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The Breaks of the Game
"Among the best books ever written on professional basketball." The Philadelphia Inquirer
David Halberstam, best-selling author of THE FIFTIES and THE BEST AND THE BRIGHTEST, turns his keen reporter's eye on the sport of basketball -- the players and the coaches, the long road trips, what happens on court, in front of television cameras, and off-court, where no eyes have followed -- until now.
David Halberstam, best-selling author of THE FIFTIES and THE BEST AND THE BRIGHTEST, turns his keen reporter's eye on the sport of basketball -- the players and the coaches, the long road trips, what happens on court, in front of television cameras, and off-court, where no eyes have followed -- until now.
362 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1981
About the author
David Halberstam
102 books742 followersDavid Halberstam was an American journalist and historian, known for his work on the Vietnam War, politics, history, the Civil Rights Movement, business, media, American culture, and later, sports journalism. He was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting in 1964.
Halberstam graduated from Harvard University with a degree in journalism in 1955 and started his career writing for the Daily Times Leader in West Point, Mississippi. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, writing for The Tennessean in Nashville, Tennessee, he covered the beginnings of the American Civil Rights Movement.
In the mid 1960s, Halberstam covered the Vietnam War for The New York Times. While there, he gathered material for his book The Making of a Quagmire: America and Vietnam during the Kennedy Era. In 1963, he received a George Polk Award for his reporting at the New York Times. At the age of 30, he won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on the war. He is interviewed in the 1968 documentary film on the Vietnam War entitled In the Year of the Pig.
Halberstam's most well known work is The Best and the Brightest. Halberstam focused on the paradox that those who shaped the U.S. war effort in Vietnam were some of the most intelligent, well-connected and self-confident men in America—"the best and the brightest"—and yet those same individuals were responsible for the failure of the United States Vientnam policy.
After publication of The Best and the Brightest in 1972, Halberstam plunged right into another book and in 1979 published The Powers That Be. The book provided profiles of men like William Paley of CBS, Henry Luce of Time magazine, Phil Graham of The Washington Post—and many others.
Later in his career, Halberstam turned to the subjects of sports, publishing The Breaks of the Game, an inside look at the Bill Walton and the 1978 Portland Trailblazers basketball team; an ambitious book on Michael Jordan in 1999 called Playing for Keeps; and on the pennant race battle between the Yankees and Red Sox called Summer of '49.
Halberstam published two books in the 1960s, three books in the 1970s, four books in the 1980s, and six books in the 1990s. He published four books in the 2000s and was on a pace to publish six or more books in that decade before his death.
David Halberstam was killed in a car crash on April 23, 2007 in Menlo Park, California.
Halberstam graduated from Harvard University with a degree in journalism in 1955 and started his career writing for the Daily Times Leader in West Point, Mississippi. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, writing for The Tennessean in Nashville, Tennessee, he covered the beginnings of the American Civil Rights Movement.
In the mid 1960s, Halberstam covered the Vietnam War for The New York Times. While there, he gathered material for his book The Making of a Quagmire: America and Vietnam during the Kennedy Era. In 1963, he received a George Polk Award for his reporting at the New York Times. At the age of 30, he won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on the war. He is interviewed in the 1968 documentary film on the Vietnam War entitled In the Year of the Pig.
Halberstam's most well known work is The Best and the Brightest. Halberstam focused on the paradox that those who shaped the U.S. war effort in Vietnam were some of the most intelligent, well-connected and self-confident men in America—"the best and the brightest"—and yet those same individuals were responsible for the failure of the United States Vientnam policy.
After publication of The Best and the Brightest in 1972, Halberstam plunged right into another book and in 1979 published The Powers That Be. The book provided profiles of men like William Paley of CBS, Henry Luce of Time magazine, Phil Graham of The Washington Post—and many others.
Later in his career, Halberstam turned to the subjects of sports, publishing The Breaks of the Game, an inside look at the Bill Walton and the 1978 Portland Trailblazers basketball team; an ambitious book on Michael Jordan in 1999 called Playing for Keeps; and on the pennant race battle between the Yankees and Red Sox called Summer of '49.
Halberstam published two books in the 1960s, three books in the 1970s, four books in the 1980s, and six books in the 1990s. He published four books in the 2000s and was on a pace to publish six or more books in that decade before his death.
