These basketball books will keep your head in the game, on and off court!
Get in the zone with a great collection of non-fiction sports books. From coach and player memoirs to the history of the tournament to heartwarming stories of how basketball changed lives, this collection has everything a basketball fan wants to read.
Here are a few book to read year round, not just during the basketball season.
The Last Shot: City Streets, Basketball Dreams
by Darcy Frey
Darcy Frey chronicles the aspirations of four young men as they navigate the NCAA recruitment process, their only hope of escape from a life of crime, poverty, and despair.
It ought to be just a game, but basketball on the playgrounds of Coney Island is much more than that. In The Last Shot, the aspirations of a few of the neighborhood's most promising players reveal that what they have going for them (athletic talent, grace, and years of dedication) may not be enough to defeat what's working against them: woefully inadequate schooling, family circumstances that are often desperate, and the slick, brutal world of college athletic recruitment.
How Basketball Can Save the World: 13 Guiding Principles for Reimagining What's Possible
by David Hollander
A thought-provoking exploration of how basketball--and the values rooted in the game--can solve today's most pressing issues, from the professor behind the popular New York University course
NBA and WNBA superstars, Hall of Fame players, coaches, and leading cultural figures have all dropped by New York University Professor David Hollander's course "How Basketball Can Save the World" course to debate and give insights on how the underlying principles of the game can provide a new blueprint for addressing our diverse challenges and showing what's possible beyond the court.
Jump: My Secret Journey from the Streets to the Boardroom
by Larry Miller - Laila Lacy
IN THE MARGINS 2023 TOP TITLE FOR NONFICTION
One of the most successful Black businessmen in the country, who has led Nike's Jordan Brand from a $200M sneaker company to a $4B global apparel juggernaut, tells the remarkable story of his rise from gangland violence to the pinnacles of international business.
Jump tells Larry Miller's journey from the violent streets of West Philly in the 1960s to the highest echelons of American sports and industry. Miller wound up in jail more than once, especially as a teenager. But he immersed himself in the educational opportunities, eventually took advantage of a Pennsylvania state education-release program offered to incarcerated people, and was able to graduate with honors from Temple University.
Basketball (and Other Things): A Collection of Questions Asked, Answered, Illustrated
by Shea Serrano
#1 New York Times bestseller
Who is the greatest dunker of all time? Which version of the Michael Jordan was the best Michael Jordan? What is allowed and absolutely not allowed in a game of pickup basketball? Basketball (and Other Things) presents readers with a whole new set of pivotal and ridiculous fan disputes from basketball history, providing arguments and answers, explained with the wit and wisdom that is unique to Shea Serrano.
Dust Bowl Girls: The Inspiring Story of the Team That Barnstormed Its Way to Basketball Glory
by Lydia Reeder
"A thrilling, cinematic story. I loved every minute I spent with these bold, daring women whose remarkable journey is the stuff of American legend." --Karen Abbott, New York Times bestselling author of Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy
The Boys in the Boat meets A League of Their Own in this true story of a Depression-era championship women's team.
In the early 1930s, during the worst drought and financial depression in American history, Sam Babb began to dream. Like so many others, this charismatic Midwestern basketball coach wanted a reason to have hope. Traveling from farm to farm near the tiny Oklahoma college where he coached, Babb recruited talented, hardworking young women and offered them a chance at a better life: a free college education in exchange for playing on his basketball team, the Cardinals.
Boys of Dunbar: A Story of Love, Hope, and Basketball
by Alejandro Danois
The inspiring true story of a remarkable coach whose superb undefeated high-school basketball team in 1980s Baltimore produced four NBA players and gave hope to a desperate neighborhood and city.
As the crack epidemic swept across inner-city America in the early 1980s, the streets of Baltimore were crime ridden. For poor kids from the housing projects, the future looked bleak. But basketball could provide the quickest ticket out, an opportunity to earn a college scholarship and perhaps even play in the NBA.
