Full Description
In an age where teenage hoop stars sign multimillion-dollar endorsement deals before their first professional tip-offs, it's hard to imagine a time when basketball was among the least publicized of all professional sports. After the game's creation in 1891, establishing a viable professional league was an intense struggle, requiring decades of hard work and dedication from players, owners, coaches and fans. While the game evolved from two-handed set shots, fruit baskets, short-shorts and tiny gyms to slam dunks, shoe endorsements, global popularity and massive urban arenas, the NBA established itself as one of the world's dominant professional leagues.
This work, the first comprehensive history of the National Basketball Association, offers a detailed look at how and why the NBA was able to overcome the obstacles that had crushed its predecessors and competitors to become the most successfully marketed league in professional sports. Covered here are Naismith's invention of the game; the rise and fall of the NBL, BAA, ABL and ABA; early teams like the Buffalo Germans and the Harlem Rens; basketball's Olympic debut in 1936; the first professional superstars; dominant franchises; and the current state of the league. Appendices offer lists of early professional basketball leagues and commissioners of the NBA, NBL and ABA.
Contents
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Foreword by Jim Barnett
Preface
Introduction
1. Peach Fuzz
2. Play Ball
3. To Pay or Not to Pay
4. Color Lines
5. Around the Bend
6. Double Trouble
7. One for the Money
8. Tick Tock
9. Dynasty by Committee
10. Starlight, Star Bright
11. Tremors
12. The Real Deal
13. Survival of the Fittest
14. A Matter of Style
15. Last Hurrah
16. A Fighting Chance
17. Saviors
18. Glory Days
19. The Greatest Show on Earth
20. The Good, the Bad, and the Global
21. Intermission
22. The Greatest Show on Earth, II
23. Promised Land
24. The Dark Age
25. Staying Alive
26. The Money Tree
27. The Air Apparents
28. The Young and the Restless
29. The Global Revolution
30. A New Foundation
31. Renovation
Appendix A: Early Professional Basketball Leagues
Appendix B: Professional Basketball Commissioners
Appendix C: Miscellaneous NBA Statistics and Awards
Appendix D: Miscellaneous ABA Statistics and Awards
Chapter Notes
Bibliography
Index
