Best Basketball Coaching

When future NBA legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was still an 18-year-old high school basketball prospect from New York City named Lew Alcindor, he accepted a scholarship from UCLA largely on the strength of Coach John Wooden's reputation as a winner. From his first day of practice, when the players were taught the importance of putting on their athletic socks properly, to gradually absorbing the sublime wisdom of Coach Wooden's now famous "Pyramid of Success"; to learning to cope with the ugly racism that confronted black athletes during the turbulent Civil Rights era as well as losing loved ones, Abdul-Jabbar fondly recalls how Coach Wooden's fatherly guidance not only paved the way for his unmatched professional success but also made possible a lifetime of personal fulfillment. He is also one of a handful of influential and respected black men in America who has a national platform as a regular contributing columnist for the Washington Post and TIME , where he shares his thoughts on some of the most socially relevant and politically controversial topics facing our nation today. Currently he serves as the chairman of his Skyhook Foundation whose mission is to "Give Kids a Shot That Can't be Blocked" by bringing educational opportunities to under-served communities through innovative outdoor environmental learning.

• 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. 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. Hoop fans: read this alongside Bob Knight’s recent The Power of Negative Thinking (2013) and then determine which coaching style would motivate you more and improve your life outside of basketball.

June 19, 2016: the greatest moment in Cleveland sports history, when the Cleveland Cavaliers won the NBA Finals and broke the Cleveland Curse. He was witness to the Blueprint, as he calls it, which the Cavs put together to win their star player back from Miami and build a team that could win the ultimate championship. “A very personal account of the return of LeBron James to Cleveland in 2014 and of the Cavaliers' NBA championship in 2016... [Lloyd] tells several interlocking stories: James' decision to leave the team, the four intervening years when the Cavs' front office began plotting to get him back, the arrival of key players (especially Kyrie Irving, Kevin Love, and J.R. Smith)... and, of course, that championship that erased decades of frustration for Cleveland sports fans." Page after page, Lloyd expertly pulls back the curtain on all the private moments that coalesced to give Cleveland something more than a miracle: its first major championship in more than half a century.” —Rachel Nichols, ESPN “In 2011, Jason Lloyd told me LeBron was coming back to Cleveland.

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. Simmons summarizes the history of the league, discusses his personal fandom, includes a great “what if?” chapter (what if Michael Jordan had been drafted second by Portland instead of third by Chicago? The true NBA fan will dive into this hefty volume and won’t resurface for about a week, emerging from the man cave unshaven, smelling of beer and pizza, grinning, and armed with NBA history, insight, anecdotes, statistics, and a dozen new examples of Simmons’ Unintentional Comedy Scale.

Recounts the remarkable story of University of Michigan basketball players Chris Webber, Jalen Rose, Juan Howard, Jimmy King, and Ray Jackson, and chronicles their success in the NCAA tournaments of 1992 and 1993. An award-winning journalist and radio host, Albom wrote the screenplay for The Five People You Meet in Heaven, and is an established playwright, having authored numerous pieces for the theater, including the off-Broadway version of Tuesdays With Morrie (co-written with Jeffrey Hatcher) which has seen more than 40 productions nationwide, and several recent comedies which have been produced and performed in venues across the country. "A Time To Help," founded in 1998, brings volunteers together once a month to tackle various projects in Detroit, including staffing shelters, building homes with Habitat for Humanity, and operating meals on wheels programs for the elderly.