The Best Basketball Book You'll Ever Read

[drzachary]

Apologies if this is in the wrong forum, but it is basketball-related.

If you haven't ever read Loose Balls, do so as soon as you can. It's the story of the ABA . There are a lot of Hawks-related tidbits -- Zelmo Beaty, whiffs on signing Moses Malone and Julius Erving, and of course Billy Knight, who was a great player with the Pacers. One of the details I loved is how BK's nickname was TWA: Teeny-Weeny Afro, since he had trouble growing one. The Gilbert Arenas thing seems a little silly now, since apparently players joked around with their guns in the locker room all the time in the ABA, even playing 'cowboys and Indians.'

Reading the book, you get the sense of how the post-merger NBA became an ABA-style league, abandoning the pre-merger NBA ideals. The dunk, the All-Star game, quick/smart guards, the three-point line, pressing/fast break play, all of these NBA mainstays came from the ABA. The NBA is "just the ABA without the red, white and blue ball," to paraphrase the book, which is almost 100% quotes from the people involved. The ABA juggernaut teams, in their prime, were better than the NBA's best. (They just never had the TV contract.)

Here's an Amazon link:

http://www.amazon.com/Loose-Balls-Terry-Pluto/dp/0671749218

I promise you'll enjoy it.

[Joker]

Hoop Dreams

Road to March Madness

Love those two books.

[evilinkblot]

The Breaks of the Game

and I love the Bill Simmons 700-page behemoth