A consumer’s guide to the best and worst of sports media and merchandise. Ground rules: If it can be read, played, heard, observed, worn, viewed, dialed or downloaded, it’s in play here.

What: “The Official 2001 NBA Championship Home Video”

Price: $19.95

Slightly more than a month after the Lakers’ winning their second consecutive NBA championship, the official video is supposed to be in video stores today. It is also available through https://NBA.com’s hot products area.

Laker fans will love it. They know how it comes out, and that makes it all the better. The tape, produced by NBA Entertainment, is excellent. It captures the Lakers’ season, with all its ups and downs, perfectly.

The video--it could be titled “Laker Lovefest”--is narrated by Will Lyman, who also narrates Bud Greenspan’s Olympic memories, and tells a story well beyond dunks, three-point shots, amazing plays and sound bites. The players, among them sometime antagonists Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant, talk at length about how much they love each other.

Most of that comes at the end, however. Early on, the tiff between O’Neal and Bryant is dealt with, and in a way that makes it clear what the problem was.

Viewers are taken through the soap opera, the team’s resurgence, and then the playoffs and the Lakers’ remarkable 15-1 run. You’ve heard some of the sound bites before but NBA Entertainment had access where others did not, such as on the team bus, and there is plenty of fresh material.

The video ends with the credits rolling during highlights of the Laker celebration. Well, that’s not quite the end. Tacked on is a music video of Sugar Ray singing “When It’s Over.”

The NBA has also put together a 112-page “Official NBA Finals 2001 Retrospective” book.