Character Driven (27 page)

I didn’t have those big dreams of huge rewards that Coach Harris had talked about, but I was definitely thinking about my future and what all this meant for me. I wanted to be a Laker, but I also wanted to be a guy who contributed as much as possible to his team’s success and who fit well with the team’s plans. I tried to chalk up that season’s disappointment as a temporary bump in the road, and I didn’t want to blame things on the lockout and the change in coaching, but they did contribute. I went into free agency with a lot of questions, as did the organization as a whole. The main question was, who was going to coach the team? Phil Jackson decided to leave the Chicago Bulls after the second of the team’s three-peats, sat out for a season, and then signed with the Lakers. I wasn’t sure what that meant for me personally and for the team generally. We’d earned a reputation as a talented but troubled team, and no one was sure what that meant in terms of personnel decisions.

I’d been in the league long enough to know that Phil Jackson preferred to have taller/longer guards on his squad. I wasn’t either of those things, so I hoped that I wasn’t going to be expendable. I also wanted to test the waters to see if other teams had any interest in signing me. I loved Los Angeles and the Lakers organization, but my desire had always been to play full-time and be the guy come crunch time. I was playing decent minutes, but I wanted to play major minutes, and I felt that I was capable of doing that. A couple of teams agreed. Seattle and Portland were in our conference; consequently, they saw me play more often than teams in the East. They’d also seen me play against them in the play-offs, and I think that helped to spur their interest. I visited Seattle and spoke with members of their organization.

I won’t lie to you and say that salary had nothing to do with my thinking. I was looking to take a step up on the pay scale from what rookies received and beyond the league minimum. I was also looking for a commitment in terms of the length of my deal—three to four years minimum and a midlevel salary. I thought I’d demonstrated my worth, even though I’d had to do it time and time again, and was pretty adamant about the kind of deal I wanted. To be honest, contracts made me uncomfortable. This is no knock on the guys who represented me, but I didn’t like that when it came time to negotiate, I was just going to have to let go and trust the people I’d hired to represent me. That was hard, and another lesson in learning to let go and relinquish some control. Obviously, I would have the final say on the deal, but it felt wrong to me to not be sitting in the same room with the people making these huge decisions about my future. So, when I went to lunch with my representatives, Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak, and Jerry West, I was sitting among a group of people who in one sense had my best interest at heart, but in another had their own best interests at heart. Later, after Jerry left, Mitch and my team and I sat making small talk, and then Mitch suggested that it was time to get to business and I had to leave the room.

In principle I understood why I was not to be involved in those negotiations. Teams make offers and back them up with statistics, and they make their case to pay you what they consider “fair.” Everyone’s definition of fair is different, of course, and it would be hard not to take some of the things they said personally. Anytime someone talks about your salary and what you’re “worth,” it can be uncomfortable. That’s particularly true because our salaries are generally public knowledge. Imagine if you knew what everyone at your company earned and how that might make you feel. It would be valuable information to have when it came time for you to negotiate your deal, but in a lot of cases people don’t share that kind of information. We didn’t have that choice.

While the Lakers worked on their offer, I returned to Little Rock to spend time with family. That was also a strategic ploy, kind of sending the signal that I would have no trouble leaving Los Angeles. Fortunately, I didn’t have to put any more of my acting skills to use or really weigh one offer against another. I was on cloud fifty-nine when I got word from my agents that the Lakers had offered me a seven-year deal (with a player option at the five-year mark) with a healthy bump in salary over what I’d been earning. That the Lakers were willing to make a long-term commitment to me, more than twice as long as what other teams were considering, made me ecstatic. It was overwhelming to think that I would be able to take care of my immediate family and extended family for years to come. I’d gone from not being certain that I would even get drafted to having a career in the league—a ten-year career if everything worked out.

