Basketball Books

Blue Ribbon College Basketball Forecast: 2003-2004 by Chris Dortch breaks down all the NCAA top level basketball teams for the coming season, and looks at the year before. It gives information on positions for players, likely minutes, depth, possible performance and a lot of other information you wouldn't find anywhere else in one source. Slightly changed, but still an excellent book.

The Blue Ribbon does exist for the 2003-04 Season! Here is the deal: Brasseys is no longer the publisher and the book is not being sold anywhere (including Amazon or bookstores -sorry) except directly from the new publisher (Ambrose Printing).

To get this year's edition you must go to blueribbonyearbook dot com.

Enjoy!

I have twin girls that play basketball. Jan's guidance has helped them move to the next level in play. They both moved up to the Freshman "A" team. This is in a 5A High School. If your young player wants to improve their playing skills then Lahodney's drills are just what the doctor ordered! I highly recommend this book for any basketball player.

This book gives lots of highly recommendable drills that will help you in your practices, at all levels. Fundamentals are covered very well and lots of set plays are well explained too.

I love this book; I'd carry it with me to practice but for the title. Well done, coverage of topics perfect.

"Complete Idiot" may be off-putting to some, but this book does cover a lot about coaching children, and basketball. It is especially helpful to those that lack experience working with kids' teams. I found it a little light on comprehensive basketball basics, but the history was interesting. Haven't checked out completing books, so I don't know how it compares to others in the marketplace.

Young teenage girls should enjoy the story of Becky Walden. Just prior to the start of her junior year in high school, Becky learns that her father has been transferred. Through long hours of practice, Becky has made herself ready to assume a starting position on her high school basketball team. Now she has to begin all over again. Though sure of her talent, Becky tries to make her introduction to the new basketball team as inconspicuous as possible

This book was well written and was very entertaining. The lead character, Becky, showed a lot of courage and drive. I look forward to the sequel!

This book clearly deserves more than five stars.

Seldom do I find a new type of nonfiction book that is an improvement over its predecessors. Court Vision is such a book.

The concept is simple. Take famous people from all walks of life who are among our most talented individuals. Find the ones who know about NBA basketball either from a fan's or a player's perspective. Interview them about how they get insights into what they do from basketball, what their field can bring to basketball, and use a common questioning format so that the perspectives build on one another. Edit the results ruthlessly.

Although the book is ostensibly about basketball, the result is that you also see these observers in a new way through the common lens of their relationship to basketball. For example, some of the very mild-mannered public figures like Tom Brokaw use the four letter word that begins with "f" in their comments. Knowing that they were being taped, I am surprised by their language. Obviously, the public personnas and the real person are at variance in some ways. A further example comes from Walter Matthau's addiction to betting on the games, even though he doesn't enjoy it (the winning isn't enough fun to offset the pain of losing).

You will have your own favorite sections. If I quote a lot of the best material, it will spoil the book for you. But it may whet your appetite to know who some of the interviewees are:

Woody Allen (filmmaker)

William Cohen (President Clinton's Secretary of Defense)

Edward Villella (ballet dancer and choreographer)

Chris Rock (comedian)

Erica Jong (novelist)

Gene Siskel (film critic)

Donald Trump (businessman)

Reverend Edward Aloysius Malloy (President, Notre Dame University)

Julia Child (chef)

Mario Cuomo (former Governor of New York)

Alan Dershowitz (law professor)

Seiju Ozawa (conductor)

Sharon Stone (actress)

Saul Bellow (novelist)

In general, the comments by those who played basketball are the most interesting. But the narrow lens that our profession brings to our perspective is also very clear. Few draw on analogies and metaphors from outside their profession.

Many people are not well schooled in basketball. Their interest usually starts with the rise of Michael Jordan, so stars of the past are seldom mentioned. No one seems to have an explanation of how Michael Jordan could take off at the free throw line and dunk the ball. One interesting hypothesis presented is that he used some sort of extrasensory power.

Basketball players are also looked on as individuals. You get comments on the Latrell Spreewell coach-choking incident, immature behavior on the court and off, and the important potential role of education in these young peoples' lives.

Most of the observers either live in New York, Los Angeles, or Chicago, so you get a lot about the Knicks, Lakers, and Bulls. Some residual Larry Bird sneaks in now and then.

This book would also make a great gift for anyone who is an NBA fan. But you should give it to yourself first. It's too terrific to wait for.

