Sports Biographies Basketball

This inspiring memoir from sports and cultural icon Bill Walton recounts his devastating injuries and amazing recoveries, set in the context of his UCLA triumphs under John Wooden, his storied NBA career, and his affinity for music and the Grateful Dead.

The seven-foot Dirk Nowitzki is one of the great players in basketball history. With a devastating fadeaway and unexpected agility, the Dallas Mavericks superstar helped to pioneer the modern three-shooting game and became a global ambassador for the sport. Award-winning novelist and sportswriter Thomas Pletzinger traveled with Nowitzki for more than seven years, seeking the secret of his success and longevity. In novelistic detail, Pletzinger tells the dramatic story of how a lanky kid from the German suburbs became a top-five all-time scorer and NBA champion.

The day after future NBA superstar Chris Paul signed his letter of intent to play college basketball for Wake Forest, he received a world-shattering phone call. His grandfather, Nathaniel "Papa" Jones, a pillar of the Winston-Salem community where he owned and operated the first Black-owned service station in North Carolina, was mugged and ultimately died from a heart attack resulting from the assault. His funeral filled the largest church in the county, which held over 1,000 people. He was 61 years old.

Pistol is more than the biography of a ballplayer. It's the stuff of classic novels: the story of a boy transformed by his father's dream and the cost of that dream. Even as Pete Maravich became Pistol Pete, a basketball icon for baby boomers, all the Maraviches paid a price. Now acclaimed author Mark Kriegel has brilliantly captured the saga of an American family: its rise, its apparent ruin, and, finally, its redemption.

Pat Summitt, the all-time winningest coach in NCAA basketball history and best-selling author of Reach for the Summitt and Raise the Roof, tells for the first time her remarkable story of victory and resilience as well as facing down her greatest challenge: early-onset Alzheimer's disease. Pat Summitt was only 21 when she became head coach of the Tennessee Vols women's basketball team. For 38 years, she has broken records, winning more games than any NCAA team in basketball history.

Golden State Warriors insider and best-selling author Marcus Thompson delivers the definitive biography of one of the most extraordinary basketball players in NBA history - Kevin Durant.

If you ask a New York Knicks fan about Charles Oakley, you better prepare to hear the love and a favorite story or two. But his individual stats weren’t remarkable, and while he helped power the Knicks to 10 consecutive playoffs, he never won a championship. So why does he hold such a special place in the minds, hearts, and memories of NBA players and fans?

NBA fans had low expectations for rookie coach Nick Nurse and his Toronto Raptors. But what those naysayers didn't realize was that Nurse had spent the past 30 years proving himself at every level of the game, from youth programs and college ball to the NBA D League and Britain's struggling pro circuit. While few coaches have taken such a circuitous path to pro basketball's promised land, the journey - which began at Kuemper Catholic high school in Carroll, Iowa - forged a coach who proved to be as unshakable as he is personable.

Elena Delle Donne made her WNBA debut in 2013 and earned the Rookie of the Year award. It was just a glimpse of what was to come. Delle Donne has been an All-Star six times, and she led the Washington Mystics to a championship win in 2019. Get the highlights of Delle Donne’s amazing career and learn about her community involvement off the court.

Breanna Stewart is a basketball superstar! She dominated in high school. Stewart then went on to play college ball for the UConn Huskies. From there she was tapped to play for Team USA in the Olympics—where she scored the last shot! Find out how Breanna overcame a difficult childhood to go on to achieve her dreams.

To become the most revered basketball player in America, it wasn’t enough for Michael Jordan to merely excel on the court. He also had to become something he never intended: a hero. Reconstructing the defining moment of Jordan’s career—winning his first NBA championship during the 1990-1991 season—sports historian Johnny Smith examines Jordan’s ubiquitous rise in American culture and the burden he carried as a national symbol of racial progress. Jumpman reveals how Jordan maintained a “mystique” that allowed him to seem more likable to Americans who wanted to believe race no longer mattered.

An irreverent, hilarious insider's look at big-time NCAA basketball, through the eyes of the nation's most famous benchwarmer and author of the popular blog ClubTrillion.com (3.6m visits!). Mark Titus holds the Ohio State record for career wins, and made it to the 2007 national championship game. You would think Titus would be all over the highlight reels. You'd be wrong.

Slovenian basketball star Luka Doncic’s talent was obvious from an early age. He went from playing in the EuroLeague to the NBA all by the young age of 19. Listeners will learn about his struggles and successes on his way to becoming a star player and the NBA Rookie of the Year!

Kevin Garnett was one of the most dominant players the game of basketball has ever seen. He was also one of its most outspoken. Over the course of his illustrious 21-year NBA career, he elevated trash talk to an art form and never shied away from sharing his thoughts on controversial subjects. In KG: A to Z, published ahead of Garnett’s induction into the Basketball Hall of Fame, he looks back on his life and career with the same raw candor.

Learn the inspiring story of the San Antonio Spurs' legendary coach Gregg Popovich! In Gregg Popovich: The Inspiring Life and Leadership Lessons of One of Basketball's Greatest Coaches, you will learn the inspirational story of one of basketball's premier coaches, Gregg Popovich. Popovich has steered the ship for the San Antonio Spurs franchise to multiple championships and perennial playoff contention.

Nine-time NBA Champion coach Phil Jackson knows all about being in the spotlight, about high-profile, high-pressure seasons coaching gigantic personalities through adversity and controversy in the middle of a media hothouse in which every move is another headline, another installment in the soap opera. But nothing had quite prepared him for the only-in-Hollywood high-wire act of the Lakers' 2003-2004 season.

As the youngest player in the National Basketball Association during his rookie season, Giannis Antetokounmpo looked like a rising star. At almost seven feet tall, he would become an All-Star Game starter and winner of the NBA's most improved player award.

In Players First, John Calipari relates for the first time anywhere his experiences over his first four years coaching the Kentucky Wildcats, college basketball's most fabled program, from the doldrums to a national championship, drawing lessons about leadership, character, and the path to personal and collective victory. At its core, Calipari's coaching philosophy centers on keeping his focus on the players - what they need to get the best out of themselves and one another.

Since the beginning of her career as Lady Vol head coach at twenty-two years old, Pat Head Summitt effectively established the University of Tennessee Lady Vols as the top women's athletics program in the nation. The winningest coach in the history of NCAA basketball, Summitt overcame one obstacle after another on the road to every victory, but it is the lives she has impacted along the way that tell the story of her true legacy.

Mind Games follows the journey of Phil Jackson to the top of basketball’s coaching hierarchy, a rise that took him from obscurity in the Continental Basketball Association to nine championship rings in the NBA. Along the way he turned multimillionaire players on to meditation, transformed the Michael Jordan-led Chicago Bulls from a one-man show to a five-man team of domination, and after battling with Bulls management, ended one dynasty to start another on the West Coast.