Art of a Beautiful Game (eBook)

The Thinking Fan's Tour of the NBA

Chris Ballard (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2009 | 1. Auflage
240 Seiten
Simon & Schuster (Verlag)
978-1-4391-4117-5 (ISBN)

Infos

In The Art of a Beautiful Game, Chris Ballard, the award-winning Sports Illustrated writer who has covered the NBA for the past decade, goes behind the scenes to examine basketball in ways that will surprise even die-hard fans. An inveterate hoops junkie who played some college ball, Ballard sits down with the NBA's most passionate, cerebral players to find out their tricks of the trade and to learn what drives them, taking readers away from the usual sports talk radio fodder and deep into the heart of the game.

Ballard talks to Dwight Howard, a prolific shot-blocker, about the enervating feeling of meeting another man at the height of his leap, challenges Steve Kerr to a game of H-O-R-S-E to understand the mentality of a pure shooter, reveals the roots of Kobe Bryant's unmatched killer instinct, and spends time with LeBron James to better understand both his mental game and his seemingly unlimited physical skills. He tracks down renowned dunkers from Dominique to Shaq to explore the impact of the dunk on the modern game, shadows Shane Battier during his preparations to defend LeBron, takes lessons from a freethrow shooting guru who once hit 2,750 in a row, and attends an elite NBA training camp to feel the pain that turns a prospect into a pro.

Packed with lively characters and basketball history, and grounded in superb writing and the reportage that is the hallmark of Sports Illustrated, The Art of a Beautiful Game is an often witty, always insightful look at the men like Steve Nash, Yao Ming, and Alonzo Mourning who devote themselves to this elegant and complicated sport. It ultimately provides basketball fans what they all want: an inside read on the game they love.

Textauszug

Introduction

Some years ago I had the unenviable task of guarding Mark Aguirre in a pickup game. I'd like to say I held my ground as he posted me up, absorbing each of the bargelike blows he delivered with his hips and prodigious backside, holding strong against the Nor'easter of Ass he unleashed upon me. But I did not. Like so many opponents during Aguirre's NBA days, I slid and stumbled and shuffled backward until he was essentially standing under the basket and I out-of-bounds. At which point he could merely reach up and lay the ball into the basket.

How I came to be guarding Aguirre was a matter of circumstance. I was in Indianapolis writing a story for Sports Illustrated and had wandered over to a local health club looking for a run. Aguirre, then an assistant coach for the Indiana Pacers, arrived a half hour later. My teammates, kind souls that they were, agreed that I should be the one to guard Aguirre.

This was what an NBA coach might refer to as 'a matchup problem.' Aguirre was a 6' 6', 230-pound NBA legend who averaged 20 points during his 13-year career with the Mavericks and the Pistons, and even at 43 years old, he was still in remarkably good shape. I, on the other hand, was a 6' 1', 175-pound former small-college player who had a difficult enough time defending the guys in my local rec league.

For the most part Aguirre took it easy on me in the post, backing me down only a handful of times. Not that it mattered, he turned out to be just as adept on the perimeter. At one point I was guarding him on the wing and he fooled me so completely, using a ball fake together with a subtle push on my leg and hip, that I actually turned around to try to beat him to the baseline. In mid-sprint I heard Aguirre chuckle behind me. He was standing in the same spot, having not moved an inch, and calmly fired up and swished a three-pointer. (He was a much better outside shooter than I recalled.) 'What in the world,' I asked him, 'did you just do?'

He only smiled. Mark Aguirre did not get where he was by giving away his secrets to random dudes he meets at the gym.

That night I saw him at Conseco Fieldhouse, before the Pacers game, and his face lit up with recognition--and amusement. 'Hey, still waiting for that baseline drive?' he asked.

I laughed, then asked if I might pick his brain at some point, this time in the name of journalism. 'Check back with me after the game,' he said.

I did, and he was true to his word. That night, after a Pacers win, Aguirre spent nearly 45 minutes in a back corridor of Conseco showing me the secrets of his post moves: how to leverage a defender, which arm to use to swim past an opponent, how to 'lock in' an opposing big man on a lob pass and, best of all, how to 'push the refrigerator' (that is, use your outside leg to drive into a defender, as if he were a Frigidaire).

As Aguirre talked, I realized that in all those years of watching him play, I'd never fully appreciated what he was doing. I just figured . . . well, I don't know what I figured. That he just used his butt to move guys out of the way? That he'd been born a little quicker and trickier around the basket than the rest of us?

Unmistakably, though, there was an art to what he was doing, one honed over years, one only certain players have mastered, one only certain players can master, for it requires a rare combination of dedication, talent and intuition. To appreciate it, you need only watch one of those young, springy big men who enter the league each year. You know the type--long-limbed, imposing, throwing down monster dunks. These players may be freakishly athletic, but their post moves are so...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 3.11.2009
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Sport ► Ballsport ► Basketball
• ISBN-10: 1-4391-4117-7 / 1439141177
• ISBN-13: 978-1-4391-4117-5 / 9781439141175