Best Professional Basketball

More than a Game is the odyssey of Jackson's journey—from New York Knick and world champion, to CBA coach, to six-time Chicago Bulls world champion, to this year's L.A. Lakers world champion—and the lessons in leadership he learned each step of the way. Even though Jackson is the star here, he gives little attention to his years with the Bulls (covered in his earlier book Sacred Hoops). It seems a somewhat perfunctory treatment of a surprising season, until the book's true (and higher) purpose slowly becomes clear: it is a magnificent tribute to Tex Winter's triangle offense, the perfect scheme. Maverick (1975), also written with Rosen (Scandals of '51), covered his offbeat life as a player with the two-time champion New York Knicks, while Sacred Hoops (1999) focused on how he used his Triangle offense and personal "Zen Christian" beliefs in coaching the Chicago Bulls to six NBA championships during the 1990s. The primary voice is Jackson's, however, and the major interest to most readers will be his behind-the-scenes account of the Lakers' successful season and the tenuous teaming of stars Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant.

In The Rivalry , award-winning journalist John Taylor projects the stories of Russell, Chamberlain, and other stars from the NBA’s golden age onto a backdrop of racial tensions and cultural change. Competing with and against such heroes as Jerry West, Tom Heinsohn, Bob Cousy, John Havlicek, and Elgin Baylor, and playing for the two greatest coaches of the era, Alex Hannum and the fiery Red Auerbach, Chamberlain and Russell propelled the NBA into the spotlight. Filled with dramatic conflicts and some of the great moments in sports history, and building to a thrilling climax–the 1969 final series, the last showdown between Russell and Chamberlain–The Rivalry has at its core a philosophical question: Can determination and a team ethos, embodied by the ultimate team player, Bill Russell, trump sheer talent, embodied by Wilt Chamberlain? Taylor ( The Count and the Confession ) offers a vivid account of the fledgling days of the National Basketball Association and the intense competition between two of its biggest early stars: Bill Russell (of the Boston Celtics) and Wilt Chamberlain (of the Philadelphia 76ers). The quiet, reflective Russell turned a serendipitous showing in front of a scout into a legendary career largely through willpower and hard work, while the outgoing Chamberlain was a much more naturally gifted athlete whose skills drew attention and offers while he was barely a teenager. Along with examining the physical and psychological battles between the two, Taylor depicts the NBA's raucous nature in the 1950s and '60s, when fights between players were frequent, and the brash Celtics coach Red Auerbach was routinely pelted with rotten tomatoes, lit cigars and eggs.

Though he addresses weighty issues with a light touch and prefers to stir people to think by making them laugh, there’s nothing Charles Barkley shies away from here—not race, not class, not big money, not scandal, not politics, not personalities, nothing. And that makes him as radically different in these modern celebrity times as a 6-foot-4-inch power forward.”. If there’s one thing Charles Barkley knows, it’s the crying need for honest, open discussion in this country—the more uncomfortable the subject, the more necessary the dialogue. NBA star Barkley-still only the second basketball player in history, along with Wilt Chamberlain, to total more than 23,000 points, 12,000 rebounds and 4,000 assists-has refused to go quietly into the mists of sports legends. This sports memoir-Barkley's first-is a highly entertaining and remarkably thoughtful work that successfully continues his ongoing repositioning from on-court wild man to provocative analyst. Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. Barkley was named one of the top 50 players in NBA history and, since recently retiring, has served as a popular studio analyst for TNT's basketball coverage. For example, on the subject of the "keepin' it real" attitude of athletes who have struck it rich but continue self-consciously to keep the trappings of poverty, Barkely feels that nothing could be phonier or more self-destructive.

In his more than twenty years coaching the Blue Devils, Coach Mike Krzyzewski has made his program the most admired in the nation, with back-to-back national championships in '91, '92, and again in 2001, and ten Final Four appearances since 1986. Thus, in Leading with the Heart , Krzyzewski reviews the lessons he's learned as basketball coach at Duke University, and tries to universalize them so they translate to any leadership position. Between the quotes and the bullet points are anecdotes about Duke basketball games and (occasionally) Krzyzewski's life outside basketball. What you come away with is an understanding of why Krzyzewski is a great basketball coach, why former Duke assistants such as Tommy Amaker and Quin Snyder are probably going to become great basketball coaches, and how anyone who's currently a coach can become a better coach. Duke basketball coach Krzyzewski, today's most successful NCAA coach, reviews significant games and key events in his career in addition to offering advice to coaches, players and everyone trying to do better in life. Although he occasionally refers to a coach as a "leader," for the most part he leaves it up to readers to connect the dots between his coaching strategies and useful business strategies.