Three Ring Circus

Kobe, Shaq, Phil and the Crazy Years of the Lakers Dynasty

By: Jeff Pearlman

Narrated by: Brian Hutchison

The story of the Lakers dynasty from 1996 through 2004, when Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal combined - and collided - to help bring the Lakers three straight championships and restore the franchise as a powerhouse.

In the history of modern sport, there have never been two high-level teammates who loathed each other the way Shaquille O’Neal loathed Kobe Bryant and Kobe Bryant loathed Shaquille O’Neal. From public sniping and sparring, to physical altercations and the repeated threats of trade, it was warfare. And yet, despite eight years of infighting and hostility, by turns mediated and encouraged by coach Phil Jackson, the Shaq-Kobe duo resulted in one of the greatest dynasties in NBA history. Together, the two led the Lakers to three straight championships and returned glory and excitement to Los Angeles.

In the tradition of Jeff Pearlman’s best sellers Showtime, Boys Will Be Boys, and The Bad Guys Won, Three-Ring Circus is a rollicking deep dive into one of sports’ most fraught yet successful pairings.

©2020 Jeff Pearlman (P)2020 Recorded Books

Great book, bad liaten

The narrator really could've used a pronunciation guide for the player's names. Good story though.

Perlman delivers again

Many people are glorifying their athletes to the point where they don't wanna hear anything bad about them. Athletes are humans full of flaws like rest of us and for me personally it actually elevates their accomplishments when they achieve what they achieve in spite of the flaws.Kobe was weird guy who won and won big.This is great book with iffy narration but nothing to bad that is unlistenable

Great story, but.....

This is a story that I thought I knew but after listening, realized that I didn't know much.

The only cons that I have are one, It seems heavily slanted against Kobe (RIP). I'm unsure if Kobe was THIS bad early on in his career or a pro SHAQ author wrote this. Two, the narrator butchers EVERY SINGLE basketball name.

A must read for any Laker fan.

Rekindled many personal memories, a non-stop " where was I" when this and this happened. RIP Kobe. Thank you.

Could’ve been a classic....

Three Ring Circus is about the rise and fall of a Laker dynasty, the Shaq and Kobe era. I loved 75% of this book. It was as good as any sports biography I’ve done before. But it started to grate on me down the stretch how much contempt the writer had for Kobe. From his days in high school, to the more controversial moments of his career and life, the axe to grind never went away. I’m not a Kobe fanatic but he was a young guy and to scrutinize every detail of him just got tiring. Word :)

Great behind the scenes intel

The book was fantastic and entertaining. However the narrator obviously never watched or paid attention to professional basketball as he butchered the pronunciations of about 80% of the non-Laker players names throughout the entire book reading.

Great story...lots of error

Thia audio book could have used more editing. You can hear all the fixes that were made post-production already by the odd change in narration but there were still way too many errors. Reference to the "triangle defense", the "San Francisco Kings", the butchering of Manu Ginóbili's name, "16 assists on 2 made baskets" and on and on.

The narrator has a nice style but the final product comes across as sloppy.

It was cool

As a laker fan I enjoyed it. And it was free so beat that. Nice

Great book!

As a huge Kobe fan, I was a little nervous that the author would paint Kobe in an unfair light. But, I was pleased that the book gave a balanced look at Kobe, Phil, and Shaq. It shares their good and bad and dives into what made them the way they were. Excellent book.

Intriguing!!

Very good book! Well documented and we'll sourced. I highly recommend it to anyone who was a fan of the league from 96 to 04.