The real basketball deal-the inside story of Harlem's legendary
tournament and the pros and playground legends who have made it
world famous.
Earl "The Goat" Manigault. Herman "Helicopter" Knowings. Joe "The
Destroyer" Hammond. Richard "Pee Wee" Kirkland. These and dozens of
other colorfully nicknamed men are the "Asphalt Gods," whose
astounding exploits in the Rucker Tournament, often against
multimillionaire NBA superstars, have made them playground
divinity. First established in the 1950s by Holcombe Rucker, a New
York City Parks Department employee, the tournament has grown to
become a Harlem institution, an annual summer event of major
proportions. On that fabled patch of concrete, unknown players have
been lighting it up for decades as they express basketball as a
freestyle art among their peers and against such pro immortals as
Julius Erving and Wilt Chamberlain. X's and O's are exchanged for
oohs and aahs in one of the great examples of street theater to be
found in urban America.
"Asphalt Gods" is a streetwise, supremely entertaining oral history
of a tournament that has influenced everything from NBA playing
style to hip-hop culture. Now, legends transmitted by word of mouth
find a home and the achievements of basketball's greatest unknowns
a permanent place in the game's record.
"From the Hardcover edition."
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