My Interview With Mike Sielski, Author of 'The Rise'

The Rise: Kobe Bryant and the Pursuit of Immortality is an origin story of sorts, tracing Kobe Bryant's early years, as a boy and a teenager, before he joined the NBA. It's been nearly two years since his death, and the book is an often thought-provoking meditation on the kid he once was. 

For MEL, I spoke to Mike Sielski, a Philadelphia sports columnist and reporter who contacted many in Bryant's life and had access to never-before-heard interviews from the late athlete when he was in high school. I really enjoyed my talk with Mike, which covered masculinity, race, the comfort of sports narratives and #MeToo. Hope you enjoy.

I Want a Whole Movie About the Making of 'Airplane!'

Last week, HBO released the first trailer for Winning Time, about the Los Angeles Lakers' championship run of the 1980s. But the best part had nothing to do with basketball: It was the two seconds it showed of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (Solomon Hughes) filming Airplane! This inspired a very whimsical piece about my love of that film and Abdul-Jabbar in general. Hope you enjoy.

game 5: lakers 99, magic 86

I've been pessimistic about this team's chances all season -- in retrospect, I think the experience of losing to the Celtics in last year's Finals really stuck with me. Apparently, it stayed with the Lakers as well -- again and again, they talked about that humiliating elimination loss that occurred June 17, 2008. They remembered and they didn't let it happen again.

Kobe and Derek have their fourth championships, all of which were won on their opponents' court -- that's killer instinct.

Being a pessimist means you get a little bit of consolation in being able to tell other people "I told you so" when things go bad. But tonight, I'm very happy to report that my more-optimistic friends were right all along about this team. They told me so.

Update: You know how I said the Lakers never won a championship on their home court? Forget that -- they won the 2000 crown at Staples. Duh.

game 4: lakers 99, magic 91

Life got in the way tonight -- I only saw the last quarter and overtime, and even then it was only in little bits and pieces. But I will say this. Derek Fisher is a guy I've always loved. Watching him go through a slump for most of this year's playoffs has been really depressing. But he's played great in the Finals -- and from what I gathered from tonight, he was the difference maker. I could not be happier.

game 3: magic 108, lakers 104

I actually thought the Lakers were dead meat about halfway through the third quarter, so give them a lot of credit for fighting back the way they did. I'm not sure what to say about Kobe. He didn't have a great fourth quarter -- it happens.

I do think it's crucial that they win Game 4, though. The Magic played at a very high level tonight and still only barely won -- I think it's fair to say that the momentum still favors Los Angeles at this point. But that will change if the Magic even the series Thursday night.

On a side note, does anyone actually watch the halftime analysis? Have those four morons made a single interesting point yet?

game 2: lakers 101, magic 96

The Lakers deserved to lose tonight.

Of course, both teams did. It was just a sloppy game -- lots of bad calls, cruddy shooting, a real lack of flow throughout. It was one of those games that if your team wins, you're mostly just relieved -- and if they don't win, you have a thousand reasons to moan about what could have been.

Magic fans will spend every second between now and Tuesday's Game 3 thinking about The Miss. Courtney Lee makes that layup at the end of regulation, and we're having a whole different conversation. That's the most obvious lament for the Magic faithful, but I also think Orlando's inability to get Lamar Odom to foul out will be missed in all the post-game analysis. Andrew Bynum was doing very little, and if Odom had picked up his sixth foul in the fourth quarter, I think the Lakers would have been in big trouble. Instead, Odom iced the game with those free throws at the end.

Laker fans will probably walk away with this thought: Kobe Bryant didn't play all that great, Orlando started shooting like they can, our team as a whole didn't have an inspired outing, but we still won. That's all true, but they almost didn't pull it out. Some games you win, some games you lose, and some games fall into the weird nether region were, really, it could have gone either way. Game 2 was one of those. We were just lucky it bounced our way. And that Lee missed that shot.

game 1: lakers 100, magic 75

Game 1 of the NBA Finals played out like a best-case scenario for the Lakers. The Magic, who live or die by their three-point shooting, couldn't hit a thing, and the Lakers, whose toughness has been questioned in these playoffs, were locked and loaded pretty early on, grabbing offensive rebounds and hustling like crazy. Bottom line, the Lakers looked like killers tonight.

In Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals, the Cleveland Cavaliers were blowing out the Magic early, but they let Orlando hang around, and the Magic came back to beat them. I think that made the difference in the entire series -- it proved to the Magic that they could hang with the big boys (without home-court advantage, even). That didn't happen tonight. The Magic had the lead after the first quarter, but once their shooters went cold (and stayed cold), it was over.

What will be really interesting for Sunday's Game 2 is whether the two teams will go back to their normal selves. I don't put it past the Lakers to take their foot off the gas again -- they've done that a few too many times this playoffs -- and I expect Orlando to shoot better. (There's no way they can shoot worse, right?) I went into this series picking the Lakers in 7. Despite the Lakers' dominant performance tonight, I still think there's a long way to go.

all i care to say about lakers-rockets game 7

Sports Illustrated's Scott Howard-Cooper sums up this Sunday's game perfectly:

To not win a championship would be the Lakers falling short of their expectations and the expectations of many. To not so much as reach the conference finals when they had home-court advantage and a wounded team on the line would be a monumental setback. Sunday is for their legacy, not just for their playoff lives.

If you get beat by a better team, you may not like it, but you live with it. But if you get beat by a team that's not as good -- not even close, frankly -- then it suggests a real lack of character and mental toughness. And that I cannot stand.

another sad end to a lakers season

The Los Angeles Lakers lost in the first round, for the second straight year, to the Phoenix Suns. Two years into the new Phil Jackson era, I have to ask one more time: Why did he decide to come back? What has he added to his legacy? Why does he want this aggravation?

I was reminded of a piece I wrote almost two years ago with a fellow writer right before the Lakers announced that Jackson was coming back to coach the team. Other people were excited about his return. I was not.

I'm still not.