Dream Team


Book Description

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Acclaimed sports journalist Jack McCallum delivers the untold story of the greatest team ever assembled: the 1992 U.S. Olympic Men’s Basketball Team. As a writer for Sports Illustrated, McCallum enjoyed a courtside seat for the most exciting basketball spectacle on earth, covering the Dream Team from its inception to the gold medal ceremony in Barcelona. Drawing on fresh interviews with the players, McCallum provides the definitive account of the Dream Team phenomenon. He offers a behind-the-scenes look at the controversial selection process. He takes us inside the team’s Olympic suites for late-night card games and bull sessions where superstars like Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, and Larry Bird debated the finer points of basketball. And he narrates a riveting account of the legendary intrasquad scrimmage that pitted the Dream Teamers against one another in what may have been the greatest pickup game in history. In the twenty years since the Dream Team first captivated the world, its mystique has only grown. Dream Team vividly re-creates the moment when a once-in-a-millennium group of athletes came together and changed the future of sports—one perfectly executed fast break at a time. With a new Afterword by the author. “The absolute definitive work on the subject, a perfectly wonderful once-you-pick-it-up-you-won’t-be-able-to-put-it-down book.”—The Boston Globe “An Olympic hoops dream.”—Newsday “What makes this volume a must-read for nostalgic hoopsters are the robust portraits of the outsize personalities of the participants, all of whom were remarkably open with McCallum, both then and now.”—Booklist (starred review)




Great Teams in Pro Basketball History


Book Description

Discusses ten of the greatest pro basketball teams in the history of the game, and explains what made each one great.




Best NBA Teams of All Time


Book Description

This title features NBA teams in their greatest seasons. From the 1952-53 Minneapolis Lakers (before they moved to Los Angeles) all the way to the 2012-13 Miami Heat. Basketball fans will love Spotlight stats and informative boxes for each team. Not to mention great full-color and historic action photographs. Aligned to Common Core standards and correlated to state standards. SportsZone is an imprint of Abdo Publishing, a division of ABDO.




Thinking Basketball


Book Description

Are top scorers really the most valuable players? Are games decided in the final few minutes? Does the team with the best player usually win?Thinking Basketball challenges a number of common beliefs about the game by taking a deep dive into the patterns and history of the NBA. Explore how certain myths arose while using our own cognition as a window into the game's popular narratives. New basketball concepts are introduced, such as power plays, portability and why the best player shouldn't always shoot. Discover how the box score can be misleading, why "closers" are overrated and how the outcome of a game fundamentally alters our memory. Behavioral economics, traffic paradoxes and other metaphors highlight this thought-provoking insight into the NBA and our own thinking. A must-read for any basketball fan -- you'll never view the sport, and maybe the world, the same again.




Betaball


Book Description

"A compelling look at how the Golden State Warriors organization embraced saavy business practices and the corporate culture of Silicon Valley to produce one of the greatest basketball teams in history and become a model franchise for the NBA"--




The Book of Basketball


Book Description

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The wildly opinionated, thoroughly entertaining, and arguably definitive book on the past, present, and future of the NBA—from the founder of The Ringer and host of The Bill Simmons Podcast “Enough provocative arguments to fuel barstool arguments far into the future.”—The Wall Street Journal In The Book of Basketball, Bill Simmons opens—and then closes, once and for all—every major NBA debate, from the age-old question of who actually won the rivalry between Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain to the one about which team was truly the best of all time. Then he takes it further by completely reevaluating not only how NBA Hall of Fame inductees should be chosen but how the institution must be reshaped from the ground up, the result being the Pyramid: Simmons’s one-of-a-kind five-level shrine to the ninety-six greatest players in the history of pro basketball. And ultimately he takes fans to the heart of it all, as he uses a conversation with one NBA great to uncover that coveted thing: The Secret of Basketball. Comprehensive, authoritative, controversial, hilarious, and impossible to put down (even for Celtic-haters), The Book of Basketball offers every hardwood fan a courtside seat beside the game’s finest, funniest, and fiercest chronicler.




The Perfect Team


Book Description

If you could select the greatest basketball team in history, who'd make your roster? How do you even build a team--with pure talent alone or with a combination of talent and role players? In this book, the NBA tapped into top basketball experts, rounded up the greatest players, coach, and GM from different eras of the game, and now presents its argument for basketball's most unbeatable lineup. Each member of the team has been picked as the embodiment of a particular trait such as leadership or competitive drive, rather than simply for being best at his position. And each player tells his story, shares his ideas about "the perfect team," and talks about what makes great basketball. Not just an argument for the best team of all time, this is an anatomy of the game presented by those who love it most and play it best.--From publisher description.




Dynasties


Book Description

Acclaimed sports journalist Marcus Thompson explores the 10 teams that transformed basketball in this illustrated history of the sport. What turns a winning team into a dynasty? According to many, legitimate dynasties are teams that not only won two or more titles but combine personality, superstar talent, and consistent winning seasons. They are teams that you either love or love to hate. While basketball dynasties have been talked about in sports media circles-especially over the last few months-there isn't been a book that explores these top teams in basketball history. Dynasties features 10 winning teams that redefined the sport in their own way. Organized by dynasty beginning with the Minnesota Lakers (1948-1954) and ending with the Warriors (2015-the present), the book tells the story of each team with player and coach profiles (including some of the sports all-time greats: Johnson, Bird, Jordan, Abdul-Jabbar, O'Neal, Curry), key games, playing styles and tactics, controversies, and more. Also featured are teams and players that were frequent rivals to dynasty teams (such as LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers), teams that could have been dynasties, and possible future dynasties.




Win Shares


Book Description




Great Teams in College Basketball History


Book Description

Discusses ten of the greatestcollege basketball teams in the history of the game, and explains what made each one great.