National Basketball

What’s it take to overcome the odds and change the game? That’s at the heart of the warm and revealing conversations between epic NBA sharpshooters—and father and son—Dell and Stephen Curry in their Audible Original Heat Check. While Dell laid the groundwork, Stephen later delivered a whole new era of jaw-dropping three-pointers from a time previously dominated by flying dunks. In these episodes, we hear how Stephen experienced his life’s journey and how Dell saw it play out.

Whether you’re hoping your Cinderella school dances its way to the Sweet 16 or one of the millions of Americans hoping to win their office pool, it all starts with the 68-team NCAA Tournament bracket. After all, there is no true Madness without the oft-debated question about what teams should be seeded where - from the Power Five blue blood with some early-season stumbles on its résumé to the mid-major that rampaged through its less competitive conference season. The inventor of Bracketology himself, ESPN’s Joe Lunardi, is here to reveal the mystery and science behind it all.

This is the long overdue story of George Yardley, one of the greatest … and most overlooked … NBA players of all time Known as the Stanford Flash, the California Comet, the Blond Bomber, and the Bald Eagle, Yardley helped usher in the evolution of the modern NBA with a game that transcends generations. He excelled on the greatest basketball stages and broke records of two of basketball’s all-time greatest players… and did so with style and flair. Most ballplayers of his time would be anachronisms in today's game, but Yardley was the opposite - a colorful anachronism playing in a ...

Deep in the heart of Northern Arizona, in a small and isolated patch of the vast 17.5 million-acre Navajo reservation, sits Chinle High School. Here, basketball is passion, passed from grandparent to parent to child. Celebrated Times journalist Michael Powell brings us a narrative of triumph and hardship, a moving story about a basketball team on a Navajo reservation that shows how important sports can be to youths in struggling communities, and the transcendent magic and painful realities that confront Native Americans living on reservations.

When you're the smallest kid playing a big man's game, the challenges never stop - especially when your name is Danny Walker. Leading your travel team to the national championship may seem like a dream come true, but for Danny, being at the top just means the competition tries that much harder to knock him off. Now Danny's heading to Right Way basketball camp for the summer, and he knows that with the country's best players in attendance, he's going to need to take his game up a notch if he wants to match up. But it won't be easy.

Thirteen strangers. Six weeks. Three countries. One mission. This is the story of a USA basketball team that competed in the summer of 1983 for a country and a Kingdom. Team members tell of wins and losses on the court, and challenges and triumphs off the court. Fun and poignant stories include an epic six-game series against the Mexican national team, celebrity status in Peru, one of the greatest volleyball matches ever, an amazing Michael Jordan block, Brazilian hospitality, an ’84 team competing behind the Iron Curtain, a future WNBA star… and lives being changed forever. Go into “...

A sweeping and revelatory history of basketball, drawing upon hundreds of hours of interviews with the greatest players, coaches, executives, and journalists in the history of the game. In an effort to tell the complete story of basketball in all its fascinating dimensions, acclaimed authors Jackie MacMullan, Rafe Bartholomew, and Dan Klores have compiled nearly a thousand hours' worth of interviews with a staggering number of basketball greats. The audiobook that grew out of those interviews is an extraordinary project and quite possibly the most ambitious basketball work ever made.

Today's National Basketball Association commands millions of spectators worldwide, and its many franchises are worth hundreds of millions of dollars. But the league wasn't always so successful or glamorous: in the 1940s and 1950s, the NBA and its predecessor, the Basketball Association of America, were scrambling to attract fans. Teams frequently played in dingy gymnasiums, players traveled as best they could, and their paychecks could bounce higher than a basketball.

Against the backdrop of one of the most tumultuous periods in recent American history, as riots and demonstrations spread across the nation, the Tigers of poor, segregated East High School in Columbus, Ohio, did something no team from one school had ever done before: They won the state basketball and baseball championships in the same year. They defeated bigger, richer, whiter teams across the state and along the way brought blacks and whites together, eased a painful racial divide throughout the state, and overcame extraordinary obstacles on their road to success.

In the 1940s, before March Madness, the frenzy of the NBA draft, and multi-million dollar professional contracts, college basketball players played simply because they loved the game. This is the story of a group of kids who loved to play basketball: the underdog 1943 - 44 University of Utah men’s basketball team and their unlikely path to the NCAA championship, who came out of nowhere to upset heavily favored Dartmouth for the title.

1985 was a summer of a lifetime for 16 Americans. At the height of the Cold War, an Athletes In Action-USA women's basketball team competed in the USSR against the greatest team ever, the vaunted Soviet Union National Team. The United States team also competed in Poland and West Germany. After suffering serious injuries to three frontline players against the mighty Soviets, the team was suddenly short in size and depth - but not heart. As they adjusted their style of play, they affectionately became known as The Smurfs. Based on Coach Greg Hayes' tour journal, Cold War Hoops is an ...

A deeply revealing memoir of big wins and hard lessons from a seasoned executive caught smack in the middle of the trillion-dollar soft power struggle pitting China against Hollywood, the NBA, and American business....

"From Hardwood to History: A Look at the Best Basketball Players Ever" is a comprehensive look at the evolution of professional basketball and the players who have left an indelible mark on the sport. This book covers the pioneers of the game, the early stars who paved the way for future generations, and the impact these players had on the sport. It also covers the great players of recent past and how they are contributing to the popularity of professional basketball. The book also looks at the most effective and dominant coaches of each era. Finally, the book looks at the rise of the ...

From the smallest kid on every team to the game-changing, record-breaking NBA All-Star he is today, Steph Curry’s journey to stardom is a master class in excellence. Bolstered by what he calls his irrational confidence, the “baby-faced assassin” shattered expectations and accrued millions of fans as he led the Golden State Warriors to championship after championship, garnered multiple MVP awards, and emerged as the greatest three-point shooter of all time. Steph Curry: Life Lessons from a Legend gives you courtside seats to the incredible highs and lows of his phenomenal career.

Elijah Thomas knows one thing better than anyone around him: basketball. But when a sinister street gang, Blood Street Nation, wants him and his team members to wear the Nation’s colors in the next big tournament, Elijah’s love of the game is soon thrown into jeopardy. The boys gather their courage and take a stand against the gang, but at a terrible cost. Now Elijah must struggle to balance hope and fear, revenge and forgiveness, to save his neighborhood. For help, he turns to the most unlikely of friends: Banks, a gruff ex–military man, and his beautiful and ambitious daughter.