That level of commitment convinced me to sign. If I had been more money-motivated, I might have gone elsewhere. That seven-year contract called for me to earn the same amount each year—not even a cost-of-living increase. I didn’t consider that at all initially, and I later thought it was an error on our part, but I’d signed the deal and wasn’t going to complain at the beginning of it, nor was I going to cause dissension by trying to renegotiate it later. A deal was a deal and what was done was done. I was eager for training camp to start. If the Lakers were willing to commit to seven years, then maybe all those thoughts about not being the big guard that Phil Jackson seemed to prefer didn’t matter. I worked out as hard as ever that summer and was thrilled when the season was about to get under way.

I liked and respected Coach Harris, and I felt bad that rumors had constantly been swirling around about his departure. He was a good, solid basketball man and person, but in Los Angeles that just wasn’t good enough. With the tradition we had and the expectations that the ownership and fans had, and the whole “celebrity” environment, I think a big-name coach was what everyone was looking for. Along with that big name came instant and undeniable credibility. What Coach Jackson had done in Chicago was amazing. Six championship titles in ten years is a dynasty by anyone’s standards, but his detractors said that anyone could have won with Michael Jordan on the team, but no one before him had. I’d always been told to respect coaches just because of their position, but with Phil Jackson, I respected him instantly because of what he’d accomplished. I wasn’t alone in feeling that way. When Shaq was in Orlando, he had been beaten by the Bulls and Coach Jackson, and that meant something to him. For Kobe, being coached by the same man who had helped Michael Jordan reach the pinnacle certainly promised something. In the NBA, rings talk, and with Phil’s six championship rings, they had to talk awfully loud to be heard over one another.

If the previous season had all the qualities of a nightmare, our first championship regular season under Coach Jackson had all the qualities of a pleasant and satisfying dream from which you wake up feeling refreshed and hoping to fall back asleep so that you can resume it. What made us all so comfortable, after an initial period of adjustment, was that the triangle offense we ran was a proven system. It wasn’t just about getting the ball to Shaq or Kobe, but if we ran the offense the way it was designed and intended, the best players would get the most opportunities. Who could ask for anything more than that? Phil also made it clear that we’d better run the offense the way he intended it to be run, and whether you were in the starting five or the twelfth man, failure to do what he wanted would have consequences. Where had I heard that before? He didn’t phrase that as a threat to playing time, but rather to our chances of winning. He emphasized that we’d broken down in the past, particularly in the playoffs, and having a system to rely on when things seemed to be slipping away, particularly a proven system that had helped lead teams to championships, would help us to do what we hadn’t done in the past.

I don’t know if it was the triangle offense that made Shaq so comfortable or if he had just matured in his skills and understanding of the game after eight seasons in the league, but if I hadn’t been on the team, I would have bought a ticket and followed the guy to every city to watch him play. He was absolutely, astoundingly dominant in 1999–2000. He averaged 29.7 points, 13.6 rebounds, and 3 blocked shots a game.

So much has been written and said about that year, but the numbers still bear repeating: sixty-seven regular-season wins, a nineteen-and a sixteen-game winning streak, and a longest-consecutive-loss streak of two. Well, I exaggerated a bit about its being dreamlike the whole way. We were 2–6 in the preseason and I can remember being beaten by Utah in one of those games and thinking, “We don’t even seem close to being good.”

What also helped us get over the hump and win the championship was the makeup of that team. We had a nice mix of veterans and younger guys, and the on-court chemistry among us was exceptionally good. Once we gained traction and learned that the system we were playing under could produce the results our coaching staff said it could, our confidence was high. A lot of teams say that they believe they can win every game, but we truly felt that way. We were also a hardworking bunch who managed to stay focused for the full eighty-two games of the regular season and into the play-offs.

The season wasn’t particularly dreamlike for me. I began the season in the starting lineup but was soon replaced by the veteran Ron Harper, who had played with Phil in Chicago. I had so much respect for Ron and what he’d done and what Coach Jackson had done and what they’d done together that I didn’t complain. I wasn’t about to throw a party to celebrate the move, but I accepted it and knew that I was going to have to improve some things in my game if I wanted to be out there more. In the triangle offense, there isn’t a true point-guard role as there is in other types of offenses. If I was going to be the guy in that offense, I was going to have to improve my outside shot. With Shaq down low and a lot of teams double-teaming, that meant that perimeter players would be left open. If you couldn’t knock those shots down, then you weren’t doing what was asked of you in that system. I only hit 34 percent of my field goals and only 31 percent of my threes. I was going to have to improve that.

