Sports Biographies Basketball

Newly revised through the end of the 2022-2023 season, Ja Morant: The Inspiring Story of One of Basketball’s All-Star Point Guards explores the inspirational story of one of basketball's latest star point guards, Ja Morant. Since being selected with the second overall pick of the 2019 NBA Draft, Ja Morant has consistently impressed fans across the league. So much so, that he won the 2020 Rookie of the Year Award. In his rookie season, Ja finished averaging 17.8 points per game, along with 7.3 assists per game.

Shaquille O'Neal discovered his love of basketball while spending time in an afterschool program called the Boys & Girls Club of America. Standing over six feet tall by the time he turned 11 years old, Shaq—as he is affectionately known—continued to practice the game and stunned the country with his phenomenal skills. From leading his high-school team to its first-ever state title to becoming the first pick in the 1992 NBA draft and going on to win four NBA championships, Shaq proved that he could dominate almost any player.

Porter Moser, one of the most inspiring and driven Division I basketball coaches today, offers a practical, motivating guide to help build character, transform failure into success, find purpose, and live an authentic life through energy and positivity. Porter Moser knows what it’s like to live and work with determination, passion, and grit. He also knows what it’s like to keep front and center the core values of faith, family, honesty, and integrity.

What happens when a 6' 9" kid from Lobelville, Tennessee is recruited by legendary basketball coach Bob Knight? Kirk Haston’s life was changed forever with just a two-minute phone call. Containing previously unknown Knight stories, anecdotes, and choice quotes, fans will gain an inside look at the notoriously private man and his no-nonsense coaching style. Which past Hoosier basketball greats returned to talk to and practice with current teams? How did the players feel when Knight was fired? In this touching and humorous audiobook, Haston shares these answers and more.

When all she wanted was to fit in, Tamika Catchings stood out and felt left out, never knowing one day she'd stand out - as a basketball superstar and an inspiration. She faced being set apart by her hearing loss, separated from family, living up to high expectations, and the pain and discouragement of debilitating physical injury. Yet she reached for the stars with hard work, perseverance, and her faith in God. Through the silence, she found the way to shine.

In 2008, the surviving members of the Crenshaw Post 715 American Legion team gathered in Sedona, Arizona, to honor the memory of Billy Consolo. Stories of their fallen teammate opened a door to cherished memories of time spent together in childhood, learning the game of life through the game of baseball. With no adults to supervise them in the playgrounds and sandlots, Carl Paul Maggio and his friends grew to understand the principles of fair play.

From 1971 to his retirement in 2011, Woody Durham was the "Voice of the Tar Heels," the radio play-by-play man for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In this autobiography, Woody takes the reader on a nostalgic stroll down memory lane - from his descriptions of a sleepy Franklin Street in Chapel Hill and the days of football legend Choo Choo Justice to the enormous changes in college sports and how they are covered to his dozens of behind-the-scenes stories about the coaches and players he worked with during his tenure.

After 12 years of playing basketball at the highest professional level, Brian Grant could have been forgiven for thinking that the hardest part of his life was behind him, that he'd be able to kick back and enjoy the fruits of his considerable labors. But soon after his retirement from the NBA, Grant was diagnosed with Young-Onset Parkinson's Disease, ushering in a challenge greater than any he'd faced before. In Rebound, Grant shares his remarkable life before, during, and after those NBA years with no shortage of compassion and wit.

Since the beginning of her career as Lady Vol head coach at twenty-two years old, Pat Head Summitt effectively established the University of Tennessee Lady Vols as the top women's athletics program in the nation. The winningest coach in the history of NCAA basketball, Summitt overcame one obstacle after another on the road to every victory, but it is the lives she has impacted along the way that tell the story of her true legacy.

Come spend a week with legendary Coach John Wooden at his summer basketball camp! Filled with timeless basketball and life wisdom from Coach Wooden, this recollection of those summer days includes stories about campers, coaches, and the Dallas Cowboys who experienced camp alongside Coach, a humble hero who did not disappoint. Author Greg Hayes witnessed the beloved coach mentor, mold, teach, and inspire players and coaches of all ages, leaving a legacy that seeped into the future of all those he encountered.

The experiment was dreamed up by two fathers, one white, one black. What would happen, they wondered, if they mixed white players from an elite Seattle private school and black kids from the inner city on a basketball team? The team's season unfolded like a perfectly scripted sports movie: The ragtag group of boys gelled together to win the league championship. The experiment was deemed a success. But was it?

The basketball rivalry between Duke and North Carolina is the fiercest and longest-running blood feud in college athletics, and perhaps in all of sports. To legions of otherwise reasonable adults, it is a conflict that surpasses athletics; it is rich against poor, locals against outsiders, even good against evil. In North Carolina, where both schools reside, it is a way of aligning oneself with larger philosophic ideals—of choosing teams in life—a tradition of partisanship that reveals the pleasures and even the necessities of hatred.

Got a young basketball fan who’s hungry for some slam-dunk inspiration and fun? You’ve come to the right place! This book is a must-have for young hoop dreamers who want to dive into the world of basketball greatness. It will inspire your child or teen with stories of legendary players, but it’ll also keep them entertained with awesome facts and challenging games—all while promoting mental toughness, resilience, teamwork, and perseverance.

Kevin Durant is one of the NBA's best basketball players, and now is an NBA champion! What many don't know though is how Durant was able to rise to stardom. As a child he grew up in a poor family in a rough neighborhood, where they struggled to get by. Somehow though, he was able to overcome all odds and join the NBA's elite, and finally fulfill his dream of becoming an NBA champion! This book takes you through Kevin Durant's life and career to date. You will learn all about his childhood, his high school and college careers, and of course his time in the NBA.

In Manu Ginobili: The Inspiring Story of One of Basketball's Greatest Sixth Men, you will learn the inspirational story of one of basketball's premier players off the bench, Manu Ginobili. Since joining the NBA as the 57th overall pick in the 1999 NBA Draft, Manu Ginobili has cemented his legacy as one of the most impressive sixth men to ever play the game. A four-time NBA champion, Manu's role in the core of the San Antonio dynasty is indisputable as he played alongside Tim Duncan and Tony Parker in their championship runs in the early 2000s and more recently in 2014.

The unlikeliest of champions, the 1949-50 City College Beavers were extraordinary by every measure. During that remarkable season, this unheralded group of city kids would stun the basketball world by becoming the only team in history to win the NIT and NCAA tournaments in the same year. This team, though, proved to be extraordinary in another way: During the following season, all of the team’s starting five were arrested by New York City detectives. The story centers on Eddie Roman and Floyd Layne, each caught up in the scandal, each searching for a path to personal redemption.

In Candace Parker: The Inspiring Story of One of Basketball’s Greatest Forwards, you'll learn the inspirational story of one of women's basketball's greatest forwards, Candace Parker.

At a time when heroes are too rare, C. Vivian Stringer sets a shining example. She has time and again shown character, fortitude, and heart, both on and off the hardwood, and in the face of unbearable loss. In Standing Tall, she shares her remarkable life story, inspiring us to find this fortitude within ourselves.

The inspiring story of Isaiah Austin, the man who captured our hearts when he was made the honorary NBA draft pick after a shocking diagnosis ended his professional basketball career before he could even step onto the court.

"A walk in the woods never lies," Dirk Dunbar says upfront in Confessions of a Basketball Junkie, and this autobiography by the pro athlete, humanities professor, musician, and sometime mystic demonstrates the point. In easygoing, familiar language that belies the depth of his knowledge, Dunbar here retraces the many paths of his life as a promising NBA star, a finely tuned philosopher, and a devoted friend and family man.