There's a baseball-books thread...I've read some good ones: When the Garden Was Eden, about the early '70s Knicks (didn't realize they turned it into a 30 for 30; Loose Balls, my favourite, a history of the ABA; The Punch, about Kermit Washington laying out Rudy Tomjanovich (sad; Tomjanovich recovered, Washington didn't); Pistol, a biography of Maravich (my favourite player in high school). When the Raptors were in the finals with Golden State, I read Betaball. I'm reading The Last Pass right now: I wanted a good book on Bill Russell, and the biography that's out there didn't appeal to me. I didn't realize it's more about Bob Cousy and his his complicated relationship with Russell, but it's good. At some point I'll start on a biography of Marvin Barnes I bought; "turbulent" is a good come-on in any subtitle.
http://phildellio.tripod.com/turbulent.jpg
― clemenza, Sunday, 4 October 2020 00:47 (three months ago) link
John McPhee wrote one about Bill Bradley:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Sense_of_Where_You_Are
― the unappreciated charisma of cows (Aimless), Sunday, 4 October 2020 00:55 (three months ago) link
David Halberstam wrote one about the Bill Walton edition of the Trail Blazers, in the year after the championship:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Breaks_of_the_Game
― the unappreciated charisma of cows (Aimless), Sunday, 4 October 2020 00:58 (three months ago) link
I'll probably read Halberstam's Michael Jordan book one day, although I'm not sure if it'll add much to the Netflix series...I guess a good enough writer always can.
― clemenza, Sunday, 4 October 2020 01:04 (three months ago) link
Playing for Keeps is pretty good, though it’s been a long time since I read it. MJ declined to be interviewed and didn’t get to shape the narrative as much as in The Last Dance.
― circles, Sunday, 4 October 2020 03:33 (three months ago) link
breaks of the game is absolutely essential. lazenby's bios of jordan and kobe are very useful and well-researched as far as setting context for those guys' careers. jack mccallum's dream team book is a lot of fun, i would highly recommend it. his warriors and suns books are also enjoyable if a little less essential.
― call all destroyer, Sunday, 4 October 2020 03:43 (three months ago) link
bill russell's memoir/bio red and me is worth a read if you're interested in him. somewhat lightweight but bill is never less than a straight shooter so you get some honest commentary too.
― call all destroyer, Sunday, 4 October 2020 03:46 (three months ago) link
and actually this is my strongest rec: forty-eight minutes by bob ryan and terry pluto. it's a blow-by-blow of a regular season game between the '87 celtics and a very young underdog '87 cavs team. against expectations, the game gets competitive. they cover the couple days leading up and then literally write a play-by-play account of the game, which sounds like it could be boring but is the complete opposite. if you want to know about being on the road, practicing in a weird gym, signing a guy to a 10-day contract and having to play him against the defending champs, and what goes into every possession in an nba game, read this book.
― call all destroyer, Sunday, 4 October 2020 03:53 (three months ago) link
Sounds like a couple of baseball books out there (like Daniel Okrent's Nine Innings) that analyze a single game inning by inning--will look around for that. Another one I got really cheap via Book Outlet:
https://cbusharlem100.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Tigerland-Cover.jpg
― clemenza, Sunday, 4 October 2020 04:50 (three months ago) link
the two that come immediately to mind are David Frey's "The Last Shot" and David Wolf's "Foul! The Connie Hawkins Story"
― Fuck the NRA (ulysses), Wednesday, 14 October 2020 03:19 (three months ago) link