I don’t usually write about sports books on this blog, even if they’re a staple of my reading habits. It’s a very niche genre and your average reader is not going to be interested in them, even sports fans. However, this one hit a bit different for a few reasons.

First, while the book’s title is always applicable to the Los Angeles Lakers as a franchise, they just managed to break the Internet this past weekend with the most ridiculous trade I’ve ever witnessed as a basketball fan. This is not the place to go into the details, but I’m still in shock that this trade happened.

Second, while I don’t spend as much time these past few years watching professional basketball, the era covered in the book – 1996 to 2004 – is exactly the time where I discovered basketball and fell in love with the game. It holds a special place in my heart and still feels to me like one of the best eras to be a fan, even if there have been multiple eras in NBA history with objectively more talent and excitement. It brought back some memories from my late childhood and teenage years.

Finally, and more importantly, it’s just a fun book to read. The author, Jeff Pearlman, vividly brings to life the characters of that era, both the superstars like Kobe, Shaq or Phil Jackson, but also the role players and bench warmer, like Devean George and Mike Penberthy. It reads like a script for a movie, with the usual twists and turns, falls and redemptions, the strained relationships, the breakups, the stabs in the back. It’s honestly much crazier than I remembered, and it made me better understand what exactly was going on behind the scenes in Los Angeles.

For any basketball and/or NBA fan, this is an easy book to recommend. It’s an engaging and really entertaining read. Every NBA fan over 35 remembers the Shaq-Kobe era, and will have some – probably very strong – opinion on the matter. In any case, you will definitely get a kick out of this trip back down memory lane.