David Halberstam was killed in a car crash on April 23, 2007 in Menlo Park, California.
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January 17, 2009
The late, great David Halberstam followed the Trail Blazers during the 1979-1980 season, two years after their acclaimed victory over the Sixers.
The Breaks of The Game, the book that resulted, remains one of the best sports books I have ever read and a work that has easily stood the test of time.
The author of more than 20 books on topics as diverse as the Vietnam War, the modern civil rights struggle, the decline of the American auto industry, and the history of American media , Halberstam returned again and again to sports as a topic.
Although readers of The Teammates and The Summer of '49 could tell that baseball during those years had a particularly firm grip on Halberstam's heart, The Breaks of the Game remains a special work, even among the 10 of his books that I have read.
To begin, unlike many sports narratives, the story follows the Portland franchise after its memorable ascent and during what ultimately became a lengthy decline. As a result, the triumphant moment, while still present in the book, is a reminder of past and rapidly receding glory, rather than the culmination that precedes the tidy wrap up and update in the Epilogue.
In additon to the narrative arc, The Breaks of the Game is replete with vivid and memorable characters, from coach Jack Ramsay, whose inability to accept losses affect his mental health and relationships with his friends, to power forward Maurice Lucas, whose physical style of play is vital to the Blazers' success yet who, like an earlier Shawn Marionon the Mike Dantoni-era Phoenix Suns, feels unappreciated, to Billy Ray Bates, the cocky, late- season addition to the squad who helps fuel the Blazers' late-season playoff run.
The characters do not just exist on the court. Rather, Halberstam employed his relentless reporting drive with his direct knowledge of American history-he covered nearly every major story from 1955 to his untimely death in 2007-to create textured portrayals that teach the reader about the players' background and even more about their place in American society.
Bates, for example, grew up in the cotton fields of Mississippi; Halberstam ends the book with tales of his playing reverberating in that community. He also writes extensively about Kermit Washington, the enormously shy power forward from Washington, DC, whose life became inextricably linked with Houston Rockets star Rudy Tomjanovich when he punched the oncoming Tomjanovich in the face during an on court fight between teammates.
And, of course, there is Walton, the supremely talented, sharp-passing, politically active, red headed center who had one of the greatest careers in NCAA history, yet who never quite delivered on his enormous promise in the NBA because of his recurring injuries.
These portraits add tremendous richness to the book because they provide far deeper context than one usually sees in accounts of sporting games-I'm about halfway through Dan Rooney's My 75 Years with the Pittsburgh Steelers and the NFL and don't know if I'm going to be able to make it for that reason.
The Breaks of the Games also has many memorable moments.
Some are of unintentional cruelty. Halberstam describes how a surgeon tells Geoff Petrie, a former Rookie of the Year and an early Blazers star, that he will never play basketball again, and then a second later exults at getting to meet New York Jets quarterback Joe Namath.
Others are humorous.
Halberstam's description of how glowering power forward Lloyd Neal, leapt up from the bench after Lucas blocked a Kareem Abdul-Jabbar sky hook ,and yelled, "Take that, motherfucking cuckoo!" to a startled and uncharacteristically silent Jack Nicholson, remains one of my favorite of all time. The exploits of the outrageous Marvin Barnes, who showed up just before game time in a mink coat with his uniform underneath are similarly entertaining.
In short, the book is an utter treasure, and not just for sports fans (although hoops fans who have not yet read The Breaks of the Game are in for a real treat.). So, while checking out the latest exploits of Roy, Aldridge, Oden, Outlaw and Co., or for those who are simply looking for a greater, check out The Breaks of the Game.
You will not be disappointed.
The Breaks of The Game, the book that resulted, remains one of the best sports books I have ever read and a work that has easily stood the test of time.
The author of more than 20 books on topics as diverse as the Vietnam War, the modern civil rights struggle, the decline of the American auto industry, and the history of American media , Halberstam returned again and again to sports as a topic.
Although readers of The Teammates and The Summer of '49 could tell that baseball during those years had a particularly firm grip on Halberstam's heart, The Breaks of the Game remains a special work, even among the 10 of his books that I have read.
