Reddit reviews Showtime: Magic, Kareem, Riley, and the Los Angeles Lakers Dynasty of the 1980s

Actually, this is not bullshit at all. This is from Showtime by Jeff Pearlman (great book by the way).

>“We had a flight during training camp,” said McNamara, the backup center. “I’m sleeping and all of a sudden Bill Bertka screams, ‘Wake up! Wake up!’

>He smelled a cigarette. It was Vlade, smoking in the bathroom. A federal offense.

>“As a trainer, his smoking shocked me,” said Gary Vitti. “I told him how stupid it was. We once even got a bill from a hotel for smoking in a room.

>I screamed at him—‘Vlade, $250 for smoking in a room!’ He told me it was my fault.”

>“How is that my fault?” Vitti asked.

>“Why,” replied Divac, “did you put me in a nonsmoking room?”

For background: Jeff Pearlman wrote what is widely considered the #1 book on the Showtime Lakers. He knows what a GOAT owner looks like.

Well according to this book at least.

Fun Fact: Michael Cooper loved his coke

Showtime...the definitive book on that era: https://www.amazon.com/Showtime-Kareem-Angeles-Lakers-Dynasty/dp/1592407552

No worries. I ordered the hardback version!

Yeah - He's terrible at getting books - i got him one earlier this year (Showtime - http://www.amazon.com/Showtime-Kareem-Angeles-Lakers-Dynasty/dp/1592407552/ref=pd_sim_b_13?ie=UTF8&refRID=0FQ9GVH9VS39AP0R26R8 ) but he'd never even heard of it - but, like you smashed it in about a day and a half. Great idea though - he's gonna love it!!

>If the goings-on at Pickfair were wild, the events hosted by Johnson were orgasmic. The star point guard had lived in one of Buss’s apartment complexes until 1984, when he purchased his own nine-thousand-square-foot Bel Air mansion. Though not quite as awe-inspiring as Pickfair, Johnson’s Tudor home had once belonged to the French consulate, and contained (among other things) an indoor racquetball-basketball court, a sauna, a whirlpool and a disco complete with strobe lights and thousands of records. Alongside the master bedroom was a tiny room with a sunken hot tub and a panoramic view of the canyon his home overlooked. The house also boasted something close to his heart—the greatest stereo system anyone had ever seen. With speakers the size of Cadillacs, the eighteen rooms filled with the sounds of Michael Jackson and Earth, Wind & Fire and Marvin Gaye.

>While Johnson didn’t host as many shindigs as Buss, the ones that took place were beyond compare. The Lakers point guard neither drank alcohol nor did drugs, but his parties were odes to excess and extravagance. Many Lakers agree the most beautiful women they ever met were encountered at Johnson’s. They were models, strippers, actresses, exotic dancers. There was no hotter icket than an invite to the mansion, but—while Laker players and opponents were almost always allowed—women had to meet certain criteria. First, they had to be gorgeous. Second, they had to be promiscuously dressed. Third, they had to be willing to do . . . things.

>Johnson fancied himself not merely an entertainer, but a maestro. “If you ever die and go to heaven, you want heaven to be Magic’s house parties,” said Frank Brickowski, a future Lakers teammate. “He would have the finest girls in L.A. there. The absolute finest. And at midnight you had to get busy with somebody or you had to get the fuck out. So if you were a guy, at midnight you’d get as close as you could to the hottest possible woman. Magic went around in this freaky voyeuristic way. He’d check on you. He’d go throughout the house, the pool. He’d order people to start doing things. All you had to be was near a chick. There were guys who would yell, ‘Magic, she’s not getting busy! She’s not!’ He’d run over and she’d get busy. Celebrity is seductive in L.A. Girls have this desperation about them, like moths to a flame. It’s sad. But when you’re young and single, fame matters.”

>Just because one was a Laker didn’t mean sexual conquests always came easily. Yet Johnson wasn’t merely the most eligible bachelor in Los Angeles—he was the most eligible bachelor in California. He once wrote of his rendezvous: “Some were secretaries. Some were lawyers. Quite a few were actresses or models. Others were teachers, editors, accountants, or entrepreneurs. There were bimbos, too, but not that many. Most of these women were college-educated professionals. Some were black, some were white, some were Hispanic, or Asian. Some of these women were very open about what they were doing, and some were more discreet. A few would even brag about all the players they had slept with. For others, this was all a part of a very secret life.

From Jeff Pearlman's excellent book about Showtime.