To expand on the perspective developed by the book, I suggest that you think about what you could learn to apply to your profession and hobbies from NBA basketball. What could NBA basketball learn from you?

Have a ball!

"Court Vision," by Ira Berkow, celebrates the diversity of those who not only love, but also appreciate the complexities of basketball. Looking at the sport through the eyes of people who use their own fields of high expertise as a prism, elevates the game from the purely mechanical to the art form which it surely is. In the book, Frank Stella, the artist, speaks of the beauty of the game "..in the coordination and getting it all together." We're dealing with magic also- the defiance of gravity engaged in by basketball's foremost practitioners in their daily work.All sorts of contradictions to conventional physics are rampant when they come to play: they float when lesser men crash to the ground, and they have the capability of going backwards and forwards at the same time. Kary Mullis, the Nobel laureate, speculates about this ability to float, about whether mental strength is capable of violating physical law, or whether they're "...putting helium in their shorts."

If great basketball players are a special breed, then some of those who try to make serious sense of who they are and what they do, are special too. It helps to have been or even to still be in the trenches. Berkow's last book, "To the Hoop," dealt with another grave defiance, that of having to come to terms with oncoming age. In it, he recounts the tribulations of an over 50 player of pickup games, beset by a bum knee and much younger teammates and opponents. This time around, he lets Johnnie Cochran, Tom Brokaw, Mario Cuomo and all the standouts he has interviewed do most of the talking. Yet the experienced journalist's hand is there to keep matters on track. The leitmotiv is always close to the surface, the need to make esthetic, emotional and intellectual sense out of this hybrid of sport, metaphysics and art.

Sex, opera, psychiatry, music, the law and other indispensable pursuits have been given a voice by Berkow in this winning attempt at illuminating a complex subject. The last interview says it all though. It is with that acute observer of the chronic human condition, Saul Bellow. In response to the question as to whether there is anything in basketball or a specific basketball player with which Bellow might identify, the visionary of Chicago (now unaccountably in a Boston exile,)speaking of Michael Jordan, has the final word on the subject: "I do identify myself with this power to hang in the air."

This book is a treasure for anyone who has a link to college basketball in new jersey. I personally know at least 5 people mentioned in the book. The day by day account of mr. hurley's life as a coach and father is great, but some of the 'harsher' realities of grooming inner city young men to be successful basketball players are missing.

Bob Hurley gives an amazing account of what it's like to be a basketball father. He follows the career of his two sons, Bobby, at Duke, and Danny, a guard for Seton Hall. While having two sons to follow in college basketball, Coach Hurley finds time to lead his St. Anthony's team to a state championship. This book speaks volumes about what type of man Bob Hurley Sr. is.

This book gave a very good feel for the state of Alaska and the diverse issues facing native people in remote villages while being very appealing to the sports enthusiast. Mike D'Orso made me feel like I was an active participant and I could feel the visceral energy of the whole cast as the Fort Yukon Eagles fought their way to the finish of the basketball season.

Eagle Blue provided great insight into the game of basketball within the small towns of Alaska,specifically among native american communities. The author did an outstanding job of combining culture, hoops, and history within the story. This book also included some interesting political questions regarding government subsidies,drilling for oil, and information on the state and people of Alaska.
As a whole I loved the first half of the book but was somewhat disappointed in the sportswriting done by D'Orso. His basketball descriptions left a great deal to be desired. As an example the author uses players numbers to describe the action, for instance; #12 comes back with a three, or #13 with a floater. On a personal note I also have a problem when an adult writer spends time with high school students who are engaging in illegal activities, drinking /smoking. Much like my similiar feelings with the author of Fall Rivers Dream.
However, that being said a good read with many wonderful insights.

Great synopsis encompassing some of the best
of alltime: Bird, Ehlo, Jones, McHale, Parish,
Johnson, Wilkens et, al. Not just a game between
the Celtics and Cavaliers back in Nineteen Eighty
Seven. Jerry Sichting comes off well in here as
well, his comments. Sichting from Indiana is to-
day Kevin McHale's top Sgt. in Minnesota.

A basketball game in the NBA is 48 minutes long, right? Wrong. There is so much more drama behind the scenes and so much more at stake than another victory in every NBA game that the average fan is never entitled to witness and experience but this book does the best job I've ever seen in taking you there. It doesn't hurt that a classic confrontation between the then-mighty Celtics and the upstart Cavaliers is the matchup taken into focus by this great literary effort of showing what life in the NBA is like (at least during the 1980s). No personal fouls here... just a sure shot for all basketball fans who are also bookworms at heart and are not limited to enjoying the game of basketball on the television or on the court. Like I said, nothing but net..