To begin, unlike many sports narratives, the story follows the Portland franchise after its memorable ascent and during what ultimately became a lengthy decline. As a result, the triumphant moment, while still present in the book, is a reminder of past and rapidly receding glory, rather than the culmination that precedes the tidy wrap up and update in the Epilogue.
In additon to the narrative arc, The Breaks of the Game is replete with vivid and memorable characters, from coach Jack Ramsay, whose inability to accept losses affect his mental health and relationships with his friends, to power forward Maurice Lucas, whose physical style of play is vital to the Blazers' success yet who, like an earlier Shawn Marionon the Mike Dantoni-era Phoenix Suns, feels unappreciated, to Billy Ray Bates, the cocky, late- season addition to the squad who helps fuel the Blazers' late-season playoff run.
The characters do not just exist on the court. Rather, Halberstam employed his relentless reporting drive with his direct knowledge of American history-he covered nearly every major story from 1955 to his untimely death in 2007-to create textured portrayals that teach the reader about the players' background and even more about their place in American society.
Bates, for example, grew up in the cotton fields of Mississippi; Halberstam ends the book with tales of his playing reverberating in that community. He also writes extensively about Kermit Washington, the enormously shy power forward from Washington, DC, whose life became inextricably linked with Houston Rockets star Rudy Tomjanovich when he punched the oncoming Tomjanovich in the face during an on court fight between teammates.
And, of course, there is Walton, the supremely talented, sharp-passing, politically active, red headed center who had one of the greatest careers in NCAA history, yet who never quite delivered on his enormous promise in the NBA because of his recurring injuries.
These portraits add tremendous richness to the book because they provide far deeper context than one usually sees in accounts of sporting games-I'm about halfway through Dan Rooney's My 75 Years with the Pittsburgh Steelers and the NFL and don't know if I'm going to be able to make it for that reason.
The Breaks of the Games also has many memorable moments.
Some are of unintentional cruelty. Halberstam describes how a surgeon tells Geoff Petrie, a former Rookie of the Year and an early Blazers star, that he will never play basketball again, and then a second later exults at getting to meet New York Jets quarterback Joe Namath.
Others are humorous.
Halberstam's description of how glowering power forward Lloyd Neal, leapt up from the bench after Lucas blocked a Kareem Abdul-Jabbar sky hook ,and yelled, "Take that, motherfucking cuckoo!" to a startled and uncharacteristically silent Jack Nicholson, remains one of my favorite of all time. The exploits of the outrageous Marvin Barnes, who showed up just before game time in a mink coat with his uniform underneath are similarly entertaining.
In short, the book is an utter treasure, and not just for sports fans (although hoops fans who have not yet read The Breaks of the Game are in for a real treat.). So, while checking out the latest exploits of Roy, Aldridge, Oden, Outlaw and Co., or for those who are simply looking for a greater, check out The Breaks of the Game.
You will not be disappointed.
March 2, 2011
"The Cuckoo Man was Jack Nicholson, the movie star, a devoted follower of Laker basketball who had a seat right next to the Laker bench. In the championship season, when Portland had played Los Angeles, Nicholas had thus sat only about three feet away from the last man on the Portland bench who, in this case, happened to be Lloyd Neal, and everything that Nicholson said, every cry praising Kareem or belittling Walton, thundered in the ears of the Portland players. It was as if he had been chosen by the gods to bedevil them. At the halftime the Portland players had filed into the dressing room and one of the other players, impressed that so famous and yet now so manic a presence was seated so close to them, asked Ice if he knew who his neighbor was. No, he said, who? "Jack Nicholson, Ice," someone had answered. "You mean the little fellow, not much hair?" Neal asked. "Yes." "Who's he?" "A movie star. Did a picture One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest." "Oh yeah," said Ice, "I know who he is, that guy." The others were not so sure whether Neal had seen the movie or not, they could never tell about Ice, whether he was smarter than they thought but playing dumb, or dumber than they thought but playing smart. In the second half Nicholson had kept up his cheering, loud, partisan, a noise which fell relentlessly upon the Portland bench. Then, late in the game, at a crucial moment, the game hanging in the balance, the Lakers had made a run and Kareem had gone out for a shot and as he did, Walton had gone up too and he had blocked it, and even as Walton reached the apex of his jump, his hand outstretched, the entire Portland bench had been aware of an even more dramatic moment: Lloyd Neal rising up out of his seat, huge now, intimidating, a great dark-visaged figure pointing a massive and threatening finger in a massive threatening hand at the suddenly tiny Nicholson. The others had watch this tableau, it seemed frozen in time for them, as if to symbolize the team's new invincibility, that they would not be beaten, not by Kareem, not by Los Angeles, not even by rich and celebrated actors, for there was Ice screaming at Nicholson, "Take that, mother-fucking cuckoo!" The moment had become part of the unofficial team history, a symbol of its triumph, and Nicholson, star of Chinatown, Five Easy Pieces and other great American films, had become simply The Cuckoo Man.
