FreeDarko Presents: The Macrophenomenal Pro Basketball Almanac PDF Download

Author: Bethlehem Shoals
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
ISBN: 9781596915619
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Unlike regimented football or stats-happy baseball, The National Basketball Association is above all else a league of characters. Over the course of a season, games are, of course, won or lost, but for millions of devoted fans, the final result is almost incidental to the way the league's best players perform on - and off - the court. This book is the indispensible companion to today's game - a roundball Rosetta Stone that hilariously decodes the trends and tendencies of this enormously popular game. The NBA of the moment is a league of hugely charismatic celebrities, crackling aesthetic intrigue, socio-political undercurrents, and raw humanity: every Kobe Bryant pump-fake or LeBron James dunk symbolizes the changing landscape of professional sports and holds within it a Shaq-sized load of meaning. Fans who know the sport recognize how much more there is to basketball than, well, basketball. The Macro-Phenomenal Pro Basketball Almanac is a brilliantly illustrated guide to this tumultuous and exciting landscape. It explains what each player--from Tim Duncan and Gilbert Arenas to Amare Stoudemire and Lamar Odom--reveals, through their play and conduct, about who they are and, more importantly, who the fans want them to be. Like the game it celebrates, The Macro-Phenomenal Pro Basketball Almanac is simultaneously authentic and cerebral, funny and accessible, wholly original, and always entertaining.

Author: Bethlehem Shoals
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
ISBN: 9781608190836
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
The history of basketball has always belonged to champions like the Celtics, the Lakers, and the Bulls. Yet the game's history cuts much deeper than that. The bottom line, the record books and retired jerseys, can never fully do justice to this wild, chaotic, and energetic game. In between the championships, there's the sight of Earl Monroe, spinning and cajoling his way to every corner of the court; or Allen Iverson, driving headlong into players twice his size. The real history of the game is not its championships, which are indisputable, but the personalities of its heroes, which are, at least, undisputed. It's in the larger-than-life pathos of Wilt, the secret ties that bind Larry Bird to the flashy ABA, and Michael Jordan when he flew a little too high. From the prehistoric teachings of Dr. James Naismith to pioneering superstars such as LeBron James and Kevin Durant, you'll never see roundball the same way again.

Author: Chuck Klosterman
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1416580654
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 301

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Book Description
Now a major film! New York Times bestselling author and “one of America’s top cultural critics” (Entertainment Weekly) Chuck Klosterman’s debut novel brilliantly captures the charm and dread of small-town life. Somewhere in rural North Dakota, there is a fictional town called Owl. They don’t have cable. They don’t really have pop culture, but they do have grain prices and alcoholism. People work hard and then they die. But that’s not nearly as awful as it sounds; in fact, sometimes it’s perfect. Mitch Hrlicka lives in Owl. He plays high school football and worries about his weirdness, or lack thereof. Julia Rabia just moved to Owl. A history teacher, she gets free booze and falls in love with a self-loathing bison farmer. Widower and local conversationalist Horace Jones has resided in Owl for seventy-three years. They all know each other completely, except that they’ve never met. But when a deadly blizzard—based on an actual storm that occurred in 1984—hits the area, their lives are derailed in unexpected and powerful ways. An unpretentious, darkly comedic story of how it feels to exist in a community where local mythology and violent reality are pretty much the same thing, Downtown Owl is “a satisfying character study and strikes a perfect balance between the funny and the profound” (Publishers Weekly).

Author: Rafe Bartholomew
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101187913
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 324

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Book Description
A young man's journey through the Philippines' most unlikely obsession: basketball. In Pacific Rims, Rafe Bartholemew, journalist, New Yorker, and veteran baller, ventures through the Philippines to investigate the country's love of basketball. From street corners where diehards fashion hoops out of old car parts to the professional league where politicians exploit team loyalties to win elections, Pacific Rims gets the story-and gets in the game.

Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 128

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Book Description
From the concert stage to the dressing room, from the recording studio to the digital realm, SPIN surveys the modern musical landscape and the culture around it with authoritative reporting, provocative interviews, and a discerning critical ear. With dynamic photography, bold graphic design, and informed irreverence, the pages of SPIN pulsate with the energy of today's most innovative sounds. Whether covering what's new or what's next, SPIN is your monthly VIP pass to all that rocks.