Full Court Fever was a good book. I did it for a book report, so that kind of ruined it. I'm here because I was looking for a summary and I saw this. The plot is good. The Falcons seventh grade basketball team can't win a game becuase of a lack of big men. Then Mike, a Falcons player, discoveriers the Full Court Press used by UCLA, who won a championship with it! The 7-grade Falcons beat thier biggest rivals in the end, the eigth-graders.

"Full Court Fever" tells the story of Michael Mancino and his friends on the seventh-grade basketball team, who are facing a dismal season because although these are good shooters, they are also short. Their coach teaches them how to box out to get rebounds, but the teams they play have kids tall enough to just reach over and grab the missed shots. Then Michael and his friends discover some old issues of "Sports Illustrated" that explain the full-court press than U.C.L.A. used to win back-to-back N.C.A.A. championships in 1964-1965, the first in the storied career of the Wizard of Westwood, John Wooden. The Bruins did not have a player taller that 6-5, but by working a full-court press and being in better condition, they won. Michael and his friends decide to practice the U.C.L.A. press and see if it can help them.

Consequently, "Full Court Fever" is exactly the type of juvenile sports story we have come to expect from Fred Bowen, where the point is to teach the kids who read this book a lesson about a particular sport, in this case basketball. If there is a sport where kids need to learn the right way to play the game, then that is basketball, when dunking the ball is more important than playing defense, learning to shoot, knowing how to block out, and all the other things that win games put together. Bowen always accomplishes this by using real world examples, with "The Real Story" provided in the back of the book with accompanying photographs. Of course, if you are trying to teach a lesson about basketball, there is nobody better to learn from than John Wooden (the first man to be in the Basketball Hall of Fame as both a player and a coach), and this particular lesson can certainly provide results, although obviously a coach who understands the principles of this or any other press would be helpful.

A subplot in this book involves Dikembe Obiku, a new seventh-grader from Nigeria who is taller than most of the teachers and who could be the "big man" the teams so desperately wants. But while Dikembe likes to play ball and played forward or center on his team back home, he is, of course, talking about soccer and not basketball. It reminds me of a short story I read a long time ago about a high school basketball team that lacked a big man when a 7-foot student suddenly showed up at the school. The joke was that he was from France, and was a very good skier, but he joins the team and sits on the bench for the big game. The other team keeps looking at him and in the final minute of a close game he comes on the court and the other team falls apart. But Bowen has a more realistic goal for Dikembe to play in the climax this story. However, I was surprised the Bowen did not point out that some of NBA basketball stars at center who started out in life playing lots of soccer (e.g., Patrick Ewing, Hakeem Olajuwon), developed the hand-foot coordination that helped them become great shot blockers, because that is another less worth learning (especially if you are not short enough to help out on the full-court press).

This is a most entertaining book because it reads like a novel but accurately records the history of a great St. Louis team. The explicit play-by-play story of the big games is fascinating, and the minute detail of day by day life in the NBA of the times is extraordinary. This book serves a purpose to society in St. Louis filling in gap in sports history never before revealed in book form. Sensational story and pictures!

This book finally answers questions I have had for years about the history of the St. Louis Hawks, and the city that got them from Milwaukee, and lost them to Atlanta. To be fair, I grew up in St. Louis and just got my drivers license during the 1958-1959 Hawks season. I must have seen over 50 games from that time until I went to college. Bob Pettit was (and still is) a great hero of mine. So, this book is a real find for me.

The rise and fall of the St. Louis NBA Hawks, and the city itself during the 1950 - 1968 time period, are very well documented here though research into books/magazines/ newspapers/ and most importantly, through oral history interviews with former Hawks players and Hawk executives.

It would pay for any pro-basketball fan to read this book. It seems like pro-basketball is one of the last major sports to take its history seriously, except for the Boston Celtics, and now the Los Angeles Lakers (who began in Mineapolis).

When it comes time for another big book of NBA history, this is the type of book from author Greg Marecek that should be consulted.

Plus, it was fun to read and the photographs are great.

Note: the copy of the book I bought does not have the same cover as the one noted in the book's description.