| | |  | Health Care | Home » » » The Book of Basketball: The NBA According to The Sports Guy | | | | | | | Description: | | 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.
| | | Product Details: | | | Author:
| Bill Simmons | | Hardcover:
| 736 pages | | Publisher:
| ESPN | | Publication Date:
| October 27, 2009 | | Language:
| English | | ISBN:
| 034551176X | | Package Length:
| 8.6 inches | | Package Width:
| 6.3 inches | | Package Height:
| 1.9 inches | | Package Weight:
| 2.2 pounds | | Average Customer Rating:
|  based on 164 reviews |
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| | | | Customer Reviews: | |
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 SIMMONS!Jul 08, 2010
Greatest sports book I have ever read. The book follows the same writing style of his columns. Gives detailed info into the best players, teams, rivalries, and what it takes to win in the NBA. Must Read!
Buy this book if youre a basketball fan... especially if youre a Simmons fanJun 30, 2010
great book that tells the game very well. simmons puts his twists on things and gives his hilarious opinions on much of the game, including his hatred for vince carter & wilt. great read.
Must Read for the Basketball FanJun 15, 2010
Bill Simmons is a Basketball fan first, and a basketball writer second. That's how it should be. With that said, he doesn't let his fanhood get in the way of his writing.(too much) Even as a Celtics fan myself, I cant' deny there being a slight Celtics bias. A few guys are a little too high on the list but as are a few Lakers guys. Simmons says himself that he values role players on a championship team better than stars on non playoff teams, which is how it should be, but a few times these types of guys were just a little to high on this list.
The majority of this book is a countdown list of the 96 players who would be in Simmons' version of the basketball hall of fame. These types of books are usually barely readable, but Simmons pulls it off beautifuly. He actually has something interesting to say about all of these players instead of the usual stats with opinions stated as fact. While no two people agree on who the top players are and whos better than who, I never found myself wanting to move a player on his list more than a couple spots which speaks to his quality explanations as much as his quality opinions.
If I have to find something negative, I would say he goes a little to far with the "what if's" but I can't pretend I haven't done the same. Its what fans do.
 Nice But FlawedJun 15, 2010
This is a nice book for bathroom reading I think. I'm not a person who reads like that, so I read it front to over a week or so.
Basically, It's not a complete work. It's a collection of different things, most prominently: A story of the evolution of the game, a case for what makes teams and individuals successful in basketball, then a very long list of the players then teams he considers the greatest in basketball.
I found the earlier parts much more enjoyable than the rankings portions. Also, a pretty prominent annoyance was his EXTENSIVE use of footnotes. Is he trying to write the "Pale Fire" o basketball journalism? I don't know, but for a piece of light reading it's annoying as hell to have 2-5 footnotes on every single page, at least for me. I read a lot of classical literature filled with footnotes and never found them annoying, but in this book there are tons of inane footnotes that I think represent a failed adaptation at the very funny dialogue he so masterfully creates on his podcast.
Overall, it's a decent book. I think maybe for fans of Simmons from his podcast who are not big basketball fans (this is where I'm coming from), wait for the paperback or skip it, and don't feel like you're missing fireworks if you skip over some pretty large portions of it.
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
send all typo mistakes in book to bookofbasketball@aol.comMay 31, 2010
If you read this book in parts or sections it's a lot more enjoyable than reading the whole thing straight through; it's not meant to be a novel but more a large collection of uncut columns.
You either like Bill Simmons' writing style or you don't, this book is pretty much like his columns except more swearing, drug and porn references.
Most footnotes are mostly useful though slightly disjointed. If you want this book to be more flowing you can skip most footnotes. They usually contain a joke, a mini-story or stats but you don't have to read the footnotes to enjoy this book.
Although he is heavily biased towards the Celtics it's usually not to bad except when he talks about the '86 Celtics team or Celtics role players like Havlicek or Cousy.
The hall of fame pyramid idea is pretty good but 96 players is overdoing it, (top 50 would've been much better) and in the stats listed you'll notice some mistakes like, listing 3 people as the 2nd best player on the '78 Bullets team or listing Michael Jordan as having played 16 years and gotton 16 All-star selections instead of the 15 years and 14 All-star selections he actually got.
The major downside to this book is tho countless typos you can find throughout although he does mention most mistakes on the website [...] The mistakes aren't bad enough to ruin the book but they are enough that most people can find some easily.
Bottom line: read both positive and negative reviews plus some of Bill Simmons ESPN columns so you know what you're getting into before buying this book. The book is worth buying overall.
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