As a rookie head coach leading a franchise that, though on a steady climb upwards, had largely been dismissed by the sports media, NBA fans had low expectations for Nick Nurse and his Raptors. But what those naysayers didn't realise was that Nurse had spent the past thirty years proving himself at every level of the game, from youth programs and college ball, to the NBA G League and Britain's struggling pro circuit. While few coaches have taken such a circuitous path to pro basketball's promise land, the journey-- which began at Keumper Catholic high school in Carroll, Iowa -- forged a coach who proved to be as unshakeable as he is personable. On the road, he is now known to bring his guitar and keyboard for late-night jazz and blues sessions. In the locker room, he's steadfast and even-keeled regardless of the score. On the court, he pulls out old school, underrated plays with astounding success. A rookie in name but a veteran in attitude, Nurse is seemingly above the chaos of the game and, with two seasons on his resume, -has established himself, incredibly, as one of the NBA's most admired head coaches. Now, in this revealing new book - which will be equal parts personal memoir, leadership manifesto, and philosophical meditation - Nurse tells his own story, while also whisking readers inside the Raptors' locker room and coach's office for an intimate study of the team culture he has built and promises to sustain. As much for readers of Ray Dalio as for fans of John Wooden and Pat Summit, the result promises to become necessary for anyone looking to forge their own path to success.

On a scorching hot day in July 1936, thousands of people cheered as the U.S. Olympic teams boarded the S.S. Manhattan, bound for Berlin. Among the athletes were the 14 players representing the first-ever U.S. Olympic basketball team. As thousands of supporters waved American flags on the docks, it was easy to miss the one courageous man holding a BOYCOTT NAZI GERMANY sign. But it was too late for a boycott now; the ship had already left the harbour. 1936 was a turbulent time in world history. Adolf Hitler had gained power in Germany three years earlier. Jewish people and political opponents of the Nazis were the targets of vicious mistreatment, yet were unaware of the horrors that awaited them in the coming years. But the Olympians on board the S.S. Manhattan and other international visitors wouldn't see any signs of trouble in Berlin. Streets were swept, storefronts were painted, and every German citizen greeted them with a smile. Like a movie set, it was all just a facade, meant to distract from the terrible things happening behind the scenes. This is the incredible true story of basketball, from its invention by James Naismith in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1891, to the sport's Olympic debut in Berlin and the eclectic mix of people, events and propaganda on both sides of the Atlantic that made it all possible. Includes photos throughout, a Who's-Who of the 1936 Olympics, bibliography, and index

The easy way to get the ins, outs, and intrigue on this beloved sport

The National Basketball Association (NBA), with 30 teams and an average attendance of more than 17,000 spectators per game, is the richest and most popular basketball league -- and arguably the most viewed American sport -- in the world. This new edition of "Basketball For Dummies" not only covers the rules and regulations of the NBA, but offers coverage on the WNBA, NCAA, and international basketball leagues.

"Basketball For Dummies" is a valuable resource to the many fans of this beloved sport, covering everything from players and personalities in the game to rules, regulations, and equipment. Completely updated with information and intrigue that's occurred in the sport since publication of the previous edition, "Basketball For Dummies" gets you up to speed on everything from NCAA Tournament brackets to college players en route to the NBA.Coverage of the rules and regulations of the NBAInteresting topics like LeBron the Phenom, ESPN'S influence on the NBA, and the UCONN women's basketball dynastyDigger's take on John Wooden

Whether you're a basketball player or a courtside spectator, "Basketball For Dummies" is a slam-dunk of information and intrigue for anyone who loves the sport.

Using data from one season of NBA games, Basketball Data Science: With Applications in R is the perfect book for anyone interested in learning and applying data analytics in basketball. Whether assessing the spatial performance of an NBA player's shots or doing an analysis of the impact of high pressure game situations on the probability of scoring, this book discusses a variety of case studies and hands-on examples using a custom R package. The codes are supplied so readers can reproduce the analyses themselves or create their own. Assuming a basic statistical knowledge, Basketball Data Science with R is suitable for students, technicians, coaches, data analysts and applied researchers. Features: * One of the first books to provide statistical and data mining methods for the growing field of analytics in basketball. * Presents tools for modelling graphs and figures to visualize the data. * Includes real world case studies and examples, such as estimations of scoring probability using the Golden State Warriors as a test case. * Provides the source code and data so readers can do their own analyses on NBA teams and players.

