Jump Shooting to a Higher Degree chronicles Sheldon Anderson's basketball career from grade school in small-town Moorhead, Minnesota, in the 1960s, to inner-city high school and college ball in Minneapolis, to a professional career in West Germany, and finally to communist Poland, where he did PhD research while on a basketball junket behind the Iron Curtain in the late 1980s. Because he was the only American player in the league at the time, and with help from a Polish scholar, Anderson was one of the first Western scholars to gain access to Communist Party documents. He's also likely the only American scholar to have funded his research by playing semi-pro basketball in a communist country. Jump Shooting to a Higher Degree is much more than a basketball story. Anderson provides insights into the everyday lives of people on either side of the Iron Curtain, such as the English coach he played for in West Germany, an elderly woman he visited many times in East Germany, and a sailmaker's family he lived with in Warsaw. He reflects on German, Polish, and Cold War history, providing a commentary on the times and the places where he lived and played, and the importance of basketball along the way.

James Naismith invented the game of basketball as a physical education instructor at the International YMCA Training School in Springfield, Massachusetts. That December of 1891, his task was to create a game to occupy a rowdy class during the winter months. Almost instantly popular, the game spread across the country and was played in fifteen countries by the end of the century. And yet basketball never had an overriding presence in Naismith's life, as he was also a minister, doctor, educator, and coach. So what did Naismith think about the game of basketball? In The James Naismith Reader, Douglas Stark answers that question using articles, speeches, letters, notes, radio interview transcripts, and other correspondence, including discussions on the game's origins, Naismith's childhood game duck on a rock in Canada, the changing rules, basketball as a representation of Muscular Christianity, and the physical education movement. From Naismith's original rules written in 1891 to an excerpt from the posthumous publication of his book Basketball: Its Origin and Development, Naismith's writings range over a fifty-year period, showing his thoughts on the game's invention and as the game evolved during his lifetime. The first volume to compile the existing primary sources of Naismith's views on basketball, The James Naismith Reader reveals what its inventor thought of the game, as well as his interactions with educators and instructors who assisted the game's growth.

Shake and Bake is the story of Archie Clark, one of the top playmaking guards in the 1970s pre-merger NBA. While not one of the game's most recognized superstars, Clark was a seminal player in NBA history who staggered defenders with the game's greatest crossover dribble ("shake and bake") and is credited by his peers as the originator of today's popular step-back move. Signed as the Lakers third-round draft pick in 1966, Clark worked his way into the starting lineup in his rookie year. But Clark was more than a guaranteed double-double whenever he stepped on the floor. He was a deep-thinking trailblazer for players' rights. Clark often challenged coaches and owners on principle, much to the detriment of his career and NBA legacy, signing on as a named litigant in the seminal Robertson v. NBA antitrust case that smashed the player reserve system and jump-started the modern NBA. So lace up your high-top Chuck Taylors, squeeze into a pair of short shorts, and shake and bake back in time to the days of Wilt, Russell, Oscar, Jerry, Elgin, Hondo-and Archie.

Paul Westhead was teaching high school in his native Philadelphia when he was named La Salle University's men's basketball coach in 1970. By 1980 he was a Los Angeles Lakers assistant, soon to be hired as head coach, winning an NBA title with Hall of Fame center Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and rookie guard Magic Johnson. After compiling a 112-50 record, he was fired in November 1981. After a short stay as coach of the Chicago Bulls, Westhead reemerged in the mideighties as a coach at Loyola Marymount in California, where he designed his highly unusual signature run-and-gun offense that came to be known as "The system." The Speed Game offers a vibrant account of how Westhead helped develop a style of basketball that not only won at the highest levels but went on to influence basketball as it's played today. Known for implementing an up-tempo, quick-possession, high-octane offense, Westhead is the only coach to have won championships in both the NBA and WNBA. But his long career can be defined by one simple question he's heard from journalists, fellow coaches, his wife, and, well, himself: Why? Why did he insist on playing such a controversial style of basketball that could vary from brilliant to busted? Westhead speaks candidly here about the feathers he ruffled and about his own shortcomings as he takes readers from Philadelphia's West Catholic High, where he couldn't make varsity, to the birth of the Showtime Lakers and to the powerhouse he built nearly ten years later at Loyola, where his team set records likely never to be approached. Westhead says he always found himself telling prospective bosses, "My speed game is gonna knock your socks off!" So will his story and what it could do to bring back a popular style of play.

A typical NBA game can yield approximately 2,800 statistical events in thirty-two different categories. In Numbers Don't Lie Yago Colas started with a simple question: How did basketball analytics get from counting one stat, the final score, to counting thousands? He discovered that what we call "basketball"-rules, equipment, fundamental skills, techniques, tactics, strategies-has changed dramatically since its invention and today encompasses many different forms of play, from backyards and rec leagues to the NBA Finals. Numbers Don't Lie explores the power of data to tell stories about ourselves and the world around us. As advanced statistical methods and big-data technologies transform sports, we now have the power to count more things in greater detail than ever before. These numbers tell us about the past, present, and future that shape how basketball is played on the floor, decisions are made in front offices, and the sport is marketed and consumed. But what is the relationship between counting and what counts, between quantification and value? In Numbers Don't Lie Colas offers a three-part history of counting in basketball. First, he recounts how big-data basketball emerged in the past twenty years, examines its current practices, and analyzes how it presents itself to the public. Colas then situates big data within the deeper social, cultural, and conceptual history of counting in basketball and beyond and proposes alternative frameworks of value with which we may take fuller stock of the impact of statistics on the sport. Ultimately, Colas challenges the putative objectivity of both quantification and academic writing by interweaving through this history a series of personal vignettes of life at the intersection of basketball, counting, and what counts.