Ain't No Tomorrow : Shaq, Kobe and the Near-Collapse of the Los Angeles Lakers Book

An all-access look at the Lakers' championship season

"Elizabeth Kaye is a wonderful writer--as a reporter she's like a bulldog--she grabs onto you and doesn't let go until she figures out everything about you. Throughout Ain't No Tomorrow, she discovers and explains the game of basketball in a way that no one ever has. She takes the reader through the mental preparation, coaching strategies, and personal struggles of players--who are part Rocky and part Rambo. If you like to read, you'll love Ain't No Tomorrow."
--Sylvester Stallone

At the start of the 2000 NBA playoffs, the famously underachieving Los Angeles Lakers found themselves the focus of national attention. The team that had limped along since the golden era of Magic Johnson was now endowed with basketball's two most gifted and dominant players, Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant, and was led by none other than Phil Jackson, the most fabled coach in the NBA. By the time the Lakers beat Indiana in game six of the championship series, they showed themselves unstoppable, a team above and apart and blessed with a glamour and facility that made them the obvious franchise to lead pro basketball into the new millennium.

Then everything began to fall apart. Jackson had warned his team that the truly challenging season is the one after an initial big win, and his words were quickly becoming reality as the great team slipped into profound disarray at the start of the new season. Ain't No Tomorrow is an intimate look at the astonishing eight-month roller-coaster ride that became the Lakers' 2000­-2001 season: a time of tumult and drama when impulses toward brotherhood andunity dissolved into petty, ugly battles and bruised egos; when men who previously rose to a great challenge grew greedy and slack.

Combining brilliant reporting and original perspective, Elizabeth Kaye­­--a journalist granted special access to Jackson, Shaq, Kobe, and other major players--­­takes you into the minds and hearts of the team members. She chronicles the unique story of a team that ultimately righted itself, united, and found its way to a second championship title--­­but only after an extraordinary season in which exciting sports drama becomes human drama at its most compelling and complex.

Elizabeth Kaye has been a contributing editor for Esquire, Rolling Stone, George, and Los Angeles Magazine.