Roland Lazenby is an American sportswriter whose books cover professional and college basketball, football, and baseball. He has written biographies of Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, Jerry West, and Magic Johnson, alongside histories of franchises including the Chicago Bulls and Los Angeles Lakers. His work has appeared in Sport, The Sporting News, and the Chicago Sun-Times.
Lazenby graduated from the Virginia Military Institute in 1974 and worked as a reporter for The Roanoke Times. His early books included accounts of Virginia basketball and football. He later collaborated with broadcaster Billy Packer on books about college basketball and coaching, and with Mike Ashley on a history of VMI football under John McKenna.
His basketball books range from season accounts and photographic histories to extended biographies based on interviews with players, coaches, relatives, and colleagues. Several follow different stages of the same subject: Mad Game examines Kobe Bryant’s early NBA career, while Showboat covers his life through the end of his playing years. Lazenby’s Chicago Bulls books likewise include individual championship seasons, organizational disputes, franchise histories, and the lives of former players after basketball.
Roland Lazenby Books
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Basketball Biographies
Michael Jordan: The Life: Lazenby follows Michael Jordan from his family background and North Carolina upbringing through college basketball and his NBA career. Interviews with relatives, friends, teammates, coaches, and Jordan inform the account. Alongside his achievements on the court, the biography examines his competitiveness, gambling, commercial influence, and public image, placing the athlete’s development within the personal relationships and institutions that shaped his career.
Showboat: The Life of Kobe Bryant: This biography traces Kobe Bryant’s childhood, entry into the NBA directly from high school, and twenty-season career with the Los Angeles Lakers. Lazenby draws on interviews and years of basketball reporting to examine Bryant’s competitive ambitions, personal life, and relationships with teammates and coaches. The narrative extends through his final playing season, including the conflicts and collaborations behind five NBA championships.
Jerry West: The Life and Legend of a Basketball Icon: Jerry West’s story begins in the coalfields of West Virginia and continues through his playing and executive careers with the Lakers. Lazenby examines his scoring, defense, repeated Finals defeats, and difficulties away from basketball. Interviews with family members, teammates, and colleagues connect those experiences with his later work building teams around successive generations of stars, including Magic Johnson, Shaquille O’Neal, and Kobe Bryant.
Magic: The Life of Earvin “Magic” Johnson: Lazenby places Magic Johnson’s basketball career within a family history spanning several generations. The biography follows his rise to the Los Angeles Lakers, the Showtime era, and the public announcement of his HIV diagnosis in 1991. It also examines retirement, the Olympic Dream Team, and his subsequent business career, using interviews to connect his public prominence with his background and personal decisions.
Sampson: A Life Above the Rim: Ralph Sampson’s development as a basketball player is examined alongside the Virginia communities in which he grew up and played. The account follows his emergence as an unusually prominent young athlete and his years at the University of Virginia. Lazenby connects the attention surrounding Sampson with racial change in the state and the expectations placed on a highly recruited college player.
Bird: Portrait of a Competitor: Photographs by Steve Lipofsky and an essay by Lazenby document Larry Bird’s basketball career and competitive temperament. The book follows the player from his Indiana background to the Boston Celtics, where he helped win three NBA championships during the 1980s. Its combination of images and text emphasizes Bird’s approach to competition and his place within that period of Celtics basketball.
Mad Game: The NBA Education of Kobe Bryant: Kobe Bryant enters the NBA in 1996 as a teenage prospect already facing comparisons with Michael Jordan. Lazenby follows his adjustment to professional basketball, growing role with the Lakers, and emergence as an established star. The account examines the difficulties accompanying that progress, including relationships with teammates, periods of isolation, and the alternating cooperation and conflict between Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal.
Mindgames: Phil Jackson's Long Strange Journey: Phil Jackson’s career is traced from his playing years with the New York Knicks to coaching in the Continental Basketball Association and leading championship teams in Chicago and Los Angeles. Lazenby examines the development of his coaching methods, including meditation and approaches to managing players. Conflicts with executives and relationships with Michael Jordan and other stars form part of the account.
NBA Teams and History
The Lakers: A Basketball Journey: This illustrated history covers nearly five decades of the Lakers’ development, following the people and events behind the franchise’s victories and setbacks. Lazenby combines accounts of games with the ambitions and disappointments of those involved in the organization. The book presents the team’s history through its changing personnel and competitive fortunes, with photographs accompanying the narrative of its basketball development.
