Showtime: Inside the Laker's Breakthrough Season

by Pat Riley

Pat Riley, the winningest coach in the NBA, traces how the Lakers rebounded from the disastrous 1986 playoffs to become world champions. 8-page photo insert.

Genres: Sports, Basketball, Nonfiction

259 pages, Hardcover

First published December 1, 1988

About the author

Patrick James "Pat" Riley (born March 20, 1945) is an American professional basketball executive, and a former coach and player in the National Basketball Association (NBA). He has been the team president of the Miami Heat since 1995, a position that enabled him to serve as their de facto general manager and as their head coach in two separate tenures (1995 through 2003, and 2005 through 2008).

Widely regarded as one of the greatest NBA coaches of all time, Riley has served as the head coach of five championship teams and an assistant coach to another. He was named NBA Coach of the Year three times (1989–90, 1992–93 and 1996–97, as head coach of the Los Angeles Lakers, New York Knicks and Miami Heat, respectively). He was head coach of an NBA All-Star Game team nine times: eight times with the Western Conference team (1982, 1983, 1985–1990, all as head coach of the Lakers) and once with the Eastern team (1993, as head coach of the Knicks). In 1996 he was named one of the 10 Greatest Coaches in the NBA history. As a player, he played for the Los Angeles Lakers' championship team in 1972. Riley most recently won the 2012 and 2013 NBA championships with the Miami Heat as their team president. He is the first North American sports figure to win a championship as a player, coach (both assistant and head), and executive. He received the Chuck Daly Lifetime Achievement Award from the NBA Coaches Association on June 20, 2012.

Reviews

[Lane Dockstader · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am a big basketball fan and this book showed the work ethic that is required of a championship team.

It is fun to watch a NBA game, but this is a "behind the scenes look" of the work and day to day activities (practice, bus rides, etc.) that a NBA player must endure. It takes a lot of work to be a champ!

[Todd C · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lakers!! Show Time was and will always be the pinnacle of Lakers basketball.

[Corban Ford · Rating 4 out of 5]

A solid recounting of the Lakers 1987 championship run, "Showtime" by Pat Riley is a book that had me entertained and yet feeling as if I was part of the journey along the way. I loved Riley's description of the in-game action almost as much as I enjoyed him sharing parts of the team behind the scenes, and ultimately this was a nice, easy read of a team in pursuit of destiny.

[John Clark · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read for fans of the Showtime Lakers

[Joon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Back in the days, I viewed Pat Riely as the quintessential image of what L.A. was all about. I also related to him because he was a career bench player and he used that experience to become a master motivator. Unlike most motivation books written by people tat expound on their theories, he did it. I always want to read books by people that "DID IT" as opposed to the theoriests. I highly recommend this book to anyone that wants motivation and the "HOW TO DO IT".

[Don · Rating 4 out of 5]

All about team building, leadership, sacrifice, building toward championship fulfillment!