#1 New York Times bestseller Who is the greatest dunker of all time? Which version of the Michael Jordan was the best Michael Jordan? What is allowed and absolutely not allowed in a game of pickup basketball? Basketball (and Other Things) presents readers with a whole new set of pivotal and ridiculous fan disputes from basketball history, providing arguments and answers, explained with the wit and wisdom that is unique to Shea Serrano. Serrano breaks down debates that NBA fans didn't even know they needed, from the classic (How many years during his career was Kobe Bryant actually the best player in the league?) to the fantastical (If you could assign different values to different shots throughout basketball history, what would they be and why?). With incredible art from Arturo Torres, this book is a must-have for anyone who has ever stayed up late into the night debating basketball's greatest moments, what-ifs, stories, and legends, or for those who are discovering the mythology of basketball for the first time.

The first definitive biography of basketball legend LeBron James, by the acclaimed author of Tiger Woods. LeBron is unquestionably the greatest basketball player of the 21st century. Off the court, LeBron's political activism, outspoken stance on racism and social injustice have helped build a social media presence that includes 117 million followers on Instagram and 51 million followers on Twitter. He is an international brand worth billions of dollars. He doesn't just have huge endorsement deals with some of the biggest corporations in the world; LeBron sits on boards of directors and has an equity stake in the companies he sponsors. He has forged a close friendship with President Barack Obama and clashed publicly with President Donald Trump. As a child, LeBron was a lost little boy living in a public housing project in Akron, Ohio. His mother, who had LeBron when she was just sixteen, would disappear for days at a time. Scared and alone, LeBron rarely attended school. He was dirt poor and fatherless. And he had never played organised basketball. Yet he would become the most successful and most popular athlete that the United States has produced this century, bringing success to the Cleveland Cavaliers, Miami Heat and Los Angeles Lakers. To tell this epic story, Benedict has done exhaustive research, digging through thousands of pages of primary source documents, articles, books and hundreds of hours of video footage. He's also conducted hundreds of interviews with the people who were intimately involved with LeBron from the beginning of his life to the present. He shows the initial slow rise of a star that suddenly transformed into a speeding comet during his senior year of high school. It is a unique and unmissable insight into one of the world's greatest athletes.

The Eastern Professional Basketball League (1946-78) was fast and physical, often played in tiny, smoke-filled gyms across the northeast and featuring the best players who just couldn't make the NBA--many because of unofficial quotas on Black players, some because of scandals, and others because they weren't quite good enough in the years when the NBA had less than 100 players. In Boxed out of the NBA: Remembering the Eastern Professional Basketball League, Syl Sobel and Jay Rosenstein tell the fascinating story of a league that was a pro basketball institution for over 30 years, showcasing top players from around the country. During the early years of professional basketball, the Eastern League was the next-best professional league in the world after the NBA. It was home to big-name players such as Sherman White, Jack Molinas, and Bill Spivey, who were implicated in college gambling scandals in the 1950s and were barred from the NBA, and top Black players such as Hal "King" Lear, Julius McCoy, and Wally Choice, who could not make the NBA into the early 1960s due to unwritten team quotas on African-American players. Featuring interviews with some 40 former Eastern League coaches, referees, fans, and players--including Syracuse University coach Jim Boeheim, former Temple University coach John Chaney, former Detroit Pistons player and coach Ray Scott, former NBA coach and ESPN analyst Hubie Brown, and former NBA player and coach Bob Weiss--this book provides an intimate, first-hand account of small-town professional basketball at its best.

