Sports Basketball

When Lily and Alex entered a packed gymnasium in Queens, New York, in 1972, they barely recognized their son. The boy who escaped to America with them, who was bullied as he struggled to learn English and cope with family tragedy, was now a young man who had discovered and secretly honed his basketball talent on the outdoor courts of New York City. That young man was Ernie Grunfeld, who would go on to win an Olympic gold medal and reach previously unimaginable heights as an NBA player and executive.

One. Two. Three. That’s as long as it took to sear the souls of a dozen young American men, thanks to the craziest, most controversial finish in the history of the Olympics - the 1972 gold-medal basketball contest between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the world’s two superpowers at the time. The U.S. team believed it had won the gold medal that September in Munich - not once, but twice. The American players became the only Olympic athletes in the history of the games to refuse their medals.

Unlike the stories of most visible division I college athletes, Amanda Ottaway’s story has more in common with those of the 80 percent of college athletes who are never seen on TV. The Rebounders follows the college career of an average NCAA Division I women’s basketball player in the 21st century. It begins with the recruiting process when Ottaway is an eager, naive teenager and ending when she’s a more contemplative 20-something alumna.

In Game Face, King finally opens up about his life on and off the court. In his book, King's basketball IQ is on full display as he breaks down defenses using his own unique system for taking shots from predetermined spots on the floor. King talks about matching up against some of the all-time NBA greats, from Michael Jordan, Julius Erving, and Charles Barkley to Larry Bird, Patrick Ewing, and many others.

Discover the definitive inside account of how the Warriors, under the leadership of venture capitalist Joe Lacob and Hollywood producer Peter Guber, quickly became one of the most remarkable success stories ever, both in sports and business. In just five years, they turned a declining franchise with no immediate hope into one of the greatest teams in basketball, a period that included the rise of All-Star point guard Stephen Curry and two NBA championships in the past three years.

In the wartime fall of 1943, at the little-known North Carolina College for Negroes, Coach John McLendon was on the verge of changing the game forever. Within six months his Eagles would become the highest-scoring college basketball team in America, a fast-breaking, hard-pressing juggernaut that would shatter its opponents by as many as 60 points per game. The last student of James Naismith, basketball's inventor, McLendon had opened the door to its future.

A Nigerian native who emigrated to the United States at age 11, Alex Owumi's exploits on the basketball court earned him a college scholarship to Georgetown University. Undrafted by the NBA, Owumi pursued his basketball dream overseas, eventually signing with Al-Nasr of Libya, a state-run athletic club privately funded by the family of Libyan president Muammar Qaddafi.

Carson Cunningham was a top college basketball player for Oregon State and Purdue and a native of Hoosierland Indiana who believed he could one day play in the NBA, but instead wound up in the minor leagues of professional basketball- the storied and now defunct CBA. It’s a league that has turned out a record-setting number of NBA players and coaches, such as Phil Jackson and George Karl, but it wasn’t glamorous

Lloyd Daniels learned to hoop on the playgrounds of Brooklyn and Queens during the 1980s. "Swee'pea" they called him. His rep on the court traveled all the way to the Bronx and across the country, earning him enthusiastic comparisons to the likes of Magic Johnson. Swee'pea was sure to make it to the big time and out of a New York City where drugs and violence had gripped many of its neighborhoods. Eventually he did, leaving the city's asphalt courts for the shiny hardwoods of NCAA programs.

Eagle Blue follows the Fort Yukon Eagles, winners of six regional championships in a row, through the course of an entire 28-game season, from their first day of practice in late November to the Alaska State Championship Tournament in March. With insight, frankness, and compassion, Michael D’Orso climbs into the lives of these 14 boys, their families, and their coach, shadowing them through an Arctic winter of 50-below-zero temperatures and near-round-the-clock darkness as the Eagles crisscross Alaska in pursuit of their - and their village’s - dream.

Spanning the course of 39 frantic days, Josh Swade embarked on a fanatical journey that would take him across the country. His nearly religious obsession brought him face-to-face with NBA players Paul Pierce and Steve Nash, NBA greats Jerry West and Larry Brown, and many others who knew the importance of this relic. With multiple hurdles ahead of him, will Josh be able to find the money and support to purchase the rules before it's too late?

In Sweet Shot, Dr. Vernon Wendt reveals the secret behind the motivation of one of basketball’s greatest long-range shooter of all time. Discover with Sugar a greater purpose for your gifts than personal glory. Sweet Shot will inspire you to chase after your dreams, revisit past, or discarded dreams, and dream even more dreams - to dare to be great like Sugar, and keep on shooting until you realize the sweet shot of discovering God's purpose for your dreams.

Welcome to Fannie Lou Hamer Freedom High School, in a working-class corner of the Bronx, where a driven coach inspires his teams to win games and championships - and learn Russian history and graduate and go on to college.

Pro basketball player Rasheed Wallace often exclaimed the pragmatic truth "Ball don't lie!" during a game. It is a protest against a referee's bad calls. But the slogan, which originated in pickup games, brings the reality of a racialized urban playground into mainstream American popular culture.

The Magical Season 1971-72 Los Angeles Lakers: And the Greatest Record in Pro Sports History profiles the Los Angeles Lakers’ first championship since moving to LA 15 years earlier, but also covers their record-setting 33-game winning streak that season. This record of 33 straight wins, covering over two months of play, still stands unbroken even after 50 years. This accomplishment is widely acknowledged as one of the greatest team records in pro sports history. No other team in any major pro sport has even come close to breaking that record since that achievement in 1972.

On the street, every ballplayer has a story. Onaje X. O. Woodbine, a former streetball player who became an all-star Ivy Leaguer, brings the sights and sounds, hopes and dreams of street basketball to life. He shows that big games have a trickster figure and a master of Black talk whose commentary interprets the game for audiences. The beats of hip-hop and reggae make up the soundtrack, and the ballplayers are half men, half heroes, defying the ghetto's limitations with their flights to the basket.

Twenty years before women’s soccer became an Olympic sport and two decades before the formation of the WNBA, the ’76 US women’s basketball team laid the foundation for the incredible rise of women’s sports in America at the youth, collegiate, Olympic, and professional levels.

Among many legendary episodes from the life and career of men's basketball coach Dean Smith, few loom as large as his recruitment of Charlie Scott, the first African American scholarship athlete at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Drawn together by college basketball in a time of momentous change, Smith and Scott helped transform a university, a community, and the racial landscape of sports in the South.

Ann Meyers Drysdale is one of the greatest stars in the history of basketball. But her rise wasn't without controversy. Her 1979 NBA bid to play with the Indiana Pacers brought a barrage of criticism. But Ann simply wanted to play among the best. She had always competed with the guys. A female first in many categories, Ann Meyers Drysdale was the first woman ever signed to a four-year athletic scholarship to UCLA, where she remains the only four-time Bruin basketball All American, male or female.

Mit einem verschmitzten Lächeln sagt er: "Was sich seit dem WM-Titel für mich geändert hat? - die Menschen in Deutschland wissen jetzt, dass Herbert nicht mein Vor- sondern mein Nachname ist." Gordon Herbert, der Architekt hinter der erfolgreichsten Ära des deutschen Basketballs und dem ersten Triumph bei einer Weltmeisterschaft, teilt in diesem Buch sein Erfolgsrezept.