18 Best NBA Books

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Chris Herring examines the New York Knicks of the 1990s, tracing how players, coaches and management built a combative identity. Interviews and reporting explore the team’s rivalries, internal relationships and place within a changing NBA.

Rick Telander describes the Brooklyn playground basketball world he joined during the 1970s. His reporting follows local teenagers’ games, ambitions, and daily lives, exploring their hopes for education and opportunities beyond the court.

Halberstam examines Michael Jordan’s rise with the Chicago Bulls and the NBA’s explosion into a global business. The book is as much about media, money, and competition as it is about Jordan’s game.

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.

Roland Lazenby traces Michael Jordan's life from his family's North Carolina roots through college basketball and his NBA career. Interviews with relatives, teammates, and coaches explore the competitive drive, relationships, and pressures behind his public image.

Shea Serrano explores basketball through a collection of serious and deliberately ridiculous questions. Illustrated by Arturo Torres, his humorous arguments revisit memorable players, moments, rivalries, and imagined scenarios, capturing the debates and obsessions that shape basketball fandom.

Jack McCallum recounts the formation and experiences of the 1992 United States Olympic basketball team. Interviews and his reporting explore player selection, relationships among the superstars, private games, and the team’s wider influence on basketball.

Jack McCallum follows the Phoenix Suns through a season of their fast-paced approach to basketball. Access to coaches and players reveals the preparation, decisions and tensions behind a team whose style challenged established ideas about winning in the NBA.

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.

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.