The Show: The Inside Story of the Spectacular Los Angeles Lakers in the Words of Those Who Lived It: An oral history of the Lakers, this book follows the franchise from its Minneapolis beginnings to its later years in Los Angeles. Players, coaches, and other participants describe the organization through interviews. Figures including Jerry West, Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Magic Johnson, Shaquille O’Neal, and Kobe Bryant connect successive eras of basketball with the relationships and decisions behind them.
Los Angeles Lakers Basketball Vault: The History of the Franchise: Lazenby recounts the Lakers’ history through a scrapbook format combining narrative, photographs, artwork, and reproduced memorabilia. Material from collector David Kohler’s archives includes tickets and game programs. The account follows the franchise from Minneapolis through its Los Angeles championship eras, connecting prominent players and games with objects documenting how the team presented itself to spectators across different periods.
Boston Celtics Basketball Vault: The History of a Proud Franchise: The Celtics’ development is traced from Walter Brown’s involvement in the club’s founding in 1946 through later championship teams. Players including Bob Cousy, John Havlicek, Dave Cowens, Larry Bird, Robert Parish, and Kevin McHale appear in the narrative. Photographs and artwork accompany reproductions of programs, tickets, and other material drawn from the team’s archives, giving the history a scrapbook format.
And Now, Your Chicago Bulls: A 30-Year Celebration: This illustrated franchise history follows the Chicago Bulls from their establishment in 1966 through the team’s first three consecutive NBA championships. Lazenby profiles players and coaches from different stages of the organization, combining the narrative with more than one hundred photographs. The account places the Michael Jordan championship era within the longer development of the club and its earlier teams.
Bull Run!: The Story of the 1995–96 Chicago Bulls: Lazenby follows the Chicago Bulls during the 1995–96 season, when Michael Jordan’s return from baseball helped produce a championship and a record-setting regular season. The narrative examines Jordan’s work to rebuild his game and the team’s effort to reestablish itself. Its focus is the course of that comeback season and the players and decisions behind the Bulls’ renewed success.
Chicago Bulls: The Authorized Pictorial: This photographic account follows the Bulls during the 1996–97 season as they seek another championship after their record-setting previous year. Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Dennis Rodman, and Phil Jackson are central to the story. Interviews with players and management accompany the photographs, while questions about contracts and the team’s future run alongside the events of the championship campaign.
Bulls: A Pocket Primer: This compact guide examines the Chicago Bulls during the later years of their championship run. Lazenby describes aspects of the team’s everyday operations, including travel and life behind the scenes. The relationship between general manager Jerry Krause and coach Phil Jackson is one subject, connecting the public success of the Jordan-era team with the organizational tensions surrounding its final seasons.
Blood on the Horns: The Long Strange Ride of Michael Jordan's Chicago Bulls: The Bulls’ success in 1997 and 1998 is set against disputes involving Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Phil Jackson, Jerry Krause, and Jerry Reinsdorf. Lazenby uses interviews with players and staff to reconstruct those conflicts. The account examines why relationships within a championship organization deteriorated and why ownership and management were prepared for major changes despite the team’s continued success.
Where Have All Our Bulls Gone?: Lazenby follows former Chicago Bulls players after their basketball careers, examining how they adapted to life beyond the team. The accounts include successful transitions as well as personal and professional difficulties. Rather than concentrating on a single championship or season, the book considers the experiences of former players once the routines, public attention, and employment of professional basketball have ended.
The History of the Chicago Bulls: This franchise history follows successive Bulls teams, from the years of Jerry Sloan, Norm Van Lier, and Bob Love through Michael Jordan’s championships and the arrival of Derrick Rose. Interviews and analysis examine players, coaches, and the organization across those eras. Bob Love contributes a foreword and Ron Harper an afterword, adding participants’ perspectives to the account of the team’s development.
Stockton to Malone: The Rise of the Utah Jazz: The Utah Jazz’s development is examined through John Stockton, Karl Malone, and coach Jerry Sloan. Lazenby describes the competitiveness and demanding working environment behind their success, taking the account beyond game results. The book follows the relationships and collective effort of the team, connecting its leading players and coach with the organization that became a prominent contender in the NBA.
The Detroit Pistons, 1989–90: This illustrated team volume documents the Detroit Pistons at the turn of the 1990s. Lazenby’s text is accompanied by photographs by Kirthmon Dozier, with updated statistics included in the edition. The book presents the team through a combination of written material, records, and images, offering a contemporary account of the franchise during the period identified in its title.
The NBA Finals: The Official Illustrated History: Lazenby surveys the NBA championship series in an illustrated history devoted to the league’s Finals. The book brings together the teams, players, and games associated with the competition across successive seasons. Its historical scope follows the championship rather than a single franchise, combining a written account with photographs to document the development of the NBA’s concluding series and its participants.