January 17, 2016
Wow. This is a phenomenal book. Halberstam gets into the nuts and bolts of not just basketball, but people, society, economics, and capitalism. Halberstam is A) a flat out great writer B) a compassionate progressive soul C) smart as heck D) an amazingly astute observer of life and people.
Writing about the Portland Trailblazers circa 1980, he delves into the Blazers' players, management, and ownership. Often times he uses these great long story arcs and background expositions that helps bring life and color to all the protagonists. You get a true feel where people are from, their mentalities and why they are doing what they are doing, the inner politics of the league, the grinding crushing nature of the season, and also a hard look at how unrelentingly cold and brutal the NBA is as a business.
What's amazing is that you don't feel Halberstam is kowtowing to anybody, he isn't writing nice things so he can keep and maintain access to stars and NBA insiders. No, you really feel he writes what he sees and what he thinks without reserve.
Great book. Highly recommend it.
Writing about the Portland Trailblazers circa 1980, he delves into the Blazers' players, management, and ownership. Often times he uses these great long story arcs and background expositions that helps bring life and color to all the protagonists. You get a true feel where people are from, their mentalities and why they are doing what they are doing, the inner politics of the league, the grinding crushing nature of the season, and also a hard look at how unrelentingly cold and brutal the NBA is as a business.
What's amazing is that you don't feel Halberstam is kowtowing to anybody, he isn't writing nice things so he can keep and maintain access to stars and NBA insiders. No, you really feel he writes what he sees and what he thinks without reserve.
Great book. Highly recommend it.
June 1, 2021
Many of the black players, drafted involuntarily to this distant and alien timberland, populated as it was primarily by white people, came to love it. They loved Oregon because of its natural beauty, because life was easier here, because the people were so pleasant, because it was an easy place to raise children and because they remained well known long after they played their last game. Several years later they were still Blazers, and still a mark for autograph hunters. They stayed on after their careers were done, heroes of the past, beneficiaries of the civic madness. Those who were black and stayed on knew there was something of a trade-off. They were the favorite sons of a white city...sometimes, Herm Gilliam thought, there was a price to pay for that cultural isolation: Jai, his four-year-old son, for example, thought that because his father often revisited Atlanta, where he had once played and where most of his friends were black, all the black people in the world lived in Atlanta and all the white people in the world lived in Portland. So there was a certain ambivalence...but there was something else they loved about Portland, and that was the sheer physical beauty of the place. Many of them had never seen anything like it before- the mountains, the forests, the rivers- they had heard of land like this but it always seemed to be something that would belong to white people. Here they had a share of it.
Some have called David Halberstam's The Breaks of the Game (1981) the best book ever written about basketball. I know that a number of my friends here on Goodreads will probably shrug their shoulders politely at that assertion- and honestly, if you don't like basketball even a little, this probably isn't a book for you. After all, chances are that you couldn't talk me into reading even the greatest book ever written about, say, cricket or golf. I'm also not in any position to judge this book as the greatest of its kind, having only ever read one other book on basketball (Sacred Hoops by Phil Jackson- not very good), though it's hard to imagine anything out there being significantly better. Halberstam was a serious journalist who among other accomplishments reported perceptively on Vietnam, and even obsessive basketball fan Bill Simmons, in his introduction here, sounds vaguely puzzled as to why Halberstam decided to write about sports. In any case, Halberstam is a much more restrained and sober journalistic presence in his own writing than, say, Thompson or Mailer were, but The Breaks of the Game nevertheless reads like one of the nonfiction novels his contemporaries were known for; using a series of anecdotes and character portraits, Halberstam tells the story, as the description here reads, of "one grim season (1979-1980) in the life of the Bill Walton-led Portland Trail Blazers"- except that's not quite correct. Walton- the idiosyncratic, red-headed, Grateful Dead-listening, vegetarian 6'11'' center, who alienated some fans and gained others with his outspoken politics, answering his phone with the words "impeach the president" until becoming, as he put it, "a born-again capitalist"- did lead Portland to the championship, but that was in the summer of '77. The Blazers then started the '77-'78 season with the nearly historically-good record of 50-10, playing a team-oriented style that relied heavily on passing and ball movement, until Walton's foot started bothering him. He attempted to come back in the playoffs with the use of painkilling injections, and ended up breaking his foot. He blamed Portland's training staff, demanded a trade, and by the '79-80 season, he was playing for San Diego.
