Simon & Schuster
Loose Balls : The Short, Wild Life of the American Basketball Association
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Loose Balls
Author(s): Terry Pluto
What do Julius Erving, Larry Brown, Moses Malone, Bob Costas, the Indiana Pacers, the San Antonio Spurs and the Slam Dunk Contest have in common? They all got their professional starts in the American Basketball Association.
What do Julius Erving, Larry Brown, Moses Malone, Bob Costas, the Indiana Pacers, the San Antonio Spurs and the Slam Dunk Contest have in common? They all got their professional starts in the American Basketball Association.
The NBA may have won the financial battle, but the ABA won the artistic war. With its stress on wide-open individual play, the adoption of the 3-point shot and pressing defense, and the encouragement of flashy moves and flying dunks, today's NBA is still—decades later —just the ABA without the red, white and blue ball.
Loose Balls is, after all these years, the definitive and most widely respected history of the ABA. It's a wild ride through some of the wackiest, funniest, strangest times ever to hit pro sports—told entirely through the (often incredible) words of those who played, wrote and connived their way through the league's nine seasons.
Review(s):
"ABA veterans say 'you had to be there,' and now, thanks to this book, we are." -- Steve Gietschier, The Sporting News
"Loose Balls is either the great American novel in oral-history sound bites or the definitive book on the 1970s, or both: sex, drugs, platform shoes, sideburns, slam dunks, midnight franchise shifts, million-dollar deferred-payment player contracts, the three-point shot, Dr. J., Marvin (Bad News) Barnes, LaVerne (Jelly) Tart and Pat Boone (yes, Pat Boone). Pro sports, the way they oughta be." -- Newsweek
"I assure you I could not recommend this book more highly. This is one of the funniest sports books of all-time." -- Bob Ryan, The Boston Globe
"The best sports book of the year? Loose Balls..." -- USA Today
ISBN: 9781416540618
Author(s): Terry Pluto
What do Julius Erving, Larry Brown, Moses Malone, Bob Costas, the Indiana Pacers, the San Antonio Spurs and the Slam Dunk Contest have in common? They all got their professional starts in the American Basketball Association.
What do Julius Erving, Larry Brown, Moses Malone, Bob Costas, the Indiana Pacers, the San Antonio Spurs and the Slam Dunk Contest have in common? They all got their professional starts in the American Basketball Association.
The NBA may have won the financial battle, but the ABA won the artistic war. With its stress on wide-open individual play, the adoption of the 3-point shot and pressing defense, and the encouragement of flashy moves and flying dunks, today's NBA is still—decades later —just the ABA without the red, white and blue ball.
Loose Balls is, after all these years, the definitive and most widely respected history of the ABA. It's a wild ride through some of the wackiest, funniest, strangest times ever to hit pro sports—told entirely through the (often incredible) words of those who played, wrote and connived their way through the league's nine seasons.
Review(s):
"ABA veterans say 'you had to be there,' and now, thanks to this book, we are." -- Steve Gietschier, The Sporting News
"Loose Balls is either the great American novel in oral-history sound bites or the definitive book on the 1970s, or both: sex, drugs, platform shoes, sideburns, slam dunks, midnight franchise shifts, million-dollar deferred-payment player contracts, the three-point shot, Dr. J., Marvin (Bad News) Barnes, LaVerne (Jelly) Tart and Pat Boone (yes, Pat Boone). Pro sports, the way they oughta be." -- Newsweek
"I assure you I could not recommend this book more highly. This is one of the funniest sports books of all-time." -- Bob Ryan, The Boston Globe
"The best sports book of the year? Loose Balls..." -- USA Today
ISBN: 9781416540618