"Through candor and comprehensiveness, Jackson writes a convincing revisionist take, in which he emerges as an excellent coach . . . highly readable . . . reflects Jackson's polymathy." -The New York Times Book Review "Part sports memoir, part New Age spirit quest, part pseudo-management tract . . . But the primary thing with Jackson-as with all the old bards, who were also known for repeating themselves-is the voice." -Sam Anderson, The New York Times Magazine A New York Times Bestseller The inside story of one of basketball's most legendary and game-changing figures During his storied career as head coach of the Chicago Bulls and Los Angeles Lakers, Phil Jackson won more championships than any coach in the history of professional sports. Even more important, he succeeded in never wavering from coaching his way, from a place of deep values. Jackson was tagged as the "Zen master" half in jest by sportswriters, but the nickname speaks to an important truth: this is a coach who inspired, not goaded; who led by awakening and challenging the better angels of his players' nature, not their egos, fear, or greed. This is the story of a preacher's kid from North Dakota who grew up to be one of the most innovative leaders of our time. In his quest to reinvent himself, Jackson explored everything from humanistic psychology and Native American philosophy to Zen meditation. In the process, he developed a new approach to leadership based on freedom, authenticity, and selfless teamwork that turned the hypercompetitive world of professional sports on its head. In Eleven Rings, Jackson candidly describes how he: * Learned the secrets of mindfulness and team chemistry while playing for the champion New York Knicks in the 1970s * Managed Michael Jordan, the greatest player in the world, and got him to embrace selflessness, even if it meant losing a scoring title * Forged successful teams out of players of varying abilities by getting them to trust one another and perform in sync * Inspired Dennis Rodman and other "uncoachable" personalities to devote themselves to something larger than themselves * Transformed Kobe Bryant from a rebellious teenager into a mature leader of a championship team. Eleven times, Jackson led his teams to the ultimate goal: the NBA championship-six times with the Chicago Bulls and five times with the Los Angeles Lakers. We all know the legendary stars on those teams, or think we do. What Eleven Rings shows us, however, is that when it comes to the most important lessons, we don't know very much at all. This book is full of revelations: about fascinating personalities and their drive to win; about the wellsprings of motivation and competition at the highest levels; and about what it takes to bring out the best in ourselves and others.

The wisdom of a king of sport, business and charity. Dedicated to a legend of basketball, this is a pocket-sized compendium of the inspirational thoughts of one of the game's all-time greats. From the earliest years of his life through to the heartfelt tributes that poured in after his untimely death, this is a timely portrait of one of sport's most remarkable, accomplished and influential figures. From his high school years, through his meteoric rise on the court, Bryant always had lots to say. His words on sport, business, charity and life will delight, inspire and amuse the reader. He was almost as famed for his memorable words as for his sporting achievements, so this is a carefully crafted collection of motivational, insightful and amusing quotes from one of basketball's most respected stars. 'My brain... it cannot process failure. It will not process failure. Because if I sit there and have to face myself and tell myself, 'You're a failure'... I think that's almost worse than death' (On his winning mentality, as seen on NYPost.com, January 27, 2020, by Hannah Frishberg) Kobe is the only NBA player in history to have two separate numbers retired by one team, as he wore both No. 8 and No. 24 with the Los Angeles Lakers.

In the 1960s, college sports required more than athletic prowess from its African American players. For many pioneering basketball players on 18 teams in the Atlantic and Southeastern conference, playing ball meant braving sometimes menacing crowds during the tumultuous era of civil rights. Perry Wallace feared he would be shot when he first stepped onto a court in his Vanderbilt uniform. During one road game, Georgia's Ronnie Hogue fended off a hostile crowd with a chair. Craig Mobley had to flee the Clemson campus, along with other black students. C.B. Claiborne couldn't attend the Duke team banquet when it was held at an all-white country club. Wendell Hudson's mother cried with heartache when her son decided to play at the University of Alabama, and Al Heartley locked himself in a campus dorm at North Carolina State for safety the night Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated. Grounded in the civil rights struggles on campuses throughout the south, the voices of players, coaches, opponents and fans reveal the long-neglected story of race, sports and social history. Barry Jacobs has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, People and other publications. He is the author of several sports books, including Coach K's Little Blue Book. He lives in Hillsborough, North Carolina.

Cumberland Posey began his career in 1911 playing outfield for the Homestead Grays, a local black team in his Pennsylvania hometown. He soon became the squad's driving force as they dominated semi-pro ball in the Pittsburgh area. By the late 1930s the Grays were at the top of the Negro Leagues with nine straight pennant wins. Posey was also a League officer; he served 13 years as the first black member of the Homestead school board; and he wrote an outspoken sports column for the African American weekly, the Pittsburgh Courier. He was regarded as one of the best black basketball players in the East; he was the organizer of a team that held the consensus national black championship five years running. Ten years after his induction into the National Baseball Hall of Fame, he became a member of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame-one of only two athletes to be honored by two pro sports halls.