But thankfully there is a lot more to this book than Walton (who didn't necessarily strike me as the most sympathetic figure). It's full of memorable characters like Maurice Lucas ("Luke"), a power forward who grew up in a dangerous part of Pittsburgh, for whom "there was always a thin sharp edge to things." Walton's departure probably left Lucas as the most talented player on the team- he was also the most outspoken, contrarian, influential and underpaid, a mixture that didn't augur well for team unity.
He was very political, a strong and independent man sprung from circumstances that could also create great insecurity. There was about him a constant sense of challenge; everything was a struggle, and everything was a potential confrontation...the edge was always there, Luke was always testing. He was at once an intensely proud black man, justifiably angry about the injustice around him, and a superb and subtle con artist, a man who had in effect invented himself and his persona- Luke the Intimidator.
Lucas eventually got his trade and his money, but he never again played on a great team. We also meet Lionel Hollins, Lucas's closest friend on the team, who hates cold weather so much that he has it written into his contract that he can void any trade to a cold-weather city (the Blazers try to trade him to Chicago during the season, and Hollins nixes it). Hollins is soft-spoken, but sympathizes with his friend Lucas, and believes that the Portland media deifies the Blazers' monomaniacal coach, Jack Ramsay (when asked how he was going to stand all the rain in Portland, Ramsay responded, "in the basketball season, I don't have time for the weather"). Another Blazer, Kermit Washington, grew up in the DC area and essentially willed himself to become a professional basketball player, putting in grueling hours and weeks and months with a coach who took him on pro bono. When we meet him, he's trying to deal with the notoriety of having, with one punch, nearly killed a player named Rudy Tomjanovich during a game. Halberstam is equally good with figures on the fringes, such as the TV exec Roone Arledge, who takes what he learned from marketing basketball and applies it to "real" news, maybe in some small part setting the stage for the attention-monopolizing dystopia we live in today.
...he now had the perfect story with which to drive up ABC's ratings. Iranian students had in early November taken sixty-five American citizens hostage at the Tehran embassy. It was, he knew immediately, a great television story, intensely human with grave international implications, and best of all, with great pictures. As a man whose roots were in sports, where the instinct was to do things live and exploit them, rather than in the soberer world of news, he sensed the potential and was determined to make ABC the station to which hostage buffs would automatically turn.
Halberstam uses these personal stories to explore race, class, drugs, fame, and the organization of labor. He was lucky or maybe savvy enough to capture a transitional moment in basketball- when it was turned by TV, seemingly overnight, from a sport primarily enjoyed live, by a small number of passionate fans, to a mass entertainment with millions of dollars at stake. But also a sport that, unlike baseball or football, had no real place in national myth; a predominately black sport, being marketed to predominately white fans.
It's a book about nostalgia, as well. And as we follow the Blazers through their dispiriting season, through early practices, unfamiliar hotel rooms and late-night odysseys for postgame meals in alien cities, and as losses, injuries and contract disputes pile up, we see how the memory of that one championship season, in which all the pieces of the team came together to create something kind of beautiful, becomes harder to let go of. Athletes tend to have shorter careers than most of us, but these days I can at least look at Lebron James, who's my age, see that he's still playing, and remind myself that I'm not old (I'm planning the beginning of my midlife crisis for the day he retires). But in the era in which Halberstam was writing, it really sounds like most NBA players were done by their early 30s. And so this is also a story about how fleeting one's prime can be, whether in athletics or in any other walk of life. How do we keep going when we suspect that the best is behind us?
Oh, there's also a great Jack Nicholson anecdote that some kind soul has typed out here.
