again but joe safety was kind of a hothead who liked to blow up at things so oh let's go um i mean that lead was the apex mountain for all-time leads um so let's go right in the apex mountain apex mountain for shack right the apex mountain is the all-time peak of a player's career or and i would say probably that was it um was it apex mountain for staples center maybe first year first year it's just the first year of it it's tough to say put apex it put them on the it put staples center as not only just a venue but as like a cathedral of sorts a championship place yeah i'm not sure if it's a championship place i'm not sure if it's a championship place i i might want to go a little further into staples but yeah it was close shaquille for sure i i mean maybe phil had you know the michael jordan stuff but this showed phil could do it in another team this you could phil could do now he still had superstars he could do it without michael um that was a big deal i think for the phil mythos um he was already had a lot of mythos around it but i think that was a big confirming moment for phil and you peak peak phil because he had a great year for phil amazing good year for phil i don't know if it's apex mountain for his life but definitely apex mountain for phil jackson's time in la right like it was it was a great great time it was pretty good and he got to hang out with me and howard beck i mean you know who wouldn't consider that um apex mountain for teams that you guys cover maybe uh it's tough you cover seven three nine okay all right yeah i mean i might have shack come after me for that but i'm not going anything more than the 17 uh golden state warriors any apex nominees for you howard i mean just on the beat writer thing or just on stuff like that's still i think that that blazers laker series is still probably my all-time favorite um although the king series two years later is pretty close uh it's apex mountain for jerry west guys i mean i know jerry west had you know a half century of greatness in various roles most of them with the lakers um and then lakers um and then lakers um and then lakers um and then later of course uh his advisory roles with the warriors and clippers but think about it this way um shack and kobe is his crowning achievement he's you know showtime is is gone and again as we talked about early in the pod he goes and gets these two guys who form one of the greatest tandems in nba history and there's no guarantee it's going to work there's no guarantee about anything and right after this championship because jerry's jerry he walks away he retires there was there were some medical issues that were part of it there was just the stress there was a lot of mental health stuff that he didn't give you know uh let on about until many many years later when he ended up talking about it publicly and then writing about it but jerry leaves and then two years later he goes and becomes you know the gm or president of the memphis grizzlies finishes his career with the warriors with the clippers he's you know because of a weird you know divide between him and the buses or between him and genie specifically perhaps he's never back with the lakers he's gone and there's no guarantee the lakers are ever the lakers again the way we think about them right and this is like this is all jerry west and unfortunately wired the way he is he doesn't get to achieve to uh uh enjoy it um in the way that he should have or be able to to consider the vindication that i was trying to say it was the next day when i saw him in that dark office and interviewed him and there was just no no joy there unfortunately but i do think this is his for everything that he has achieved in his career he's gone and there's no guarantee that he's i do think that was jerry west apex mountain maybe a howard bet question how did this team in their win change the nba if at all the way it changed the nba is simply this everybody needed either a kobe stopper shout out reuben patterson uh bruce bowen doug christie all the guys that teams were now trying raja bell everybody wanted to get somebody who could check kobe in addition to the fact that teams were already trying to load up on bigs to either try to slow up or at least foul the living crap out of shack so i don't know that it changed the nba structurally but it it pushed everybody to try to get somebody who could stand up to shack and somebody who could at least stay with Kobe. Other than that, like it was a affirmation once more that, you know, a superstar duo was the path. This is before we get to the super team era of you got to have three with, you know, the Celtics and then the heat and then, you know, that the whole, you know, super team era. But back then it was like, if you got two, you're, you're in business and, you know, you know, good luck copying that. But, but that was definitely the model. I would say, I mean, not, this is hard to duplicate and maybe only three or four guys can do it, but I think it really, Chuck Daly did some of it. Pat Riley did some of it, but Phil really was the, coaching is 80% managing people. It's not the strategy so much. It's not the timeouts. It's some of that, but most of it, it's figuring out how to play different people off of certain situations to make sure you're getting the most out of them to make sure this person isn't colliding with that. And I think that's, I think that's a really important part of it. To putting them in a situation where the egos can mesh, where the neurotic ones can work with the super egos. And that's the NBA, man. That is it. It had been that before, but I think this really, with the Shaq and Kobe alpha, alpha, alpha combination, you have to get, got to manage the personalities in order to get yourself to be able to manage the strategies. Yeah. Last question. Who won the year? I would say Shaquille O'Neal, but I, I, I think he's the one that, that had the most to gain from this. You can make the argument for Phil, but this was his very best season. This, if the season doesn't happen, anyone in the championship, we look at Shaq a lot differently than we do. But what are your thoughts on who won the year? Tim? A hundred percent. Shaquille O'Neal, only MVP. I mean, Kobe only won one MVP too, but this was the Shaquille O'Neal MVP season in his prime. If it doesn't happen at this moment, when will it happen? It's his health, one of his healthiest seasons. It's one of his most consistent seasons. This is before it really starts splitting with Kobe. This is when everyone understands that he's the most dominant force in the game. Maybe you thought so beforehand, but this is, it's crystallized with the championship. If he doesn't do this at this moment, at this exact time, at the top of the peak, we definitely think it should kill differently. We def I think he thinks of himself differently. He considers them differently historically. This is Shaquille's victorious season. I don't think there's a question about it. We won. The media won the year. We got Shaq and Kobe and Shaq and Kobe won and they put on an incredible fricking show. I mean, listen, we won, the fans won. David Stern and the NBA won. Michael Jordan retires in 1998. We don't know yet that he's going to be coming back with the Wizards. And frankly, that was irrelevant anyway, when it comes right down to it for, you know, league marketing and popularity purposes. But the league was feeling pretty antsy and ratings were down. And it was definitely in the post Jordan era, the first couple of years, it was a little bit uncertain. And, you know, Allen Iverson couldn't be the face of the league for all kinds of reasons. Tim Duncan was not going to be the face of the league. Kevin Garnett, Chris Weber, T-Mac, Vince, Dirk, Marbury, like all the guys who were coming along at that time, who, you know, Grant Hill, who you thought might be able to, to, to fill the void. None of them were up to that. Kobe was absolutely up to it and wanted it. Shaq absolutely wanted it. And in a much different way, Shaq always resented that we in the media and the fans would always fall in love with like the, the, the shifty guards or, you know, the, the six, six wings and guards who could like, you know, put the ball between their legs five times and then go to the rack and dunk. They never, you know, it was the nobody roots for Goliath thing. And, but somebody had to seize the league and it had to be somebody like that. And, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but they weren't as compelling. The league needs compelling. The bulls were compelling as all hell and Kobe and Shaq and Phil were fucking compelling. They were great theater as well as great basketball. So, uh, the league won the year and we won this podcast. That has been, that has been, uh, the latest edition of NBA lore. This has been a real treat. You know, I've read you guys for a very, very long time. I've read you guys for a very, very long time. And like, just getting to know Howard through this podcast has been a treat and like also coming up under the fire of Tim Kawakami in the Bay area, you know, to actually do a podcast with them and then get you guys two together to talk about the 1999, 2000 Lakers. It was a treat. Thank you guys so much for doing this, man. I really appreciate it guys. This was awesome. Thanks for bringing us together. I can't remember the last time Kawakami and I talked this long about the year 2000. So this was fun. Oh man. And we're just going to end with this picture. All right. Thanks so much. Talk to y'all soon. Peace. Bye.