Hoop dreams
by Brian O'Keefe, FORTUNE Magazine

(FORTUNE Magazine) - Kurt Rambis, whose thick glasses and gawky dynamism made him a cult hero, was a key player on the great Los Angeles teams of the 1980s. Now an assistant coach with the Lakers, he talked with FORTUNE's Brian O'Keefe about the role of role players.

My first love was to shoot the basketball. But the Lakers were looking for a defender and rebounder. I settled into that role because it was stuff I enjoyed doing anyway - setting picks, rebounding, diving for loose balls. It's all part of competitiveness. And it also fulfilled a role on a team with guys that liked to score.

Awareness of our roles was a huge part of our success. If Magic Johnson had wanted to take 30 shots a game, no one would have argued. But he fulfilled a role in trying to orchestrate the team. One of the things that helped us was the unselfishness that we demonstrated. Everybody felt that his back was going to be covered. And that lends itself to guys making sacrifices. Top of page

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Most stock quote data provided by BATS. Market indices are shown in real time, except for the DJIA, which is delayed by two minutes. All times are ET. Disclaimer. Morningstar: © 2018 Morningstar, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Factset: FactSet Research Systems Inc. 2018. All rights reserved. Chicago Mercantile Association: Certain market data is the property of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. and its licensors. All rights reserved. Dow Jones: The Dow Jones branded indices are proprietary to and are calculated, distributed and marketed by DJI Opco, a subsidiary of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC and have been licensed for use to S&P Opco, LLC and CNN. Standard & Poor's and S&P are registered trademarks of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC and Dow Jones is a registered trademark of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC. All content of the Dow Jones branded indices © S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC 2018 and/or its affiliates.