The NBA Finals: A Fifty Year Celebration: Published for the NBA’s fiftieth anniversary in 1996, this illustrated volume reviews the history of the league’s championship competition. Lazenby follows the Finals across the association’s first half century, bringing together the teams and players involved in successive title series. The book includes an introduction by basketball writer Bob Ryan and a bibliography supporting its historical account of the competition.
Airballs: Notes from the NBA's Far Side: Lazenby looks behind the NBA’s public events to describe the people involved in professional basketball. The book includes accounts of players such as Charles Barkley, Michael Jordan, Dennis Rodman, David Robinson, and Patrick Ewing, alongside figures in team management and coaching. Its focus moves between individual personalities and experiences away from staged appearances, showing another side of the league’s public presentation.
Yo, Baby, It's Attitude!: The New Bad Boyz of the NBA, Take the Jordan Test: Written for younger readers, this book examines a generation of NBA players emerging amid the influence of Michael Jordan. Shawn Kemp, Kevin Garnett, Allen Iverson, and Stephon Marbury are among its subjects. Lazenby follows basketball culture from playgrounds to the professional league, using photographs and graphics alongside accounts of the players and comparisons with the established star they were following.
College Basketball Books
Hoops!: Confessions of a College Basketball Analyst: Broadcaster Billy Packer, writing with Lazenby, describes college basketball from the perspective of a former Wake Forest player and television analyst. His experiences connect participation in the game with the work of explaining it to a national audience. Coaches, players, and broadcasting colleagues form part of an account centered on the people and observations behind his career in college basketball.
Georgetown: The Championships and Thompson: This account of Georgetown basketball was prepared following the team’s 1984 national championship. Lazenby begins with John Thompson’s background and arrival as coach, then follows the development of the program. A final section recounts the 1983–84 championship season, placing that result within the longer process through which Thompson and his players established Georgetown as a leading college basketball team.
Championship Basketball: Top College Coaches Present Their Winning Strategies, Tips, and Techniques for Players and Coaches: College coaches contribute practical instruction in this illustrated basketball guide. The material covers basic skills, organized play, conditioning, and weight training, connecting preparation with performance on the court. Written for players and coaches, the book presents techniques and strategies rather than the history of one team or season, using diagrams and instructions to explain how the different elements of basketball are taught.
College Basketball's 25 Greatest Teams: Billy Packer and Lazenby examine twenty-five college basketball teams in a historical comparison published by The Sporting News. The selections bring together different periods of the game and players including Bill Russell, Lew Alcindor, Jerry Lucas, Oscar Robertson, Magic Johnson, David Thompson, and Michael Jordan. Team profiles provide the basis for considering their achievements and places within college basketball history.
Golden Moments of the Final Four: A Retrospective of the NCAA Basketball Tournament: Packer and Lazenby look back at the NCAA basketball tournament through notable Final Four teams and games. The retrospective brings together accounts of the competition’s history and the participants associated with its best-known moments. Its subject is the tournament across different seasons, connecting individual championship runs with the development of the Final Four as a recurring event in college basketball.
The Golden Game: Written with Billy Packer and published during basketball’s centennial period, this illustrated history surveys the sport’s first hundred years. The account brings together notable players, games, and stories from the development of basketball. Its broad historical scope connects different generations of the sport, examining the people and events behind its growth rather than concentrating on a single team or championship season.
Football Books
Legends: A Pictorial History of Virginia Tech Football: This illustrated history documents Virginia Tech football through text and photographs. Lazenby presents the college program as its subject, bringing its past into a pictorial account devoted to the team. The volume belongs to his early work on Virginia sports and records the football program in a historical format, combining its written narrative with images associated with the school’s sporting history.
The Super Bowl: Lazenby presents the history of the Super Bowl through a combination of text and photographs. The illustrated account revisits games and moments from the championship’s earlier years, bringing together the competition’s teams and players. With approximately 240 photographs, including sixty in color, the book documents the event visually as well as narratively, reflecting the period covered by its original publication.
100 Greatest Quarterbacks: This illustrated collection profiles one hundred quarterbacks drawn from football’s history and the leading players of its publication period. Photographs accompany biographical accounts of established figures and emerging stars. The book organizes its view of the sport around the quarterback position, comparing careers across generations while recording the players considered prominent at the time the volume was prepared for publication.
Notre Dame: College Football Dynasties: The history of Notre Dame football is presented through a century of the university’s teams, players, and coaches. Lazenby examines the tradition surrounding the program alongside the figures who contributed to its success. Football records accompany the historical material, connecting individual achievements and results with the development of a college team whose history extends across many generations of the sport.
