Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Play, pass, shot and have fun

Game Day!: Patty Hits the Court. by Patty Mills

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Sometimes finding a book is more interesting than the book itself. When I found Patty Mills book, I was looking to see if we had a book in stock even though our system said we didn’t. This was due to a royal mess up from the publisher, but of course, I could not be that lucky. However, instead, I found two books that I wanted to read. One was a graphic novel (Agent 9: Flood-A-Geddon!) and this book: Game Day!: Patty Hits the Court. I […]

Sho-Be

Three-Ring Circus: Kobe, Shaq, Phil, and the Crazy Years of the Lakers Dynasty by Jeff Pearlman

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(TW: this book mentions Kobe Bryant’s rape case and so does this review. The book goes into graphic detail; the review does not.) I always enjoy Jeff Pearlman’s sports books and this one was no exception. Just as he did for the Showtime Lakers, so he does for the Shaq-Kobe Lakers. Personally speaking, I hated those teams. I thought they were arrogant and selfish. I rooted hard against them in the Finals every year. But that was also in the time when I didn’t care […]

The Answer

Not A Game: The Incredible Rise and Unthinkable Fall of Allen Iverson by Kent Babb

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Statistically and anecdotally, there are dozens of better players in NBA history than Allen Iverson. Iverson was famous for low percentage shots, inefficient passing and turnovers. His usage rate was outrageously high for someone whose effectiveness was questionable. When his hellbent driving skills worked, his layups and dunks looked like masterpieces. But his game was always more appreciated from an aesthetic perspective. So no, Allen Iverson was not the best player to play basketball. Not by a long shot. But in terms of cultural influence […]

The Last Last Dance

When Nothing Else Matters: Michael Jordan's Last Comeback by Michael Leahy

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Last month, like a large portion of the country, I greedily devoured ESPN’s documentary The Last Dance, which covered the basketball career of Michael Jordan through the lens of his final season with the Chicago Bulls. I enjoyed it for what it was: a fun, somewhat interesting nostalgia trip replete with many delightful basketball highlights. Before I became a diehard NBA fan in the aughts, my knowledge of the league revolved around Jordan. So much of it was a trip down memory lane. Unsurprisingly, the documentary […]

Trust the Process

Tanking to the Top: The Philadelphia 76ers and the Most Audacious Process in the History of Professional Sports by Yaron Weitzman

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As I said a few weeks ago in my review of Ethan Sherwood Strauss’ superb The Victory Machine: thank the living Lord for sports books written by people my age. What a balm. No Michael Jordan narratives. No “back in my day, them fellas didn’t have the interwebs.” It’s simply inconceivable to boomers that people my age remember a world before its wide web, a time before social media, and can in fact conceive of a history that predated our existence. Anyway, enough of that. There’s […]

Come Out And Play

The Victory Machine: The Making & Unmaking of the Warriors Dynasty by Ethan Sherwood Strauss

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Oh finally, a quality sports book written by someone my age. My kingdom for such a book. Thank you, Ethan Sherwood Strauss. To not have to deal with condescensions such as “Hey, ya know young fella, ol’ Michael Jordan never had Twitter. Larry Bird wasn’t on Facebook. Magic Johnson didn’t mess with the internets. We had to get our highlights the old fashioned way” as if it’s inconceivable that people realize there was a world before they were born. At any rate, that’s a big […]



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