The Duke University men's basketball team has served as the gold standard in college athletics for well over two decades - and that's all because of the extraordinary impact of Mike Krzyzewski, the highly-respected coach of the Duke squad.Coach K's reputation as a teacher of young men has transcended his extraordinary success as a coach. The Duke team is always ranked at the top of the college game, year in and year out, but what's truly remarkable about Coach K are his players and the legacy they leave behind: Grant Hill, Shane Battier, Elton Brand, Bobby Hurley, and on and on -- these are not just great basketball players, but individuals who have become true leaders in American society, all thanks in large part to Coach K's leadership.So how does Coach K do it? In this new book, he reveals his tips, advice, and time-tested guidance on how he coaches and educates his players about life beyond the basketball court.
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For the countless basketball fans who were spellbound by the Los Angeles Lakers’ 2003–2004 high-wire act, this book is a rare and phenomenal treat. In The Last Season, Lakers coach Phil Jackson draws on his trademark honesty and insight to tell the whole story of the season that proved to be the final ride of a truly great dynasty. From the signing of future Hall-of-Famers Karl Malone and Gary Payton to the Kobe Bryant rape case/media circus, this is a riveting tale of clashing egos, public feuds, contract disputes, and team meltdowns that only a coach, and a writer, of Jackson’s candor, experience, and ability could tell. Full of tremendous human drama and offering lessons on coaching and on life, this is a book that no sports fan can possibly pass up.
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Not only is Pat Riley one of pro basketball's winningest coaches, but his speeches before hundreds of corporations, from ARCO to AT&T to Toyota, have earned him the title of "America's Greatest Motivational Speaker." The Winner Within is his formula for success. It is a book about winning, leadership, mastery, change, and personal growth, based on understanding and controlling the shifting dynamics of a team - any team, whether it is a small company or a giant corporation, a family, a city, or a group of athletes. How does a struggling team form a covenant to work together instead of separately? How does a successful team battle complacency? How does any team overcome the thunderbolts that strike out of the blue? Drawing upon the great teachers and his own experiences in and out of sports, interweaving them with dozens of parallels and stories from business and society, Riley shows how to ride the cycles of team change, balance role players and stars, build solid foundations, break through self-imposed barriers, create change within continuity, and nurture cooperation within competition. "All of my contacts and experiences have proved to me, over and over again, that the complex inner rhythms of teamwork - flows of ambition, power, cooperation, and emotion - are the keys to making dreams come true, " says Riley, and in The Winner Within, he provides the tools, insights, and plan of action to help master those rhythms. It is a book of universal power and scope - a new classic of the literature.
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In 1977, Rudy Tomjanovich and Kermit Washington became entwined in a single punch that would change not only their lives, but how professional basketball is played today. Because the punch dislodged Tomjanovich's skull and nearly destroyed both men's careers, the scuffle never settled as a dusty bit of NBA trivia. Instead, it nearly superseded both men's notable achievements. The history of that punch (it could not, by any standards, be considered a fight) and the fate of the two men are the subjects of John Feinstein's The Punch. In the early days of the NBA, teams had their stars and their "enforcers." Enforcers such as Washington protected star players on the court with their willingness to mix it up. With concise prose, Feinstein reports on this era, following strings of trades, drafts, and personal relationships to their nexus. Those who do not think about basketball on a statistical level may occasionally find themselves lost, but Feinstein, ever conscious of his subject, ties the tangents neatly to the core of the scuffle that led to the infamous punch. Thorough and thoughtful, Feinstein does not make any excuses, nor does he vilify. He simply traces the web of both men's lives back to their adolescent years when it was not about the NBA, nor the punch, but about the game. Anyone who has ever wondered about these two men, or the history of the NBA, will want to read this book. --Karin Rosman
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As one of the greatest, most celebrated athletes in history, Michael Jordan conquered professional basketball as no one had before. Powered by a potent mix of charisma, nearly superhuman abilities, and a ferocious need to dominate the game, he won six NBA championships with the Chicago Bulls and captured every basketball award and accolade conceivable before retiring and taking a top executive post with the Washington Wizards. But retirement didn't suit the man who was once king, and at the advanced age of thirty-eight Michael Jordan set out to reclaim the court that had been his dominion. When Nothing Else Matters is the definitive account of Jordan's equally spectacular and disastrous return to basketball. Washington Post writer Michael Leahy reveals the striking contrast between the public Jordan and the man whose personal style alienated teammates and the Washington owner who ousted him.
