Showtime

This story begins in 1979, when the Lakers drafted a player from Michigan State named Earvin "Magic" Johnson, and continues for the next ten years, when they reached nine finals and won five. But it wasn't just sports success that made the 1980s Lakers a national phenomenon. It was how they did it. With a combination of electric counterattacks, passes without looking and games with heart-stopping finishes, all well seasoned with the legendary Laker Girls, celebrities sitting at the foot of the track and the hottest nightclub in the city within the same pavilion, the Los Angeles team He turned routine NBA games into glamorous Hollywood-style events. In Showtime, the prestigious author Jeff Pearlman leaves nothing in the inkwell to tell us the story of a group of exceptional athletes who combined strength and talent to form the most legendary dynasty in the world of basketball: Johnson, the revolutionary 2.06 point guard who dazzled to the whole country with his captivating smile and his magic with the ball; Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the unstoppable center whose career was often clouded by ruthless surliness; and coach Pat Riley, whose elegance in dress and hair was a reflection of his basketball genius. Here's for the first time the complete, uncensored history of Showtime, an absorbing epic packed with basketball, celebrity, and '80s-style excess.