Author: Darcy Frey
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 9780618446711
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 244

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Book Description
It ought to be just a game, but basketball on the playgrounds of Coney Island is much more than that -- for many young men it represents their only hope of escape from a life of crime, poverty, and despair. In The Last Shot, Darcy Frey chronicles the aspirations of four of the neighborhood's most promising players. What they have going for them is athletic talent, grace, and years of dedication. But working against them are woefully inadequate schooling, family circumstances that are often desperate, and the slick, brutal world of college athletic recruitment. Incisively and compassionately written, The Last Shot introduces us to unforgettable characters and takes us into their world with an intimacy seldom seen in contemporary journalism. The result is a startling and poignant expose of inner-city life and the big business of college basketball.

Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Basketball
Languages : en
Pages : 223

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Book Description
"This inimitable collective returns with a bigger scope, deeper research, and renewed passion as [FreeDarko] takes on the whole of pro basketball history. Here we'll see the full evolution of the league: from the Celtics of Red Auerbach (compared by FreeDarko to the filmmaker John Cassavetes) clear through to the years of Frazier, Jordan, Iverson, and LeBron and Kobe. Of course, it's more than simply a history. In these pages we'll also see a taxonomy of every fight in NBA history, the relationship between Wilt Chamberlain's scoring and the atom bomb, and a feature known as the Mustache Index."--Amazon.com.

Author: Jan Chipchase
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781939727060
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Author: Jeff Pearlman
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0698148614
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 563

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Book Description
The New York Times bestselling author of Sweetness delivers the first all-encompassing account of the 1980s Los Angeles Lakers, one of professional sports’ most-revered—and dominant—dynasties. The Los Angeles Lakers of the 1980s personified the flamboyance and excess of the decade over which they reigned. Beginning with the arrival of Earvin “Magic” Johnson as the number-one overall pick of the 1979 draft, the Lakers played basketball with gusto and pizzazz, unleashing their famed “Showtime” run-and-gun style on a league unprepared for their speed and ferocity—and became the most captivating show in sports and, arguably, in all-around American entertainment. The Lakers’ roster overflowed with exciting all-star-caliber players, including center Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and they were led by the incomparable Pat Riley, known for his slicked-back hair, his Armani suits, and his arrogant strut. Hollywood’s biggest celebrities lined the court and gorgeous women flocked to the arena. Best of all, the team was a winner. Between 1980 and 1991, the Lakers played in an unmatched nine NBA championship series, capturing five of them. Bestselling sportswriter Jeff Pearlman draws from almost three hundred interviews to take the first full measure of the Lakers’ epic Showtime era. A dazzling account of one of America’s greatest sports sagas, Showtime is packed with indelible characters, vicious rivalries, and jaw-dropping, behind-the-scenes stories of the players’ decadent Hollywood lifestyles. From the Showtime era’s remarkable rise to its tragic end—marked by Magic Johnson’s 1991 announcement that he had contracted HIV—Showtime is a gripping narrative of sports, celebrity, and 1980s-style excess.

Author: Kathleen Yep
Publisher: Temple University Press
ISBN: 1592139434
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 217

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Book Description
This fascinating book reveals that Chinese Americans began “shooting hoops” nearly a century before Chinese superstar Yao Ming turned pro. Drawing on interviews with players and coaches, Outside the Paint takes readers back to San Francisco in the 1930s and 1940s, when young Chinese American men and women developed a new approach to the game—with fast breaks, intricate passing and aggressive defense—that was ahead of its time. Every chapter tells a surprising story: the Chinese Playground, the only public outdoor space in Chinatown; the Hong Wah Kues, a professional barnstorming men’s basketball team; the Mei Wahs, a championship women’s amateur team; Woo Wong, the first Chinese athlete to play in Madison Square Garden; and the extraordinarily talented Helen Wong, whom Kathleen Yep compares to Babe Didrikson. Outside the Paint chronicles the efforts of these highly accomplished athletes who developed a unique playing style that capitalized on their physical attributes, challenged the prevailing racial hierarchy, and enabled them, for a time, to leave the confines of their segregated world. They learned to dribble, shoot, and steal.