20 Best Basketball Books

Bill Simmons explores NBA history through player rankings, arguments, anecdotes, and comparisons across eras. The book examines how basketball greatness is judged, combining a fan’s opinions with an extended look at the league’s players and teams.

Embedded with the Portland Trail Blazers during the 1979-80 season, Halberstam uses one NBA team to explore injuries, race, labor, money, and the uneasy shift from sport to business.

Granted unprecedented access to Indiana coach Bob Knight and his 1985–86 team, Feinstein documents every practice, tirade, and quiet conversation. The result is a close-up of a combustible coach, his players, and the pressure cooker of big-time college basketball.

Mark Kriegel traces Pete Maravich's life from basketball prodigy to celebrated professional, examining the influence of his father and the costs of fame. The biography connects Maravich's inventive play with family ambitions, personal contradictions, and his search for meaning beyond basketball.

Jeff Pearlman follows the Los Angeles Lakers of the 1980s, including Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Pat Riley. The history examines the personalities, management decisions, and off-court turbulence behind the team’s championship years.

Phil Jackson reflects on his championship coaching career with the Chicago Bulls and Los Angeles Lakers. Stories about players and teams explain how mindfulness, trust and selfless cooperation shaped his leadership and efforts to bring different personalities together.

Sam Smith takes readers inside the Chicago Bulls' first championship season, following Michael Jordan and his teammates through practices, games, and locker-room tensions. His account examines the conflicts behind their emergence as NBA champions.

Conroy revisits his senior year as point guard and captain of The Citadel basketball team, using a losing season to explore his brutal coach, his volatile father, and how the game shaped his understanding of courage, failure, and manhood.

Darcy Frey follows four promising young basketball players from Coney Island as they pursue college opportunities. Their athletic ambitions encounter inadequate schooling, difficult family circumstances, and recruitment pressures, revealing the stakes of a system in which teenagers place their futures on sport.

Adrian Wojnarowski follows Bob Hurley through a challenging basketball season at St. Anthony High School. The account examines the coach's demanding methods and commitment to his players, whose pursuit of success on the court is entwined with hopes for college opportunities.

Terry Pluto reconstructs the American Basketball Association's nine seasons through the voices of players, coaches, executives, and others involved. This oral history captures the league's financial struggles, unusual personalities, and innovations, including the three-point shot and its distinctive style of play.

Pat Summitt reflects on her life from a competitive childhood to decades coaching Tennessee's Lady Vols. Her memoir explores relationships with players, marriage, motherhood, and health challenges, placing athletic achievements alongside the personal experiences that shaped her.

Larry Bird and Magic Johnson revisit their rivalry and friendship with Jackie MacMullan, revealing their perspectives on an era of NBA basketball. Their account follows competition, championships, injuries, and illness while examining the personal pressures behind their public achievements.

Mike Krzyzewski explains his approach to leadership through experiences coaching Duke basketball and lessons from military service. Written with Donald Phillips, the book explores trust, communication, respect, and commitment, connecting team leadership with challenges in business and everyday life.

Jay Williams recounts his basketball career and the motorcycle crash that ended his time as an NBA player. The memoir follows his recovery and reinvention, reflecting on ambition, fame, accountability, and the difficult task of building a life beyond the court.

Neil Swidey follows coach Jack O'Brien and the players of Boston's Charlestown High School as they pursue a state basketball title. His reporting extends beyond competition to examine mentorship, family relationships, college ambitions, and life after the team.

Pat Riley draws on basketball coaching to present a plan for teamwork, leadership, and personal growth. The book examines how ambition, cooperation, power, and emotion shape a group's dynamics, applying his ideas to organizations, family life, and individual goals.

Jay Bilas examines toughness through his basketball experiences and conversations with athletes and coaches. Personal stories explore what the quality means in practice, connecting lessons from competition with the mental and physical strength involved in facing challenges beyond sport.

John Wooden recounts his life and coaching career, including the UCLA basketball teams that won ten NCAA championships. Personal memories connect players and pivotal seasons with his beliefs about preparation, hard work, and achievement beyond competition.

Kobe Bryant shares his approach to basketball through reflections on preparation, learning, and the craft of playing. Photographs by Andrew Bernstein accompany Bryant's insights into his career, giving readers a visual and personal account of the thinking behind his game.