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If the great Chinese philosopher, Confucius, were alive today what life changing advice on the art of leadership and living a life of significance would he share with all of us and his great Chinese descendant, Jeremy Lin? In this life changing e-pamphlet (which should take you less than 17 minutes to read) you will learn what basketball and life wisdom Confucius would share with Jeremy and the rest of us if he suddenly woke up from his grave and spoke.
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Boston's basement-dwelling days are over. With the Celtics capturing the 2007-08 NBA championship, the franchises 17th, the lengthy title drought of a proud franchise has ended in dramatic fashion. All the postseason heroics and regular-season highlights are captured within this 128-page, full-color tribute to the team, with feature articles and photography from the Boston Herald. From the flurry of preseason trades that brought the team 2004 MVP Kevin Garnett and perennial All-Star Ray Allen, to the redemption of Bostons beloved guard Paul Pierce, this collectible book explores the memorable themes and colorful personalities that made this season one for the ages.
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Magazine - 2009/10 Beckett Basketball Price Guide #17 Kobe Bryant on Cover
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One of the finest nonfiction writers in any lineup, Halberstam likes to alternate what he's deemed his serious work--books like The Best and the Brightest, The Fifties, and The Children--with his sporting interludes, though in his hands, sports are much, much more than fun and games. Books like The Breaks of the Game and October 1964 use sports as a prism. Culture, race, society, and history are all filtered through it, and Halberstam refocuses--and interprets--what comes out the other side. That he would now turn his considerable abilities to exploring Michael Jordan is not surprising. Halberstam loves hoops, and Jordan not only defines the game, he defines an era. His fame crosses international borders as easily as he dribbles past half-court lines. In focusing on Jordan--as athlete and force of nature--and his osmosis from a young hoop dreamer to product pitchman to the world, Halberstam is really examining intangibles like myth and legend, celebrity and fame, wealth and image, excellence and genius, race and style, the qualities of heroism and the pursuit of perfection. "That there had been even one Michael Jordan seemed in retrospect something of a genetic fluke," he writes, "and the idea that anyone would arrive in so short a span of time and do what he did both on and off the court seemed highly unlikely." But the phenomenon that is Jordan did just that. Understanding, even admiring, what he did, how he did it, and what it means in a basketball context and a larger one is Halberstam's goal, and, despite Jordan's lack of cooperation--or maybe because of it--Halberstam's muscular prose and thinking scores powerfully. Yet, there is a wistfulness, in the end, to Playing for Keeps; the game doesn't seem as much fun and collegial as it used to for Halberstam, and Jordan, great as he may be, emerges with less of the historic grace exhibited by Jackie Robinson, Ali, and Arthur Ashe than with a quality that Halberstam deems the athlete-explorer "in terms of going beyond previously accepted limits of what was humanly possible, and somehow by dint of physical excellence and unmatched willpower, pushing those limits forward that much more." Dazzling, certainly, but not necessarily heroic. Playing for Keeps is also available on audiocassette. --Jeff Silverman
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Bill Russell was not the first African American to play professional basketball, but he was its first black superstar. From the moment he stepped onto the court of the Boston Garden in 1956, Russell began to transform the sport in a fundamental way, making him, more than any of his contemporaries, the Jackie Robinson of basketball. In King of the Court, Aram Goudsouzian provides a vivid and engrossing chronicle of the life and career of this brilliant champion and courageous racial pioneer. Russell's leaping, wide-ranging defense altered the game's texture. His teams provided models of racial integration in the 1950s and 1960s, and, in 1966, he became the first black coach of any major professional team sport. Yet, like no athlete before him, Russell challenged the politics of sport. Instead of displaying appreciative deference, he decried racist institutions, embraced his African roots, and challenged the nonviolent tenets of the civil rights movement. This beautifully written book--sophisticated, nuanced, and insightful--reveals a singular individual who expressed the dreams of Martin Luther King Jr. while echoing the warnings of Malcolm X.
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