Basketball Memoir

From the East Baltimore playground courts where he earned his nickname by muggin' opponents for possession of the ball to Dunbar High School where he excelled alongside future NBA players, Muggsy Bogues set the tone in his early years for the great heights he'd reach professionally. In this new autobiography, Bogues delves deep into his life and career, reflecting on legendary battles with Michael Jordan, John Stockton, and other generational stars of ’80s and ’90s hoops.

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.

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.

A man of deep passion and intensity, George Karl earned his bad boy reputation while playing at the University of North Carolina, a rap that continued through the five years he spent with the San Antonio Spurs - and long after he stopped playing. Karl's beery nights, fistfights, and barking followed him into a 35-year coaching career. In a game defined by big stakes and bigger egos, rabid fans and an unforgiving media, Karl was hired and fired a dozen times.

In On the Shoulders of Giants, indomitable basketball star and best-selling author and historian Kareem Abdul-Jabbar invites listeners on an extraordinarily personal journey back to his birthplace. He leads us through one of the greatest political, cultural, literary, and artistic movements in our history, revealing the tremendous impact the Harlem Renaissance had on both American culture and his own life.

Golden State Warriors insider and best-selling author Marcus Thompson delivers the definitive biography of one of the most extraordinary basketball players in NBA history - Kevin Durant.

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.

He is perhaps most well-known for being exiled from the league for praying—instead of standing and saluting the flag–during the playing of “The Star-Spangled Banner” before games throughout the 1995-96 season. Abdul-Rauf’s protest sent shockwaves through the NBA that can still be felt today. With wit and candor, Abdul-Rauf tells the story of how he rose to the top of his game—only to have his career taken away in the blink of an eye when he stood up for his principles.

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.

Verne Lundquist's remarkable broadcasting career has placed him at the center of major sporting events in America for more than 50 years, from Jack Nicklaus' final victory at the 1986 Masters to Tonya Harding's attack on Nancy Kerrigan at the 1994 Olympics to the Auburn-Alabama shocker of 2013. In his first memoir, he replays highlights from his career, taking sports fans behind the scenes of some of the most dramatic moments in modern sports history.

By 1977 the University of Evansville’s Purple Aces basketball team had won five small-college national championships. With a charismatic young coach and a freshman phenom, this small Indiana city hoped to see its team shine in the national spotlight. Then, on a foggy night, after just four games, the plane carrying the team and its coach crashed after takeoff, killing everyone on board.

i>Red and Me is an extraordinary book: an homage to a peerless coach, showing how he produced results unlike any other; an inspiring story of mutual success, in which each man gave his all, and gained back even more; above all, it may be the best depiction of male friendship ever put on the page. Who would have guessed that such different men could have become such a tightly bonded pair? Few did guess it. Now Russell tells it.

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.

Dave Kindred has covered dozens of Super Bowls and written about stars like Muhammad Ali, Tiger Woods, and Michael Jordan. But a high-school girls basketball team—the Lady Potters of Morton, Illinois—stands apart from the rest.

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.

Michael Jordan defied gravity, transcended the world’s expectations, and exceeded the limits of age, soaring to fame as the world’s greatest basketball player of all time. While his talent was breathtaking to behold—those flying dunks and record-breaking sixty-point games have inspired generations—the unseen forces behind his success are the kind we can all harness for our own. M. J. and his accomplishments were founded on discipline, hard work, and knowing how to channel the deep competitive drive within.

What happens when a 6' 9" kid from Lobelville, Tennessee is recruited by legendary basketball coach Bob Knight? Kirk Haston’s life was changed forever with just a two-minute phone call. Containing previously unknown Knight stories, anecdotes, and choice quotes, fans will gain an inside look at the notoriously private man and his no-nonsense coaching style. Which past Hoosier basketball greats returned to talk to and practice with current teams? How did the players feel when Knight was fired? In this touching and humorous audiobook, Haston shares these answers and more.

Bill Russell was not the first African American to play professional basketball, but he was its first Black superstar. From the moment he stepped onto the court of the Boston Garden in 1956, Russell began to transform the sport in a fundamental way, making him, more than any of his contemporaries, the Jackie Robinson of basketball. In King of the Court, Aram Goudsouzian provides a vivid and engrossing chronicle of the life and career of this brilliant champion and courageous racial pioneer. Russell's leaping, wide-ranging defense altered the game's texture.

Be Quick - But Don't Hurry! tells the story of the friendship between UCLA basketball coach John Wooden and former player-turned-successful television executive Andrew Hill, while sharing the lessons and secrets that hold the key to managing creativity in the idea-driven economy of the 21st century.

On the night of March 2, 1962, in Hershey, Pennsylvania, right up the street from the chocolate factory, Wilt Chamberlain, a young and striking athlete celebrated as the Big Dipper, scored 100 points in a game against the New York Knickerbockers.