While the starting lineup of an NBA team consists of five players, there are at least 12 on each roster. Allocating time on court to keep each of them satisfied is challenging. Theoretically the worst position on the roster is the sixth man-so close to being the starter yet seeming to be the odd man out. This book aims at dispelling that notion, presenting many important players who through the years came off the bench for NBA teams, proving that despite not starting, they were worthy of playing in the best basketball league in the world.

This book analyzes career narratives of selected prominent NBA players after the Michael Jordan era, understood as the time after his second retirement in January 1999. It was a pivotal time for the league, as Jordan became synonymous with NBA basketball and the face of its global expansion. The players discussed in the book have been selected because of the significance of their career narratives, as all of them correspond with certain archetypes, prevalent in the world not only of professional basketball, but of professional sports in general. The private and public personas of eight players as well as their depiction by the media are analyzed not only regarding their success on the basketball court, but also in light of what they have come to represent for the modern NBA. The players discussed in this book are Shaquille O'Neal, Alonzo Mourning, Vin Baker, Allen Iverson, Antoine Walker, Steve Nash, Tim Duncan, and Kobe Bryant. Collectively, these eight players embody the distinguishing character profiles and career arcs of sports superstars with dominance, individualism, and athleticism being as much parts of sports star culture as egotism, injuries, boredom, addiction, and bankruptcy.

The three-point shot has been an NBA institution for more than 40 years, with the first long-distance bombs fired on October 12, 1979. The game has since changed dramatically. Critics today contend that three-pointers have gotten out of hand. Attempts rose from 2.8 per game in the 1979-1980 season to 18.4 in 2011-2012 to 32 in 2018-2019. Charting this development, this volume focuses on examples of 12 performances by 12 exceptional shooters-with mention of many more. Starting with Chris Ford and ending with Steph Curry, the author shows how these athletes have changed the NBA one shot at a time.

The 2018 Netflix series Altered Carbon is a vital contribution to the cyberpunk renaissance, among such titles as Snowpiercer or Blade Runner 2049. This collection of new essays answers the question: is this increasing popularity of cyberpunk a sign of recognition of the genre's transgressive aspects, such as a stark critique of capitalism, or is it the opposite-a sign of the genre's failure to successfully criticize modernity? The contributors consider the series as taking on current issues, from a critique of neoliberalism, through the ethical aspects of biotechnology, up to thanatology. They provoke questions about what it means to be human in a world in which death does not exist. Essays evaluate the surging popularity of the series and cyberpunk at large from a variety of critical perspectives, shedding new light on a challenging and inventive series.

A sense of impending doom surrounded the New Jersey Nets. No matter how well things were going for the perennial underdogs, something would go wrong sooner or later--injuries, bad trades, inner conflicts. But if the Nets were never a stable organization, it made following them as entertaining as it was painful. The team's 2012 move to Brooklyn was supposed to make a clean break with their past. That past was in fact rich and eventful, filled with heroes, often unfairly vilified or underappreciated. Shedding new light on the careers of such figures as Julius Erving, Buck Williams, Sam Bowie, Derrick Coleman, Stephon Marbury, Jason Kidd and Vince Carter, this book celebrates a team of strong-willed individuals whose best efforts always ended in heartbreak.

Following the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona and the success and celebrity of the Dream Team, the NBA became a global sensation. Around the same time, and despite ardent warnings from his parents, Arthur Griffiths purchased an NBA team that would become the expansion Vancouver Grizzlies. Who better to restore the Dream City, he thought, than the NBA? Expansion franchises went to Vancouver and Toronto—the Canadian cities of choice as the NBA grew its international brand. But while Toronto thrived under the rising star of Vince Carter, Vancouver floundered under serial mismanagement. Six seasons wasted, the Grizzlies relocated to Memphis, where they clawed their way to victories both on the court and in the hearts of the city’s eager fanbase. More than two decades later, the Memphis Grizzlies continue to win, claiming NBA records for defeating, as an eight-seed club, the one-seed San Antonio Spurs in the 2011 playoffs (only the fourth franchise to have done so) and for defeating, in 2021, the Oklahoma City Thunder 152–73, the largest margin of victory in NBA history. So why did the NBA fail in Vancouver but thrive in Memphis? This is the question Łukasz Muniowski seeks to answer in The Grizzlies Migrate to Memphis: From Vancouver Failure to Southern Success. In his pursuit, he explores how the Vancouver Grizzlies came to be, the team’s evolution and eventual relocation to Memphis, the success the Grizzlies found there, and the differences between the two phases of this NBA franchise. Rooted strongly in media coverage of the Grizzlies franchise in both Vancouver and Memphis, The Grizzlies Migrate to Memphis offers a thoughtful blend of storytelling and analysis that will interest scholars and NBA enthusiasts alike.