Great work by @SprtBookReviews who polled over 150 sportswriters on which sports books they really love. Below is a list of the best basketball books from those responses, so everyone can easily reference it moving forward. 07 Seconds or Less, Second Wind and The Jordan Rules are personal favs of mine!
The full list includes a compilation of all of answers from the writers polled, listed by sport, totaling more than 300 books. For @SprtBookReviews‘s analysis of which books were the most loved check out his commentary on the list in the All Sports Books Newsletter. If you want to see which writer chose which books then check out the alternative version of the list at The List ā Writersā Choices.
Apparently this list will be maintained and updated as a living document every time @SprtBookReviews gets feedback from other sports writers, so make sure to check back in periodically.
- The Breaks of the Game by David Halberstam
- Loose Balls: The Short Wild Life of the American Basketball Association by Terry Pluto
- A Sense of Where You Are: Bill Bradley at Princeton by John McPhee
- The Punch: One Night, Two Lives, and the Fight That Changed Basketball Forever by John Feinstein
- A Season on the Brink: A Year with Bob Knight and the Indiana Hoosiers by John Feinstein
- Boom Town: The Fantastical Saga Of Oklahoma City, Its Chaotic Foundingā¦ Its Purloined Basketball Team, And The Dream Of Becoming A World Class Metropolis by Sam Anderson.
- The City Game: Basketball from the Garden to the Playgrounds by Pete Axthelm
- Three Ring Circus Kobe, Shaq, Phil, and the Crazy Years of the Lakers Dynasty by Jeff Pearlman.
- Showtime: Magic, Kareem, Riley and the Los Angeles Lakers Dynasty of the 1980s by Jeff Pearlman
- Not a Game: The Incredible Rise and Unthinkable Fall of Allen Iverson by Kent Babb
- 07 Seconds or Less: My Season on the Bench with the Runninā and Gunninā Phoenix Suns by Jack McCallum
- The Miracle of St Anthonyās: A Season with Coach Bob Hurley and Basketballās Most Improbable Dynasty by Adrian Wojnarowski
- The Great Nowitzki: Basketball and the Meaning of Life by Thomas Pletzinger
- Go Up For Glory by Bill Russell
- The Last Shot: City Streets, Basketball Dreams by Darcy Frey
- Second Wind: The Memoirs of an Opinionated Man by Bill Russellās with Taylor Branch
- Giant Steps: The Autobiography of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar with Peter Knobler,
- Michael Jordan: The Life by Roland Lazenby
- The Hot Hand: The Mystery and Science of Streaks by Ben Cohen
- Blood in the Garden: The Flagrant History of the 1990s New York Knicks by Chris Herring
- Play Their Hearts Out: A Coach, His Star Recruit, and the Youth Basketball Machine by George Dohrmann
- The Jordan Rules by Sam Smith
- The Grads Are Playing Tonight!: The Story of the Edmonton Commercial Graduates Basketball Club by M. Ann Hall
- I Came as a Shadow: An Autobiography by John Thompson with Jesse Washington
- Long Shot: The Triumphs and Struggles of an NBA Freedom Fighter by Craig Hodges
- Boys Among Men: How the Prep-To-Pro Generation Redefined the NBA and Sparked a Basketball Revolution by Jonathan Abrams
- The Whore of Akron: One Manās Search for the Soul of LeBron James by Scott Raab
- Heaven Is A Playground by Rick Telander
- Hoop Dreams: True Story of Hardship and Triumph by Ben Joravsky
- Pistol ā The Life of Pete Maravich by Mark Kriegel
- Let Me Tell You a Story: A Lifetime in the Game by John Feinstein and Red Auerbach
- The Last Pass: Cousy, Russell, the Celtics, and What Matters in the End by Gary Pomerantz
- Miracle on 33th Street: The New York Knickerbockersā Championship Season by Phil Berger
- Rockinā Steady: A Guide to Basketball and Cool by Ira Berkow and Walt āClydeā Frazier
- In These Girls, Hope Is a Muscle by Madeleine Blais
- Foul! The Connie Hawkins Story by David Wolf
- My Losing Season by Pat Conroy
- Fall River Dreams: A Teamās Quest for Glory, A Townās Search for Its Soul by Bill Reynolds
- Forty-Eight Minutes: A Night in the Life of the N.B.A. by Bob Ryan and Terry Pluto
More ‘Best-of’ Basketball Books Lists to Check Out:
True Hoop: The Ten Best Basketball Books of All Time [ESPN.com]
Chris Herring: 10 Best Books About Basketball [Publishers Weekly]
Seth Davis: The Best Books About Basketball [Men’s Journal]