Hoop Lore: A History of the National Basketball Association - Softcover

Kirchberg, Connie

4.2

5 ratings by Goodreads

9780786426737: Hoop Lore: A History of the National Basketball Association

Softcover

ISBN 10: 078642673X ISBN 13: 9780786426737

Publisher: McFarland & Company, 2007

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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.

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About the Author:

Connie Kirchberg is a freelance writer specializing in biographies and popular American culture. She lives in Fresno, California.

Review:

"So many times in sports, and particularly in basketball, the glory days of a bygone era are overlooked or all-together forgotten, relegated to second-class citizenship behind the popularity and magnitude of today's big-time professional leagues. Kirchberg's Hoop Lore reverses this tendency, broadening the historical dialogue and tying the NBA to its illustrious past."--Matt Zeysing, Historian, Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.

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