Five top classic basketball books

Yaron Weitzman is an award-winning NBA writer and the author of Tanking to the Top: The Philadelphia 76ers and the Most Audacious Process in the History of Professional Sports and A Hollywood Ending: The Dreams and Drama of the LeBron Lakers. His work has appeared in outlets such as The Ringer, Bleacher Report, Yahoo Sports, FOX Sports, The New Yorker, and GQ, and was recognized in 2020's "The Best American Sports Writing." None of this, however, matches his career highlight of being the ESPN Radio college intern tasked with delivering Stephen A. Smith his daily bag of Cheez Doodles.

At Lit Hub Weitzman tagged five classic basketball "books that moved me the first time I read them and have stayed with me ever since." One title on the list:

Jack McCallum, :07 Seconds or Less

This is one of those books that I still can’t believe happened. McCallum, a longtime NBA writer for Sports Illustrated, and not only just one of the best to ever do it but one of those writers beloved and revered by his peers, somehow convinced Phoenix Suns head coach Mike D’Antoni to let him embed with the team’s coaching staff for the 2005-06 season. This may sound simple, and may sound common; it’s far from both. The more sports have grown over the years, the more access has been limited, to the point where, around the turn of the century, reporters had to start fighting to hold on to the ability to talk to a team’s star player after games. And yet here was McCallum spending a season in coaches meetings, team bus rides and player huddles.

McCallum was the perfect writer for this, too. No one is better at mixing sharp analysis with simple, joyful and lighthearted prose. You can feel McCallum saying, Can you believe I’m in this room right now?! and his eagerness to bring readers along for the ride. So many basketball books—my own included—pitch themselves as true windows into how that world operates. But none of us get anything close to the access that McCallum received, and no one was better equipped to take advantage of it all. Given how big the sports industry has become, and how guarded and corporate that world has become, I think :07 Seconds or Less will likely end up being the last of its kind.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue