Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)The DVD recaps the 2008-2009 season for the Lakers, starting with a brief recap of the loss to the Celtics in the 2007-2008 NBA Finals. The first 20 minutes or so covers highlights of the regular season with emphasis on bigger games such as the Christmas Day game against Boston and the road game against Cleveland (giving Cleveland their first home loss of the season), and Kobe's 61 point game in Madison Square Garden. It's also great that they show things such as Bynum getting injured again and the struggle to play without him. The next 10-15 minutes covers the Western Conference playoff matchups (Utah briefly, Houston, and Denver). The Houston and Denver series go more in depth since they were longer, harder fought series. The final 20-25 minutes or so covers each game of the NBA finals against Orlando, with a brief section on Orlando's great playoff run leading up to the Finals. What I love about this DVD is that they not only cover most of the important games I mentioned, but they show some of the most memorable plays from those games and from the playoffs, it really got me hyped up over last season. They show some good locker room footage during the playoffs as well which hasn't been aired before, and they show a fair amount of the parade footage in the credits.
Unfortunately, the main feature is only 60 minutes long, which I wish they would've made into at least 90-120 minutes which shows how epic and long an NBA season (especially the playoffs) is. I wish they would've briefly touched on things like trading Radmanovic for Brown (who really contributed down the strech) and Morrison, and showing a little more of the competition such as showing a little bit about the fight for 1st place against the Cavs, but things like this may have been too insignificant and took away focus from the Lakers so it's understandable why they left things like these out. The main problem I have with this DVD however, is that while ALL the footage is shot in 16:9 aspect ratio, it is presented in 4:3 fullscreen, which means on an HDTV there are large black borders around the entire image, and the feature is much smaller. I assume they did this to cater towards SDTV owners and not have to worry about making different formats or using pan & scan, but it kind of sucks that when many people have HDTVs these days, they're still catering towards old sets. However, this is still not a big deal overall since I got used to it, and the image still looks great.
While the main feature is only 60 minutes, there are plenty of extra features on the DVD to help justify purchasing it. Here's an overview of them:
Kobe Slideshow - A brief interview with Kobe showing him pictures of his career while Kobe discusses them.
Pau Gasol Slideshow - Pretty much the same thing as the Kobe slideshow but with more video and is mostly taken from Inside the NBA with Ahmad Rashad.
Boston at LA, X-Mas Day, All-Access - A really good recap of the Xmas Day game with the best highlights, and good pre-game footage. This feature was a great way of showing how the 2008-2009 Lakers evolved from the previous year.
Cleveland at LA, 1/19/09, All-Access - Same as the Boston one for the most part. Very good as well.
Lakers Roundtable - A pretty good feature which has the Showtime era Lakers sitting around each other talking about their days, etc. It's a good feature, albeit totally unrelated to this year's team.
4th Quarter Game 7 vs. Houston - While being a great series, this game was a blowout and isn't really worth watching by the 4th quarter. I don't see why they put this on the DVD. Pretty much any other game in the series would've been more approriate.
4th Quarter Game 6 vs. Denver - While also a good series, this was another blowout which isn't worth watching really by the 4th. This and the Game 7 vs. Houston shouldn't have been on here, and they should've put Game 4 vs. Orlando and Game 1 vs. Denver.
Timeout: Trevor Ariza - less than 3 minutes long, and is pretty much irrelevant. It shows Ariza answering trivial questions, and seems like the type of video they'd show during a timeout at the game. Hence the title I guess.
Spotlight: Derek Fisher - A 3 minute video of Fisher during the Finals, which seems to show more about Kobe than Fisher and doesn't really show Fisher's significance unfortunately.
Focus: Lamar Odom - Another 3 minute video highlighting Odom's career and showing some good footage of his early career with the Clippers, then moving to Miami, and then the Lakers and his ups and downs there. This video is actually really good at showing Lamar's talent and his career very briefly.
Kobe 81 - My favorite extra feature on the DVD. This doesn't just show highlights of his 81 point game, but it is also an interview with Kobe taken this 2009 season on the road in Memphis in his hotel room, taking about how the game went, how he felt, his emotions quarter by quarter, etc. Also when watching some of the highlights of that game, it's hard to say that Toronto played terrible defense against him (which they still did overall) because many of his shots were so well defended, they just couldn't do anything about it. I really enjoyed this feature even though I've seen the game and the highlights many times before.
Overall, this DVD is a must have for any Lakers fan or any fan of Kobe's. Some of the special features are hit and miss, but it's definitely worth $20 for the die-hard Lakers fan or Kobe fan such as myself.
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NBA Champion fans, be the first to own the only officially licensed DVD of your team s triumphant season. You haven t seen anything until you have seen the official 2008-2009 NBA Champions DVD. Relive the intense victories on the road to the title from a whole new angle. Loaded with clutch bonus features including profiles on your favorite players and in-depth analysis. Experience what is is to be a champion - Own it on DVD Today!
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