1988 NBA Playoffs: The Life of Riley

5/9/1988

In "Showtime," coach Pat Riley of the Los Angeles Lakers submits a classic version of the hoop coach as New Age technocrat.

He's hip.

He's handsome.

He wears those deuce Polo threads, yet above all, the guy is together, man, a classic manager/motivator for the service-sector economy of the late '80s. He talks "team culture." He "does" video. He says "teamwork is the essence of life," and that "There are two possible states of being in the NBA: winning and misery." When there's no greater winning to aspire to, he invents some, which incidentally might be the purpose of this whole exercise. In that mode, as after the great championship of last year, Riley makes like a personnel manager at Digital and develops "our Career Best Season program," by which computers track "rebound effort charts," "shot chart analysis," "plus and minus ratings" so players can tell "exactly and irrefutably" their "production numbers" "just as salespeople always see where they stand." Then, Riley sounds like Gary Hart without infidelity, or Mike Dukakis with cools: He pushes and pushes, demanding of his charges an "emotional commitment" to "our next major breakthrough": winning consecutive championships.

And frankly, even diehard Celts fans might find inspiration here. Here, one thinks, stands a bulwark against the Japanese, the Russians, whomever. If America were run as well as the Lakers, we'd all be better off.

But then, that's only one way to read this little volume. Another way finds a fascinating confusion more revealing of an entire ethos than of anything the book intends to suggest directly. In that sense, "Showtime" makes a strange read indeed.

Produced with an "assist" from Byron Laursen (who nevertheless goes uncredited on the cover), it really does take its cue from "Iacocca" and "Trump," volumes in which hyper-successful corporation men hire a ghost to tell how they did it. The problem is, though, the book never gets straight whether it's in fact a management blueprint, a typical "year with the Lakers" sports book, an intrasquad psyche job or just an all-around morality sermon.

In that connection, the book wanders around wildly. It begins elucidating the "lessons" of "our championship season" (i.e., selflessness, "mental toughness," "positive attitude"), then quickly veers into challenging the Lakers themselves to win another title. After that it goes personal: We hang out with Pat and his wife Chris decompressing by hitting the Bahamas after last year's "pressure cooker final series" with the Celts, on which vacation Riley appears digging Kenny G. tapes and reading John Gregory Dunne's "The Red, White and Blue" while Chris studies, interestingly, "Men Who Hate Women and the Women who Love Them."

Shortly thereafter comes a monotonous account of the Lakers' championship season, and pages decrying the Lakers' "Show Time image": that myth Riley says sportswriters promote of the "superficial, sensitive Lakers" with their natural athleticism and no-look passes contrasted against Celtic "Blood, Guts and Courage." Later, Riley even launches a sharp fusillade against the churlishness of Boston Celtic fans ("the lowest common denominator") and about Celtic management ("low-rent attitudes. . . . uncooperative. . . . the Klingons of the NBA"). Those pages set the stage nicely for Riley's final effort, which appears aimed at certain 12 very tall Angelenos. He wants them to repeat the championship, to "become a team for all ages and era." To that end, Riley appears to offer his book as a subtle bit of motivational propaganda.

And yet, what's finally most interesting is something else: how a book dedicated the grit behind the La-La Land glitz nevertheless becomes an entertaining account of a team perfectly expressive of its ethos, the sleek Los Angeles of systems planning and psychology. For it's unmistakable. "Showtime" immortalizes pure California, pure L.A. "Beneath the glitter, the players bring a fanatical depth of preparation to every game," writes the dashing head coach, yet even so, the work ethic at issue is not that of hardscrabble Olde Boston but the So-Cal service sector. What Riley unfolds turns out not Celtic blue-collarism but New Age mind-work, an 82-game quest for "spiritual" efficiency that slides through a glorious round of posh restaurants, regular season blow-outs, and Santa Barbara training hideouts.

Seen in this light, Pat emerges as a classic systems-oriented, psycho-babbling Californian, improved and actualized and human potentialed by the best computers and New Age love-speak available. After the Houston playoff debacle two years ago, Riley tells the Lakers he loves them for who they are and not how they played. At training camp the team shares videos about "joy and victory and love." Later, driving back to the Forum, he tells how "I constantly review motivational literature, looking for pearls," then snaps in a cassette of Wayne Dyer reading from his book, "Choosing Your Own Greatness."

"Attitude is an inner concept," intones Dyer's voice, to which Riley murmurs, "For the Lakers this year, I'd never heard truer words said." And with that, it's clear again how truly the difference between Celtics green and Laker gold amounts to the clash of day and night, old and new. Once more, one can hardly wait for the finals.