Summary:
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 thoroughly entertaining
look at the past, present, and future of pro basketball. From the age-old question of who
actually 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 great to uncover that
coveted thing: The Secret of Basketball. Comprehensive, authoritative,
controversial, hilarious, and impossible to put down (even
for Celtic-haters), The Book of Basketball offers every
hardwood fan a courtside seat beside the game’s finest,
funniest, and fiercest chronicler.
* More to the point, he’s the only one crazy
enough to try to pull it off.