Winnin' Times: The Magical Journey of the Los Angeles Lakers - Hardcover

Ostler, Scott; Springer, Steve

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0025940805 ISBN 13: 9780025940802

Publisher: Macmillan Pub Co, 1986

Synopsis

Traces the rise of the world champion basketball team and recounts how owner Jerry Buss got the team in the biggest Monopoly deal of all time, how the club selected Magic Johnson, and other episodes from the club's past

About this title

From Publishers Weekly:

Ostler and Springer, both Los Angeles Times staffers, relate the story of the Lakers from the team's earliest days in Minnesota to its success in L.A., touching on its flamboyant owner Jerry Buss, and the changes wrought by the arrival of Magic Johnson, who, with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, became the team's second superstar. The Lakers, doing badly at the box office in Minneapolis, got permission to move because other club owners feared a new league would beat them to the West Coast. Sold to real-estate tycoon Buss, the team began to build an image as the glamor group of the NBA. Then came a championship won from the Philadelphia '76ers in 1980 and finally victory over the Boston Celtics in 1985. This entertaining, comprehensive volume also includes the accounts of a coach who thought he was hired as an assistant as well as a coach who was thought to have been fired because he displeased a star. Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal:

Written by two leading Los Angeles sportswriters, this is a very entertaining, breezy sketch of Laker history from the team's humble beginnings in frozen Minneapolis to their stunning defeat last year by the young Houston Rockets. Catering largely to Laker fans of the Eighties, the book focuses on the team's most recent stars, especially Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and flamboyant team owner Jerry Buss. The Buss story is certainly the most interesting facet of the book and in many respects typical of other current sports entrepreneurs. A high school dropout, Buss became a bored multimillionaire by age 40 and turned to sports ownership largely for the glamour. Winnin' Times will leave Laker fans screaming for more. Recommended for large sports collections. Joseph W. Constance, Jr., Georgia State Univ. Lib., Atlanta
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Macmillan Pub Co
• Publication date: 1986
• ISBN 10: 0025940805
• ISBN 13: 9780025940802
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 301