paulogonzalez's review
5.0
This is a great, wonderful book about NBA and basketball. One of the best. Essential. Very well written by a good journalist which happens to be a basketball fan.
Halberstam takes as an excuse a season of the Blazers' team a couple years after his '77 title. But it is just that, an excuse. He speaks in depth about Bill Walton and every his teammates, their injuries, their comes and goes and all the interior aspects of the team. But also about Jack Ramsey and the other coaches, and about Stu Inman (general manager) and Larry Weinberg (the owner). And about rivals, and referees, and media, and TV coverage, and the draft, about college, about past years... he covers in depth a lot of aspects in american basketball.
It's so more a book about NBA and basketball in those years than a book about the Blazers. He takes that particular team as a starting point, its descomposition after the '77 ring, but he makes a magnificient contextualization with which you can discover the NBA of the seventies and understand what would come next in the eighties with the Bird-Magic rivalry skyrocketing the popularity of the league.
Halberstam takes as an excuse a season of the Blazers' team a couple years after his '77 title. But it is just that, an excuse. He speaks in depth about Bill Walton and every his teammates, their injuries, their comes and goes and all the interior aspects of the team. But also about Jack Ramsey and the other coaches, and about Stu Inman (general manager) and Larry Weinberg (the owner). And about rivals, and referees, and media, and TV coverage, and the draft, about college, about past years... he covers in depth a lot of aspects in american basketball.
It's so more a book about NBA and basketball in those years than a book about the Blazers. He takes that particular team as a starting point, its descomposition after the '77 ring, but he makes a magnificient contextualization with which you can discover the NBA of the seventies and understand what would come next in the eighties with the Bird-Magic rivalry skyrocketing the popularity of the league.
connor's review
informative
slow-paced
4.0
I can see why this is regarded as one of the greatest sports books of all-time, and a true revolution in terms of access and insight. While it was a bit tough to stay engaged with the day-to-day action of the season nearly 40 years after the fact, it's easy to understand how gripping this would be with these players and events fresh in your mind. The topics I do have at least some knowledge of, like Bill Walton's injury struggles, were covered well, and included a lot of context and detail I hadn’t learned before.
My favorite aspect of the book were the parts that were, in essence, magazine profiles. Just several pages on the story of one player or coach or executive, and then you carry all that forward with you if/when they become relevant to the season later on. It also made me more invested in the epilogue to find out the aftershocks of the season.
Even though it was sometimes a difficult book for me to focus on, it really was fascinating to read about a league that is hardly recognizable compared to what it was about to become. In terms of both access and authenticity, this book could never be written today, and while it has plenty of other redeeming qualities, it’s worth reading for that reason alone.
My favorite aspect of the book were the parts that were, in essence, magazine profiles. Just several pages on the story of one player or coach or executive, and then you carry all that forward with you if/when they become relevant to the season later on. It also made me more invested in the epilogue to find out the aftershocks of the season.
Even though it was sometimes a difficult book for me to focus on, it really was fascinating to read about a league that is hardly recognizable compared to what it was about to become. In terms of both access and authenticity, this book could never be written today, and while it has plenty of other redeeming qualities, it’s worth reading for that reason alone.
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