Dunbar High School had one of the most successful basketball programs in the country; in the early 1980s, the Dunbar Poets were arguably the best high school team of all time. Four starting players--Muggsy Bogues, Reggie Williams, David Wingate, and Reggie Lewis--would eventually play in the NBA, an unheard-of success rate.
March 1939: Before the Madness--The Story of the First NCAA Basketball Tournament Champions
by Terry Frei
In 1939, the Oregon Webfoots, coached by the visionary Howard Hobson, stormed through the first NCAA basketball tournament, which was viewed as a risky coast-to-coast undertaking and perhaps only a one-year experiment. Seventy-five years later, following the tournament's evolution into a national obsession, the first champions are still celebrated as "The Tall Firs." They indeed had astounding height along the front line, but with a pair of racehorse guards who had grown up across the street from each other in a historic Oregon fishing town, they also played a revolutionarily fast-paced game. Author Terry Frei's track record as a narrative historian in such books as the acclaimed Horns, Hogs, and Nixon Coming, plus a personal connection as an Oregon native whose father coached football at the University of Oregon for seventeen seasons, makes him uniquely qualified to tell this story of the first tournament and the first champions, in the context of their times.
When the Game Was Ours
by Larry Bird - Earvin Johnson - Jackie Macmullan
The New York Times bestseller from Hall of Fame basketball legends Larry Bird and Earvin Magic Johnson.
From the moment these two players took the court on opposing sides, they engaged in a fierce physical and psychological battle. Their uncommonly competitive relationship came to symbolize the most compelling rivalry in the NBA. In Celtic green was Larry Bird, the hick from French Lick, with laser-beam focus, relentless determination, and a deadly jump shot, a player who demanded excellence from everyone and whose caustic wit left opponents quaking in their high-tops. Magic Johnson was Mr. Showtime, a magnetic personality with all the right moves. Young, indomitable, he was a pied piper in purple and gold. And he burned with an inextinguishable desire to win.
The Mamba Mentality: How I Play
by Kobe Bryant
The Mamba Mentality: How I Play is Kobe Bryant's personal perspective of his life and career on the basketball court and his exceptional, insightful style of playing the game--a fitting legacy from the late Los Angeles Laker superstar.
In the wake of his retirement from professional basketball, Kobe "The Black Mamba" Bryant decided to share his vast knowledge and understanding of the game to take readers on an unprecedented journey to the core of the legendary "Mamba mentality." Citing an obligation and an opportunity to teach young players, hardcore fans, and devoted students of the game how to play it "the right way," The Mamba Mentality takes us inside the mind of one of the most intelligent, analytical, and creative basketball players ever.
Making March Madness: The Early Years of the Ncaa, Nit, and College Basketball Championships, 1922-1951
by Chad Carlson
Throughout the NCAA Tournament's history, underdogs, Cinderella stories, and upsets have captured the attention and imagination of fans. Making March Madness is the story of this premiere tournament, from its early days in Kansas City, to its move to Madison Square Garden, to its surviving a point-shaving scandal in New York and taking its games to different sites across the country.Chad Carlson's analysis places college basketball in historical context and connects it to larger issues in sport and American society, providing fresh insights on a host of topics that readers will find interesting, illuminating, and thought provoking.
Life Is Not an Accident: A Memoir of Reinvention
by Jay Williams
Ten years ago Williams was at the beginning of a brilliant professional basketball career, the Chicago Bulls' top draft pick. Then he ran his motorcycle head-on into a light pole, severely damaging himself and ending his career. In this intense, hard-hitting, and deeply profound memoir Williams talks about the accident that transformed him from a kid who had it all, thought he was invincible, and lost everything ... only to gain new wisdom.
Hoops: A Cultural History of Basketball in America
by Thomas Aiello
From its 19th-century roots to its position today as a global symbol of American culture, basketball has been a force in American society. This book presents the first cultural history of the sport from the street to the highest levels of professional mens and womens competition, chronicling the relationship between the sport and American society.
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