Basketball Memoir

Best-selling author and NBA all-time leading scorer Kareem Abdul-Jabbar takes listeners on a tour through the segregated days of early basketball. Along the way, hoops icons like Charles Barkley, Julius Erving, and John Wooden share their thoughts, while broadcast legend Bob Costas narrates.

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 the globe and leagues starting in countries throughout the world, the international presence of the game of basketball is a force to be reckoned with. That all started with Hakeem “the Dream” Olajuwon. “Dream,” for short. Award-winning hoops journalist Mirin Fader explores the life and legacy of pioneering international basketball superstar Hakeem Olajuwon.

On November 7, 1991, basketball legend Magic Johnson stunned the world with the news that he was HIV-positive. For the millions who tuned in as he shared his news, Magic's revelation became a seminal moment for the nation. Now twenty-five years later, Cookie Johnson shares her story and the emotional journey that started on that day - from life as a pregnant and joyous newlywed to one filled with the fear that her husband would die, she and her baby would, too, be infected with the virus.

In 2018, the Dallas Mavericks landed the most hyped European teen prospect in basketball history—Luka Doncic, who has proven to be a generational NBA talent with a flair for sensational playmaking. But that’s only half the story. With The Wonder Boy, MacMahon takes us beyond the highlights to the madness that ensues as the Mavericks try to avoid blowing their golden opportunity.

America's favorite sportswriter teams up with Red Auerbach, the most successful and admired coach in basketball history, to tell the best stories of a legendary life.

Steven Adams overcame extreme odds to become a first-round prospect in the 2013 NBA draft. From there he signed a major contract with the Oklahoma City Thunder - making him New Zealand's highest-paid athlete ever - and went on to forge a reputation for his intense, physical style of basketball. Adams takes you inside the draft process from the fascinating whirlwind tour of pre-draft workouts with dozens of teams to the draft itself where dreams are made or dashed and the Gatorade bottles on every table are glued shut.

An irreverent, hilarious insider's look at big-time NCAA basketball, through the eyes of the nation's most famous benchwarmer and author of the popular blog ClubTrillion.com (3.6m visits!). Mark Titus holds the Ohio State record for career wins, and made it to the 2007 national championship game. You would think Titus would be all over the highlight reels. You'd be wrong.

For a long time, Carmelo Anthony’s world wasn’t any larger than the view of the hoopers and hustlers he watched from the side window of his family’s first-floor project apartment in Red Hook, Brooklyn. He couldn’t dream any bigger than emulating his older brothers and cousin, much less going on to become a basketball champion on the world stage.

At the height of the Great Depression, Sam Babb, the charismatic basketball coach of tiny Oklahoma Presbyterian College, began dreaming. Like so many others, he wanted a reason to have hope. Traveling from farm to farm, he recruited talented, hardworking young women and offered them a chance at a better life: a free college education if they would come play for his basketball team, the Cardinals. Despite their fears of leaving home and the sacrifices faced by their families, the women followed Babb and his dream.

Half an audiobook on basketball, half an audiobook on management techniques, The Gold Standard captures Coach K's personal style and approach to getting different (and sometimes difficult) people to work hard and succeed in reaching a common goal. "In all forms of leadership, whether you are a coach, a CEO, or a parent, there are four words that, when said, can bring out the best in your team, your employees, and your family...I believe in you. These four words can mean the difference between a fear of failure and the courage to try".

Out of the greatest dynasty in American professional sports history, an intimate story of race, mortality, and regret. About to turn 90, Bob Cousy, the Hall of Fame Boston Celtics captain who led the team to its first six championships on an unparalleled run, has much to look back on in contentment. But he has one last piece of unfinished business. The last pass he hopes to throw is to close the circle with his great partner on those Celtic teams, fellow Hall of Famer Bill Russell, now 84.

The life story of Jeanie Buss could only have been written in Hollywood. Her father, Jerry Buss, emerged from a childhood of financial struggle to improbably become one of California’s most successful real estate developers. Though her life was not without turmoil - l her parents divorced when she was still a child - Jeanie’s world was forever changed for the better when her father bought the Los Angeles Lakers in 1979. By the time Jeanie was 19, she was already a high-ranking executive with World Team Tennis.

On September 26, 2017, the biggest recruiting scandal in college basketball history sent shock waves through the world of sports. Caught up in a massive FBI and NCAA investigation - and the intense media spotlight - was Rick Pitino, the Louisville Cardinals’ Hall of Fame coach. Here, from Pitino himself, comes the real story of the ongoing case and the hard truth about how college hoops has been pushed to the brink of disaster by greed, bad actors, and shoe company money.

With his body-covering tattoos and ever-changing fluorescent hair, Dennis Rodman—one of the NBA's greatest rebounders—dishes on everything from fame, money, and race relations to sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll. Rodman's sideline antics and celebrated benchings captivated sports fans as much as his record-breaking on-court performances and earned him a reputation as a rebel with a penchant for shocking behavior. In Bad as I Wanna Be, Rodman tells his unique, uncompromising life story, demonstrating why he is one of a kind and unforgettable.

Part life story, part philosophy text, and part spiritual guide, Sister Jean's wit, wisdom, and common sense has broad appeal and application that transcends religious creed, belief, and even feelings on Loyola's basketball team.

One of the most successful Black businessmen in the country, who has led Nike’s Jordan Brand from a $200M sneaker company to a $4B global apparel juggernaut, tells the remarkable story of his rise from gangland violence to the pinnacles of international business. Jump tells Larry Miller’s journey from the violent streets of West Philly in the 1960s to the highest echelons of American sports and industry. Miller wound up in jail more than once, especially as a teenager

Charles Barkley has never been shy about expressing his opinions. Michael Jordan once said that we all want to say the things that Barkley says, but we don't dare. Many people are going to be shocked and scandalized by I May Be Wrong but I Doubt It, but many more will stand up and cheer. One way or another, if more blood hasn't reached your brain by the time you've finished this book, maybe you've been embalmed.

In this New York Times best-seller, get the inside scoop into LeBron James's return - and ultimate triumph - in Cleveland. What really happened when LeBron James stunned the NBA by leaving a potential dynasty in Miami to come home to play with the Cleveland Cavaliers? How did the Cavs use secret meetings to put together the deal to add star Kevin Love? Who really made the controversial decision to fire coach David Blatt when the team was in first place? Where did the greatest comeback in NBA history truly begin-and end?

The day after future NBA superstar Chris Paul signed his letter of intent to play college basketball for Wake Forest, he received a world-shattering phone call. His grandfather, Nathaniel "Papa" Jones, a pillar of the Winston-Salem community where he owned and operated the first Black-owned service station in North Carolina, was mugged and ultimately died from a heart attack resulting from the assault. His funeral filled the largest church in the county, which held over 1,000 people. He was 61 years old.

There’s a story about Rich Paul that everyone knows: A twenty-one-year-old kid from Cleveland who sells sports jerseys out of his car meets a high school basketball phenom named LeBron James at an airport—the two become friends and forge a decades-long partnership that reinvents the business of sports. That random meeting might seem like the lucky break that changed Paul’s life. But a moment of good fortune means nothing without the struggle that gets you there. And the truth is, Paul had always been lucky.