The World of Basketball Books
After Showboat by Roland Lazenby, The Great Nowitzki is the second book on this blog that I have read in my native language, German, rather than English. With the biography about Kobe, I had criticized this version somewhat, as the translation was poor in some places. There was no such problem here, as the author … Read more
If you are a bit nitpicky, you could tell me that Loose Ball by Terry Pluto is out of place on this blog. After all, the name is NBA Books. And Loose Balls is a book about the ABA. But the ABA ist part of NBA history and you’ll learn a lot about the league … Read more
Jerry West wrote West by West with author Jonathan Coleman and the book was published in 2011. The subtitle of the book is “My Charmed, Tormented Life”. And this one is well chosen. West is one of the most successful people of all time when it comes to basketball. He was successful in high school … Read more
It shouldn’t be too hard for a basketball fan to guess what a book with the name “Jordan” in the title is about. After Playing for Keeps, The Jordan Rules is another book about Michael Jordan. In it, journalist Sam Smith describes the 1990-91 season from the perspective of the Chicago Bulls and their superstar. … Read more
I already briefly mentioned “When the Game was Ours” in the post on Drive by Larry Bird. Former ESPN journalist Jackie McMullan wrote this book in 2009 along with NBA legends Larry Bird and Earvin “Magic” Johnson. And, of course, the book about those two. Bird and Magic remain intrinsically linked to each other to … Read more
So far I have talked about ten NBA books in this blog. Therefore, I think it was a good idea to have a small interim conclusion and list my 5 best NBA books so far (it became 6 in the end, because I could not decide). It was not easy at all to make such … Read more
“The Soul of Basketball” by NBA journalist Ian Thomsen was published in 2018 and tells the story of the 2010-11 season. For a German basketball fan like me, this season is of course a very special one. Dirk Nowitzki finally lead his Dallas Mavericks to the long-awaited title. But the book is more than just … Read more
Veteran sportswriter and book author Roland Lazenby wrote this Kobe Bryant biography in 2016. This was after Kobe’s NBA career ended and before he died. In my edition however, there is also a small obituary by the author in the back. It was added a few weeks after Kobe’s death. “Showboat: The Life of Kobe … Read more
After 7 Seconds or Less, Dream Team is the second book by journalist Jack McCallum that I’m featuring on this blog. It’s probably not particularly hard to guess what a basketball book called Dream Team is about. The term Dream Team is used in the world of sports at times – and sometimes outside of … Read more
The Jordan biography “Playing for Keeps” is the second NBA book by author David Halberstam, which I present on this blog. The first one was The Breaks of the Game. And Playing for Keeps is as good as Breaks of the Game. Halberstam wrote Playing for Keeps after the 1997-98 season – Jordan’s last for … Read more