Kobe Bryant is a legend - The Rise is a fascinating look at his early life and how he became regarded as one of basketball's greatest-ever players. Kobe Bryant's death in January 2020 did more than rattle the worlds of sports and celebrity. It took the tragedy of that helicopter crash to reveal the full breadth and depth of Kobe's influence. By tracing and telling the oft-forgotten and lesser-known story of his early life, The Rise promises to provide an unparalleled insight into Kobe. In The Rise, readers travel from the cracked concrete basketball courts of Philadelphia in the 1960s and 70s - where Kobe's father, Joe, became a playground, college and professional stand-out - to the majesty and isolation of Europe, where Kobe spent his formative years, and to the leafy suburbs of Lower Merion, where Kobe's legend was born. The story ends with his leading Lower Merion to the 1995-96 Pennsylvania state championship - a true underdog run for a team with just one star player, Kobe - and with the 1996 NBA draft, where Kobe's dream of playing pro basketball culminated with his acquisition by the Los Angeles Lakers. With exclusive access to a series of never-before-released interviews during Bryant's senior season and early days in the NBA, and tapes and transcripts which have preserved Kobe's thoughts, dreams and goals from his teenage years for a quarter-century, Mike Sielski's The Rise uncovers insights and stories that have never been revealed before. This is an exploration of the making of an icon and the effect of his development on those around him - the essence of the man before he truly became a man.

The NBA has gained worldwide popularity with its high-flying stars and slam-dunking giants, but the early professional hoops game was played below the rim. This book provides the first history of the National Basketball League, which held court from the mid - 1930s until its merger with the Basketball Association of America in 1949. Originally formed in Akron and Indianapolis, the league operated mainly in the Midwest but extended as far east as Rochester and Syracuse and west to Denver, building major franchises with hometown loyalties. Most of its stars were college graduates, a major change from previous professional leagues, and it was the first modern major professional league to integrate. Features include photographs, maps of league franchises, and tables of team standings, MVPs, and scoring leaders.

Howard Nathan. A. J. Guyton. Sergio McClain. Marcus Griffin. Frank Williams. Shaun Livingston. This dazzling constellation of talent helped make Peoria a prep basketball hotbed from the 1980s to the 2000s. Jeff Karzen takes readers inside the lives of the players, coaches, and others who defined an era that produced six state titles and four Illinois Mr. Basketball winners. Drawing on dozens of in-depth interviews, Karzen tells the stories behind the on-court triumphs while providing a panorama of the entire Peoria scene--the rivalries and relationships, the families and friendships, the hopes and hard work. Karzen also follows the players into their Division 1 and NBA careers and pays special attention to the pipeline that, by connecting Peoria to Champaign-Urbana, powered one of the most successful periods in Fighting Illini basketball history. Intense and intimate, Playgrounds to the Pros chronicles a basketball golden age in America's quintessential blue collar town.

Finding a Rhythm is a basketball book unlike any other. Scoring techniques that have proven effective at all levels of play are based on scientific principles taught in high school. You will play smarter than your opponent by grasping these concepts. Did you think science was just for geeks? If you love the game and you want to play smart, then this is the book for you.

A few years after its invention by James Naismith, basketball became the primary sport in the crowded streets of the Jewish neighborhood on New York's Lower East Side. Participating in the new game was a quick and enjoyable way to become Americanized. Jews not only dominated the sport for the next fifty-plus years but were also instrumental in modernizing the game. Barney Sedran was considered the best player in the country at the City College of New York from 1909 to 1911. In 1927 Abe Saperstein took over management of the Harlem Globetrotters, playing a key role in popularizing and integrating the game. Later he helped found the American Basketball Association and introduced the three-point shot. More recently, Nancy Lieberman played in a men's pro summer league and became the first woman to coach a men's pro team, and Larry Brown became the only coach to win both NCAA and the NBA championships. While the influence of Jewish players, referees, coaches, and administrators has gradually diminished since the mid-1950s, the current basketball scene features numerous Jews in important positions. Through interviews and lively anecdotes from franchise owners, coaches, players, and referees, The Chosen Game explores the contribution of Jews to the evolution of present-day pro basketball.