The play-offs that year were enough to keep us and the fans up all night from the anxiety and the elation. Going to five games against Sacramento was tough. All our hard work and all our success in the regular season could have gone down the drain. All of those clichés like “That’s why you play the games” and “It ain’t over until it’s over” applied in this case. Sacramento didn’t have nearly the kind of season we did, but taking us to five games kicked our collective sense of urgency into gear. That was a good thing. In the past, we might have panicked, but we played that fifth game as if we understood what was at stake and what we needed to do to win. We stayed in control, and that was a good lesson for us all to learn.

No one can really prepare you for what it is like to play in the NBA Finals. I’ve already talked about the ups and downs of the Sacramento and Portland series, but the finals are a whole different ball game. As much as you try to tell yourself it’s just another game, it isn’t. With all the NBA Finals banners draped in the Staples Center, with it emblazoned on the court, on the sideline chairs we sat on, and even on our uniforms, everything let us know that this was indeed something special. I remember as a kid watching the finals on television, and during the pregame ceremonies they’d show players on the sidelines listening to the national anthem. I noticed a lot of guys rocking back and forth, and that was a product of all the adrenaline flowing through their systems. I could barely keep myself still and focused on the anthem’s lyrics the first time I stood on the sideline during game one.

Like us, the Pacers had their share of trials and tribulations. They’d been to their conference finals four times until they finally broke through to make it to the finals for the first time in franchise history. Coached by Larry Bird, some tried to tie this series to the old Celtics-Lakers rivalry, and as much respect as I have for what those guys accomplished, this was a different generation of players. We started off strong in the opening quarter, jumping all over them for a 33–18 lead. Sitting on the bench, we all noticed that the Pacers had decided to play Shaq straight up with Rik Smits—no double teams were coming—and Shaq made them pay with dunks and several really nice turnaround jumpers. Kobe was on fire as well. The triangle offense and Phil’s philosophy paid off for us when the Pacers decided that they had to double down on Shaq. Just as Kobe had found Ron Harper free in that nail-biter in Portland in the conference finals that year, Shaq waited for the double to come before kicking the ball back out to Harp for an open three. At halftime we were up 55–43.

The Pacers took it to us in the third quarter, eventually drawing within 2 points. That’s when Shaq essentially took over. Whether it was blocking shots, grabbing free throws, or scoring, Shaq played like a guy who really wanted a championship ring. He punctuated his 43-point game with an exclamation point when in the closing minutes Ron Harper went up in the right corner looking for all the world as if he were putting up a three. Instead, he lobbed the ball to Shaq. The pass went over the rim to the far side, and Shaq went up with one hand. The pass was long, and Shaq had to bend backward while in midair to bring it in. Instead of just coming down with it, he cradled that ball in his hand and, using his arm like a catapult, swung the ball forward and down for a dunk that had all of us on our feet before he finally came down.

We knew that the Pacers would really come after us in game two and that we couldn’t count on their star, Reggie Miller, shooting 1 for 16 as he had in the opening game. Phil told us that we would have to match their intensity right out of the gate, but even though we knew what was coming, we still weren’t able to stop them right away. Worse, in the second quarter Kobe rose up for a jump shot and came down on someone’s foot, spraining his left ankle. He hobbled off the court and into the locker room. That was about as quiet as I’ve heard the Staples Center. We knew the Pacers sensed that they had an advantage with one of our starters gone, and we openly talked about the need for us to turn the tables on them. We were so effective at doing that, the Pacers resorted to the Hack-a-Shaq, and he went to the line thirty-nine times in that game, converting nearly half of his free throws. But not until late in the fourth quarter with about a minute and a half to go and us up by only 99–96 were we able to put them away. Rick Fox had the ball out top and fed the ball to Shaq coming across the lane. Robert Horry was cutting toward the basket, and Shaq hit him with a beautiful pass and Horry used the rim to keep the defenders off him and made a beautiful reverse layup and was fouled.