Notre Dame: This illustrated volume presents Notre Dame’s football history, concentrating on the university’s long sporting tradition and the players and coaches associated with it. The historical account is accompanied by records documenting the program’s results and individual achievements. Published in 1991, it reflects the period then covered by the school’s football history, rather than including the seasons and coaching changes that followed.
Greatest Moments in Football: Lazenby surveys football through notable games, plays, and achievements that became landmarks in the sport’s history. The illustrated presentation brings individual moments together within a broader historical account. Its organizing subject is memorable competition across the game, rather than the biography of one player or the development of a single franchise, combining images with descriptions of the events under discussion.
SmashMouth: Attitude Between the Lines!: This book introduces younger readers to the competitive personalities of NFL players including Brett Favre, Jerome Bettis, Troy Aikman, Emmitt Smith, and Drew Bledsoe. Lazenby compares their approaches with earlier players associated with football’s physical and demanding style. The account examines professional football through individual athletes, relating the stars of its publication period to the examples and reputations of previous generations.
Tom Brady: Sudden Glory: This early-career biography follows Tom Brady’s progress from a reserve quarterback to the starter for the New England Patriots. The account centers on the period leading to the team’s victory in Super Bowl XXXVI. Lazenby describes the unlikely rise that established Brady as a prominent NFL player, concentrating on that initial breakthrough rather than the many championship seasons that came later.
The Pictorial History of Football: This illustrated history traces football’s development from its early antecedents through the growth of the college and professional games. Lazenby describes the formation of teams and leagues alongside the players, coaches, and contests associated with different periods. Photographs accompany the account, connecting the sport’s changing organization and methods of play with the events and personalities that shaped its history through the publication period.
Johnny Unitas: The Best There Ever Was: Lazenby follows Johnny Unitas from an uncertain start in professional football to his career with the Baltimore Colts. The biography includes his rejection by an NFL team, construction work, and semiprofessional football before his major opportunity. Photographs accompany an account of the quarterback’s achievements, including the 1958 championship game and his long sequence of games with a touchdown pass.
Emmitt Smith: This illustrated account follows Emmitt Smith’s career with the Dallas Cowboys and his progress toward the NFL’s career rushing record. His individual honors are connected with the team’s three Super Bowl championships during the 1990s. The book examines a running back whose achievements included rushing titles and both league and Super Bowl Most Valuable Player awards, documenting the career established during his first twelve seasons.
Going Deep: Lazenby traces the history of the forward pass, beginning with football’s dangerous early formations and the rule changes introduced in 1906. Players including Sammy Baugh, Don Hutson, Otto Graham, Johnny Unitas, and Joe Namath illustrate its development. Interviews with later quarterbacks connect those beginnings with modern offenses, while the narrative examines how passing changed the NFL and helped expand football’s television audience.
Best Regrets: VMI's John McKenna and the Lost Age of College Football: Written with Mike Ashley, this history follows John McKenna’s thirteen seasons coaching football at the Virginia Military Institute. The account includes four Southern Conference championships, the undefeated 1957 season, and the demands of the one-platoon era. Players’ experiences accompany McKenna’s story, with additional material on coach Bob Thalman and the distinctive institutional culture surrounding football at VMI during those years.
Baseball Books
Ichiro: The Making of an American Hero: Ichiro Suzuki’s move from Japanese baseball to the Seattle Mariners is the focus of this illustrated biography. Lazenby follows his childhood in Kasugai, career with the Orix BlueWave, and early experience in the major leagues. The account examines doubts about whether his approach would succeed in American baseball, his performance after arriving, and the attention from spectators and the media that followed.
Ted Williams: A Splendid Life: This commemorative illustrated volume examines Ted Williams’s life and baseball career, with particular attention to his hitting and place in Boston Red Sox history. His .406 batting average in 1941 is a central achievement in the account. Lazenby shares credit with Bill Nowlin and Jim Prime, with Linc Wonham as editor, in a book combining biographical material with a visual record of Williams’s career.
Coaching Across Sports
Why We Win: Great American Coaches Offer Their Strategies for Success in Sports and Life: Billy Packer interviews prominent coaches about the methods and experiences behind their success, in a book written with Lazenby. Subjects come from several sports and include John Wooden, Pat Summitt, Red Auerbach, Joe Gibbs, Anson Dorrance, and Dan Gable. Their accounts examine leadership, preparation, and competition, comparing the approaches of people responsible for directing teams and athletes at the highest levels.