Sports Basketball

The seven-foot Dirk Nowitzki is one of the great players in basketball history. With a devastating fadeaway and unexpected agility, the Dallas Mavericks superstar helped to pioneer the modern three-shooting game and became a global ambassador for the sport. Award-winning novelist and sportswriter Thomas Pletzinger traveled with Nowitzki for more than seven years, seeking the secret of his success and longevity. In novelistic detail, Pletzinger tells the dramatic story of how a lanky kid from the German suburbs became a top-five all-time scorer and NBA champion.

In Pat Riley: The Inspiring Life and Leadership Lessons of One of Basketball’s Greatest Coaches, you will learn the inspirational story of one of the greatest basketball coaches and executives ever, Pat Riley. Whether it was as a player, coach, or executive, Pat Riley has created a huge legacy for himself with all the franchises of which he has been a part. Since 1995, he has led the Miami Heat organization.

Becoming the nanny to a basketball star was never part of my plan. Becoming the nanny to a random hookup from my past is never a good idea. It’s really not a good idea when that hookup resulted in a baby…and I left that baby on her father’s doorstep four years ago. Talk about karma. After my failed attempt at adulting in New York, I’m back in Vegas living with my parents. My dad wants me to get a responsible job, so badly that he sets me up with a job himself. As a nanny for Jayden Johnson - a player on his team, my one time hookup, and father of the daughter I abandoned. My first ...

The NBA has returned to prominence on the backs of phenoms like LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, and Kevin Garnett. The media promotes them, the shoe companies pay them, and America applauds. But how exactly do such players reach the pros? What do they give up to get there? And what happens to those who fall short?

Think pro basketball begins with the opening tipoff? Think again! In this Sports Illustrated Kids book, go behind the scenes of a typical game day in professional basketball—from cleaning the hardcourt and mascot madness to locker room pep talks and postgame interviews.

They don’t set up any better than this. The greatest basketball player of all time–Bill Russell–and his juggernaut Boston Celtics, winners of ten (ten!) of the previous twelve NBA championships, squeak through one more playoff run and land in the Finals again. Russell’s opponent? The fearsome 7’1” next-generation superstar, Wilt Chamberlain, recently traded to the LA Lakers to form the league’s first dream team. Bill Russell and John Havlicek versus Chamberlain, Jerry West and Elgin Baylor.

From the New York Times best-selling author of Return of the King comes the story of LeBron James' incredible transformation from basketball star to sports and business mogul.

Playing basketball for Duke University was a major accomplishment for me at eighteen! I was away from home for the first time, beginning to work towards my personal goals of becoming a WNBA pro player one day! My dreams encounter an immoveable object in my path, mainly my richer-than-god father and mother. They inform me that I am needed to further the family's interests. A fall from grace, a young woman finds her way in the dark of the world, cut off from all she has ever known. She discovers herself, her friends, and why she has never been able to feel attracted to a man! Not a cliche in ...

Jalen Rose has never been quiet. Not as a kid growing up in Detroit in the '70s and '80s. Not as the brash, trash-talking leader of the legendary "Fab Five" at the University of Michigan. Not as the player under the stewardship of Hall of Famers Larry Bird, Isiah Thomas, and others throughout his 13-year NBA career. And certainly not as a commentator and analyst on ABC/ESPN and Grantland.

Combining extensive historical research with dozens of oral history interviews, Pamela Grundy and Susan Shackelford bring life and depth to stories of the many generations of female athletes who have fought for liberation on and off the court.

In This Book Has Balls, Rapaport uses his signature smack-talk style and in-your-face humor to discuss everything from why LeBron will never be like Mike to how Tiger needs the ladies to get his golf game back and how he once thought Mary Lou Retton was his true love. And, of course, why next year will be the year the New York Knicks win the championship. This book is a series of rants - some controversial, some affectionate, but all incredibly hilarious.

INSPIRED BY A TRUE STORY Can one small school accomplish the impossible? Does the heart of a champion beat in their chests? Mississippi, 1964. Poverty-stricken Dean Barnes lives and breathes basketball. Idolizing his court-dominating big brother, his hoops-obsessed community goes wild when the high school team wins the state championship. But when tragedy strikes, the devastated teenager tumbles into a self-destructive spiral. Drowning his sorrows by shunning his friends and getting drunk at parties, Dean is surprised when the high school basketball coach takes him under his wing. And ...

When you think of Stephen Curry, one word comes to mind: greatness. From shooting three-pointers with laser precision to his clutch ability to hit buzzer-beaters time and again, he has established himself as one of the best players in pro basketball. But greatness was never a guarantee for Steph.

It’s time to address your physical game, specifically the game-specific skills you’ll need to play basketball at your best. Let's complete your game and make you the all-around player you deserve to be recognized as.

In Golden Days, acclaimed sports journalist Jack McCallum uses these two teams - the Jerry West/Wilt Chamberlain/Elgin Baylor Lakers and the Stephen Curry/Kevin Durant/Draymond Green Warriors - to trace the dynamic history of the National Basketball Association, which for much of the last half century has marched memorably through the state of California. Tying together the two strands of McCallum's story is Hall of Famer West, the ferociously competitive Laker guard who later became one of the key architects of the Warriors.

From the introduction of the game of basketball to Black communities on a wide scale in 1904 to the racial integration of the NBA in 1950, dozens of African American teams were founded and flourished. This period, known as the Black Fives Era (teams But this period is almost entirely unknown to basketball fans. Claude Johnson has made it his mission to change that. The Black Fives is the result of his work, a landmark narrative history that braids together the stories of these forgotten pioneers and rewrites our understanding of the story of basketball.

In June 2007, the FBI informed the NBA that one of its referees, Tim Donaghy, was the subject of a probe into illegal gambling. Within months, the public knew the broad outlines of a scheme involving Donaghy betting on games he officiated with a coconspirator, longtime Donaghy acquaintance and professional gambler Jimmy "Baba" Battista. They were joined in the scandal by a mutual childhood friend, Tommy Martino. By November 2008, each man had pleaded guilty to charges relating to the conspiracy and was in federal prison.

How many players are on a football team? Why is a baseball white with red stitches? What are triathlons? You've got questions about sports, and Kids' Questions has answers!

Learn the incredible story of basketball superstar Allen Iverson! In Allen Iverson: The Inspiring Story of One of Basketball's Greatest Shooting Guards, you'll read about the inspirational story of basketball's premier shooting guard, Allen Iverson. Allen Iverson redefined the shooting guard position role in the late 1990s and entering in the 2000s.

Today the salary cap is an NBA institution, something fans take for granted as part of the fabric of the league or an obstacle to their favorite team’s chances to win a championship. In the early 1980s, however, a salary cap was not only novel but nonexistent. The Cap tells the fascinating, behind-the-scenes story of the deal between the NBA and the National Basketball Players Association that created the salary cap in 1983, the first in all of sports, against the backdrop of a looming players’ strike on one side and threatened economic collapse on the other.