For fans of basketball literature, these are heady times. We seem to be in the midst of a boon in quality basketball writing, whether it be the abstract musings of FreeDarko presents The Macrophenomenal Pro Basketball Almanac: Styles, Stats, and Stars in Today’s Game
, the insider view of Can I Keep My Jersey?: 11 Teams, 5 Countries, and 4 Years in My Life as a Basketball Vagabond
or a classic reissued in The Breaks of the Game. Well feel free to add Sports Illustrated’s Chris Ballard’s The Art of a Beautiful Game to the cannon of great hoops reads to hit the streets the past few years.
The subtitle of the book, “The Thinking Fan’s Tour of the NBA”, sums up the journey Ballard took to write this book. He interviewed over 150 NBA players, not to mention coaches, trainers and executives. But the key is that he didn’t ask the normal boring questions these players get asked on the regular. Instead he engaged the players/coaches/executives in a conversation on their craft. He asked why and how they did certain things on the court, and in the process takes the reader on a insiders tour of the NBA. Whether it is the art of shooting (via Ballard’s shooting contest versus Steve Kerr), the art of the “superbig” (Shaq & Yao) or the anatomy of LeBron, this book will make you think differently and deeper about any basketball game you watch in the future. But the beautiful thing about the book is Ballard’s writing style is accessible enough and the book fascinating enough that it won’t insult the intelligence of basketball zealots nor will it be too technical for the casual hoops fan.
Perhaps the most telling sign that this is a fabulous book is that the chapter I found most interesting and entertaining involved Shane Battier. Now if a book can make Battier more interesting than LeBron or Kobe or Steve Nash then it is truly a masterpiece. If you have a basketball fan on your holiday shopping list then you can’t go wrong with The Art of a Beautiful Game. It truly is a beautiful book on a beautiful game.
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