ShareThisBefore his team embarked on its eight-game, 13-day journey on Wednesday afternoon, Los Angeles Lakers coach Phil Jackson gave each of his players books to read during the trip as he does every year.
There was a Che Guevara picture book for free-spirited Adam Morrison, a 1,000-page Barcelona-themed novel for avid reader Pau Gasol and a tale of environmental activism in the West for Luke Walton.
And then there's "Montana 1948," the book that Jackson gave Kobe Bryant. The choice raised eyebrows among some Lakers fans because it tells the story of a man who sexually assaults Native American women and is imprisoned for it, but Jackson explained that he selected it because it's set in his native Montana.
"He (Kobe) never reads my books, so I got him a book about Montana," Jackson said. "I'm not looking forward to having a review from him, but it was about the part of the country I grew up in, so it's something special for me to give it to him."
Andrew Bynum can often be spotted reading in the locker room before games, but the book in his hands Thursday wasn't Jackson's selection, "Six Easy Pieces," a collection of short stories written by Walter Mosley. Bynum was still reading "The 48 Laws of Power," a book drawing on many of the same themes as Machiavelli's "The Prince."
"I'm almost done with this one and then I have the Obama book," Bynum said. "I'm going to read his (Jackson's) after."
Although Jackson hand picks each of his literary selections, he insists there's no pop quizzes for any of his players and no penalty for anyone who doesn't read his book. Still, that didn't stop Shaquille O'Neal from reading "Siddhartha" and writing a quick book report after being kicked out of a game in Chicago a few years ago.
"I'd been kidding him that reports had to be done on the plane," Jackson recalled. "He went to the bus after he'd been thrown out, read the book and wrote a four-page report. It wasn't quite four pages, but it was like, 'Rich guy. Women really like him.' He got a B-plus. His creativity was pretty good."
(Contact Jeff Eisenberg at eisenbergj(at)pe.com.)
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
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