Lakers. An Official History of the Purple & Gold

Welcome to the greatest show on hardwood: Produced in collaboration with the Lakers, this authorized illustrated history is the definitive portrait of the most glamorous franchise in sports: seventeen championships, seven decades, and a dynasty that turned a team into a cultural institution. This is basketball as spectacle and style, grit, fierce competition, fashion, and how a team learned to define and entertain Los Angeles- a city that expected nothing less. More than a record of banners, this massive book is the portrait of an indomitable and enduring dynasty.

An illustrated history years in the making, built from exhaustive research through franchise vaults, league archives, and private collections. Rare and never-before-published photographs, vintage ephemera, and original artwork fill its pages, much of it revealed here for the first time. Stunningly illustrated with hundreds of images by photographers like Neil Leifer, Andrew D. Bernstein, and Walter Iooss Jr., and featuring rarely seen memorabilia and artifacts from the renowned David Kohler Lakers Shrine.

Lakers is told by the people who built it — a foreword by iconic champion Kareem Abdul-Jabbar; an introduction by Lakers' governor Jeanie Buss; and an afterword by one of the greatest head coaches in the league's history, Phil Jackson. Detailing all the guts and glory are exclusive essays and reflections from legends Magic Johnson, Michael Cooper, Byron Scott, Pat Riley, Shaquille O'Neal, Pau Gasol, LeBron James, and Luka Dončić, alongside the courtside icons who made Lakers basketball a cultural phenomenon: Jack Nicholson, Dyan Cannon, Lou Adler, Paula Abdul, and Flea.