Most Raptors fans have attended a game at Scotiabank Arena, seen highlights of a young Vince Carter, and of course watched every minute of the team's historic run to the 2019 NBA championship. But only die-hards remember the first Raptors game in 1995, can tell you where they were for the 2000 NBA Dunk Contest, or have camped out to get a prime viewing spot at Jurassic Park. 100 Things Raptors Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die reveals the most critical moments and important fa...

NATIONAL BESTSELLER"Doug Smith always gets the first question in any Raptors press conference--as the dean of our press corps, he's been in the front row for every development over the past 25 years. There's no one better placed to write a history of our team's first quarter century."--Nick Nurse, head coach, Toronto RaptorsBringing Jurassic Park to your home, a celebration of Canada's most exciting team.

Nick Nurse distills the wisdom, insight, and experiences that helped him lead the Toronto Raptors to the NBA championship in his first year as head coach.Foreword by Phil Jackson.NBA fans had low expectations for rookie coach Nick Nurse and his Toronto Raptors. But what those naysayers didn't realize was that Nurse had spent the past thirty years proving himself at every level of the game, from youth programs and college ball to the NBA D League an...

Blue Monday: one of the most unforgettable days in Canadian baseball history.Danny Gallagher leads readers up to that infamous day in October 1981 when Rick Monday of the Los Angeles Dodgers hit a home run off of Montreal Expos pitcher Steve Rogers in the ninth inning, giving the Dodgers a berth in the World Series. Readers will be taken back to 1976 when a five-year plan for winning the National League championship was set in place by the Expos with the hiring of ...

This book is made up of thirty-three chapters. Each chapter is a different basketball question that needs to be answered. Some of them are obviously crucial (Example: What's the Most Important NBA Championship?) and some of them are secretly crucial (Example: Was Kobe Bryant a Dork?). But all of them are approached in ways that (I hope you think) are smart and fun and nuanced. Also, you should know ahead of time that some of the pieces go a bit sideways sometimes, like the chapter that end...

The definitive biography of Steve Kerr, the championship-winning basketball player and head coach of the record-breaking Golden State WarriorsFew individuals have had a career as storied, and improbable, as Steve Kerr. He has won eight NBA titles—five as a player and three as a coach—for three different franchises. He played alongside the best players of a generation, from Michael Jordan to Shaquille O’Neal to Tim Duncan, and learned the craft of basketball...

The life and legacy of pioneering international basketball superstar Hakeem Olajuwon, a two time NBA champion whose Hall of Fame career forever changed the game, both in the United States and around the globe—from the New York Times bestselling author of Giannis.It’s now the norm for NBA and collegiate teams to have international players dotting their rosters. The Olympics are no longer a gimme for Team USA. Both via fans streaming from all over t...

*A LitHub Most Anticipated Book of 2022*The definitive biography of Charles Barkley, exploring his early childhood, his storied NBA career, and his enduring legacy as a provocative voice in American pop cultureHe’s one of the most interesting American athletes in the past fifty years. Passionate, candid, iconoclastic, and gifted both on and off the court, Charles Barkley has made a lasting impact on not only the world of basketball...

How money, guts, and greed built the Warriors dynasty -- and then took it apartThe Golden State Warriors dominated the NBA for the better part of a decade. Since the arrival of owner Joe Lacob, they won more championships and sold more merchandise than any other franchise in the sport. And in 2019, they opened the doors on a lavish new stadium.Yet all this success contained some of the seeds of decline. Ethan Sherwood Strauss's clear-eyed exposé reveals the...

WITH A FOREWORD BY COACH BRUCE ARIANSThe extraordinary behind-the-scenes story of how Coach Bruce Arians, Tom Brady, and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers came together to deliver one of the most improbable Super Bowl victories in NFL history.The pursuit was so shrouded in secrecy that it was referred to within the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ organization by codename: Operation Shoeless Joe Jackson. Indeed, the prospect of Tom Brady, six-time ...

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Good Walk Spoiled, a dramatic chronicle of the bitterly-fought 2016 Ryder Cup pitting a U.S. team out for revenge against the Europeans determined to keep the Cup out of American hands.Coming into 2016, the Americans had lost an astounding six out of the last seven Ryder Cup matches, and tensions were running high for the showdown that took place in October, 2016 in Hazeltine, Minnesota, just days...

The bestselling author of Dream Team tells the interconnected stories of the NBA champion Golden State Warriors and the early-1970s Los Angeles Lakers, two extraordinary teams playing in extraordinary times and linked by one extraordinary man: Jerry West.In Golden Days, acclaimed sports journalist Jack McCallum uses two teams—today’s Golden State Warriors and the L.A. Lakers of the early 1970s—to trace the dynamic history of the National Basketbal...