The Book of Basketball: The NBA According to The Sports Guy
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- ISBN13: 9780345511768
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description
There is only one writer on the planet who possesses enough basketball knowledge and passion to write the definitive book on the NBA.* Bill Simmons, the from-the-womb hoops addict known to millions as ESPN.com’s Sports Guy, is that writer. And The Book of Basketball is that book.
Nowhere in the roundball universe will you find another single volume that covers as much in such depth as this wildly opinionated and painstakingly entertaining look at the past, present, and future of pro basketball.
From the age-ancient question of who really won the rivalry between Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain to the one about which team was truly the best of all time, Simmons opens–and then closes, once and for all–every major pro basketball debate. Then he takes it further by completely reevaluating not only how NBA Hall of Fame inductees should be chosen but how the institution must be reshaped from the ground up, the result being the Pyramid: Simmons’s one-of-a-kind, five-level shrine to the ninety-six greatest players in the history of pro basketball. And ultimately he takes fans to the heart of it all, as he uses a conversation with one NBA fantastic to uncover that coveted thing: The Secret of Basketball.
Comprehensive, authoritative, controversial, hilarious, and impossible to place down (even for Celtic-haters), The Book of Basketball offers every hardwood fan a courtside seat beside the game’s finest, most amusing, and fiercest chronicler.
* More to the point, he’s the only one crazy enough to try to pull it off.
Amazon.com Review
Amazon Best of the Month, October 2009: The Book of Basketball is a 700-page work of hoops genius that would make Dr. James Naismith beam proudly – and probably blush. Leader Bill Simmons, best known as ESPN.com’s “The Sports Guy,” explores the NBA with hilarious insight, brilliant analysis, and a bevy of irreverent footnotes. Simmons is a fan first – a fact best clarified in an entertaining foreword by Malcolm Gladwell – and writes from the stands, not the press room. His knowledge and passion for the game provide him with few peers, yet his voice represents persons who stick by their teams through thick and thin. As a result, The Book of Basketball is not just a tribute to hardwood heroes, but also a celebration of yelling at TV sets, revering lucky jerseys, and holding our breath until the final buzzer sounds. Throw in pages of nearly-insane statistical breakdowns (including a projected boxscore from the movie Teen Wolf), and it’s simple to see why fans of all levels should clear shelf space for this instant classic. –Dave Callanan
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This is my final foray into Bill Simmons who completes his long decline from innovative and appealing sports writer to celebrity wannabe with this piece of dreck disguised as a book.
Endless footnotes (The reason books have pages in order is so that one doesn’t have to flip back and into the world seven times for every page), his banal opinions on a sport that he thinks he’s an practiced in (despite being incorrect in so many predictions, you’d be hard pushed to marvel why he gets paid to write about the sport)
I used to look forwards to every Friday column, and now (to some extent) sadly have chose to go on after reading this monstrosity of a “book”.
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
Now before you jump down my throat, I’m a fan of Bill Simmons Page 2 Column. I mean how can you not like a guy who looks like he’s high in his publicity photo? His columns are the best because of a variety of factors, but chief among them is their brevity. Even at his wordiest he maxes out at maybe four or five pages.
This book is over 700 pages long! 700 pages! The Bible isn’t even that long and it goes back millions of years!
I only made it 70 to 80 pages in before my nose ongoing bleeding. I mean, how much is there to say about basket ball? Dribble dribble, shoot, score. Dribble dribble, shoot, score. Dribble dribble, foul, dribble, shoot score. The most points wins. This book lists about a 100 of the best players in history…. Sure it was appealing, and I’d be hard pushed to argue his rankings and choices, but Holy Mary Mother-of-God the paragraphs were miles long! He could have filled the entire Pacific Ocean with the volume of words he used. And he used huge words, like “burgeoning” and “significance” and he even makes up words like, “demeanor” when he really means “the mean one”.
One last thing… footnotes…. So not only is the reader punished with 700 pages of material to slog through, but then there are micro paragraphs at the bottom of nearly every page… if you made persons paragraphs regular sized I bet this mammoth book would weigh in at 1,400 pages, or maybe even twice the original size!
Please Mr. Simmons, I like your columns and your writing, but next time can you limit the number pages to maybe 20? Or if you must go longer, slot in captions that tell the reader, “You can take a break and read more later”, or “it’s ok to use a bookmark” or even, “Now go to the bathroom”. That last one could have saved me a set of bed sheets.
Reader’s Rating: 2 / 5
Keep in mind when reading this that there are the Celtics and no one else ever played basketball but them, according to this leader. Would have liked more Laker stuff, especially Magic… as a replacement for of insulting Kareem. Just don’t have a sense of humor for it. Ok, book Remember, Simmons called “Maravich” better researched…..more like wrongly researched. So follow this with a grain of salt as well
Reader’s Rating: 2 / 5
I am a Celtics fan and this book makes me mad. It is not a honest treatment of the sport or persons who support the concept of honest play. Simmons sucks up to Barkley like no additional. He mixes up the Malones and their contributions. His treatment of John Stockton is absolutely lacking any insight. He makes light of Magic’s health problems. Isiah Thomas must have something on leader Simmons. Lacking wasting any more time, the only excellent thing about the book was the introduction by Malcolm Gladwell. sports guy? espn?
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
This was a fantastic thought for a book, and I generally delight in Mr. Simmons’ column and blog. But, I was unable to get past the prologue due to the horrible language. It’s too terrible Mr. Simmons feels like this is appropriate. He would have a wider audience if he cleaned up his language.
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5