In this revised and expanded edition, Los Angeles Times writer Mark Heisler investigates the 45-year history of the Los Angeles Lakers and unveils a pattern of pampered and/or misguided players, megalomaniacal executives, and owners whose obsessive drives for championships and attention combined to create an atmosphere of conflict for decades Throughout the entire 2003–04 season, fans and the media called the L.A. Lakers the biggest reality show in the country. But the laundry lis...

Brilliant, intimidating, charming, or profane, Coach Bob Knight is an enduring contradiction who has long fascinated and repelled basketball fans, for whom he has provided as much to dislike as to respect.Bob Knight: The Unauthorized Biography is the first comprehensive biography of Knight, one of the most successful and controversial coaches in the history of American sports. Detailing the entire scope of Knight's playing and coaching career through exten...

An honest, unflinching self-portrait of the basketball legend, told in Julius "The Doctor" Erving's own voice. "A terrific memoir by a man worthy of one." — Sports IllustratedWith his flights of improvisation around the basket and his towering Afro, Julius Erving became one of the most charismatic (and revolutionary) players basketball has ever known. But while the public has long revered this cultural icon, few have known the double life ...

Butler University in Indianapolis became the smallest school in 40 years to reach the NCAA championship game. Prior to the tournament, a statistician calculated the Bulldogs as a 200-to-1 shot to win. But as fascinating as what Butler accomplished was how they did it. Underdawgs tells the incredible and uplifting story.Butler’s coach, 33-year-old Brad Stevens, looked so young he was often mistaken for one of the players, but he had quickly become one of the best coaches in...

Heaven Is a Playground was the first book on the uniquely American phenomenon of urban basketball. Rick Telander, a photojournalist and former high school basketball player, spent part of the summer of 1973 and all of the summer of 1974 in Brooklyn living the playground life with his subjects at Foster Park in Flatbush. He slept on the floor of a park regular’s apartment, observing, questioning, traveling, playing with, and eventually coaching a ragtag group of local teenagers who...

Between 1915 and 1940 the amazing Edmonton Grads dominated women’s basketball in Canada. Coached by J. Percy Page, they played over 400 official games, losing only 20; they travelled more than 125,000 miles in Canada, the United States, and Europe; and they crossed the Atlantic three times to defend their world title at exhibition games held in conjunction with the Summer Olympics in Paris, Amsterdam, and Berlin. Meticulously researched and documented—including capsule biographies of all 3...

In the mid-1970s, the city of Boston entered a period of upheaval on both its historic cobblestone streets and its legendary parquet basketball court. The Boston Celtics' long dominance of the NBA came to an abrupt end, and the city's image as a hub of social justice was shaken to its core. When the federal courts declared, in 1974, that the city was in violation of school desegregation rulings and would need to institute a busing program, Boston became deeply polarized. Then, just as the ...

The inspiring story of the most famous high school basketball coach in America.In 40 seasons as the head coach of St. Anthony High School, a private parochial school in Jersey City, New Jersey, Bob Hurley has established a standard of excellence and achievement without peer, and remarkably, he has done this at a high school with a total student body enrollment of about 230, with no gymnasium, and with an operating deficit that threatens to shut the place down each ...

The definitive history of the most dominant team in American sports historyNo superlatives are equal to the Boston Celtics of the 1960s. From 1959 to 1966 they won championship after championship, an eight-in-a-row streak that outshines any other in American sports. Led by coach Red Auerbach, center Bill Russell, and point guard Bob Cousy, they played a kind of basketball that seemed to come from an earlier era. Auerbach's Celtics played clean, honest, and strong, w...

FORMER NBA STAR LUTHER WRIGHT SHARES HIS HARROWING AND UPLIFTING JOURNEY OF FINDING GOD—AND HIMSELF—WHEN HE HAD NOTHING LEFT TO LOSE.Luther Wright had the life hoop dreams are made of. A first-round NBA draft pick for the Utah Jazz, he was a rookie on a team with basketball legends Karl Malone and John Stockton. He had money, women, cars, and a luxurious bachelor pad overlooking Salt Lake City. But within a year, ravaged by drugs and unable to cope with life as an NBA star, he was ...

The Butler Way opens with a discussion of the Butler Way. Barry Collier, a former Butler player, was hired as coach in 1989 and slowly rebuilt a program that has declined since the days of Tony Hinkle. Collier emphasized the Butler way which featured team play. Fans will also be pleased to read about the famed Hinkle Fieldhouse, the greatest coaches, teams, players, and great moments in the storied history of Butler basketball.

When Brooklyn Dodgers general manager Branch Rickey decided to break the “color line” and integrate major league baseball in the 1940s, he spent years doing exhaustive background research and interviewing players. This role could not just go to an extraordinary athlete, but one of immense character as wellThings went down with integration in the National Basketball Association a bit differently. The NBA had only formed in 1946, and was still sorting out franchises and struggling fo...