September 2, 2016
I told my dad I was reading this book because its reputation precedes it as one of the best sports books ever written. His matter-of-fact answer: "well, that's because Halberstam is one of the best writers ever." 362 pages later, I can't help but agree. He may not be a hoity-toity modernist prose stylist like those names more often thrown around as candidates for that prestigious title, but he does possess a unique gift to seamlessly interweave logistics and information (about everything conceivable, such as the delicate structure of Bill Walton's foot) with emotional human stories (such as how a uniquely damage-prone foot affects the day-to-day life of a restless, athletic soul like Bill Waltoin). After I finished it, I gave this book to my dad to read, and soon enough found myself reading over his shoulder on an airplane. It sucks you in and doesn't let go. And to think that Halberstam's sportswriting was his hobby, done for fun years after he had already won his Pulitzer? That's like Dr. J winning an NBA championship as part of a high-flying Philly team in 1983, long after his legendary years on the Nets were a distant memory. Incredible.
August 26, 2009
I bought this book because I read somewhere that it was one of the greatest sports books ever written. Halberstam is a good writer and a master of the vignette. He does a great job of giving a sense of his subjects in just a few pages. Still, I'm not that interested in Bill Walton, who figures large, and I wasn't familiar with a number of the players. I did, however, become a fan of Kermit Washington's career.
I was surprised how dated the book seemed; the NBA of the late 70s was all black/white, and Halberstam is constantly reviewing the racial dynamics involved in the league and among the Blazers. The desires for an earlier time in pro-sports when fans were unaware of the role of agents, contracts, and players unions seemed quaint. Maybe I'm not a big enough fan to have loved this book. I had trouble getting through the first 100 pages, but enjoyed the rest.
I was surprised how dated the book seemed; the NBA of the late 70s was all black/white, and Halberstam is constantly reviewing the racial dynamics involved in the league and among the Blazers. The desires for an earlier time in pro-sports when fans were unaware of the role of agents, contracts, and players unions seemed quaint. Maybe I'm not a big enough fan to have loved this book. I had trouble getting through the first 100 pages, but enjoyed the rest.
October 28, 2009
This book is a masterpiece. It's the best sports lit/sports history book I've ever read. So much was changing in the NBA in 1979; it was the birth of the modern league. Young David Stern. Magic and Bird were rookies. Incorporation of the four ABA teams and its players. Transition to a more "black" sport, or at least a less white sport. Crazy salaries for the younger players, while older players and coaches miss out on the money. Television contracts. Expansion teams. Everything was changing and it was a time of rich cultural fermentation in the sport.
Also, being a relatively new Oregonian, this book follows the "local" sports team here in Oregon, and currently the only pro hoops team in the Northwest. In my Oregon indoctrination this book follows the Bill Bauerman book and precedes Kesey's "Sometimes a Great Notion".
Also, being a relatively new Oregonian, this book follows the "local" sports team here in Oregon, and currently the only pro hoops team in the Northwest. In my Oregon indoctrination this book follows the Bill Bauerman book and precedes Kesey's "Sometimes a Great Notion".
September 26, 2023
Halberstam is an astute observer of the human condition - and in this book, not just the Blazers, but the NBA as a whole. This book truly had to be groundbreaking when it was released.
September 2, 2020
Along with the focus on the Portland Trailblazers as a team, Kermit Washington, Bill Walton, Jack Ramsey are the featured characters during the 1979-1980 season. The Blazers were the NBA Champions just two years prior. Then they had a disappointing season in 1978-1979 losing in the first round of the playoffs to the Phoenix Suns. Bill Walton sat out the entire year due to a contract dispute.
As you may have guessed by the title the 1979-1980 season featured in the book went even further downhill for the Blazers. Walton was traded away and many players became tired of Dr.Jack Ramsey’s exacting coaching style.
Halberstam is one of my favorite non-fiction writers of all time; sports, wars or civil rights he simply could write about anything. Despite his captivating writing style and impeccable research, the problem with this specific book is its lack of timelessness and dare I say general lack of relevance. It was published quickly after the Blazer’s disastrous season. Well it just so happened that 1980 was a seismic shift in the NBA with the introduction of Larry Bird and Magic Johnson. They helped lead the NBA into the modern style of play that was so well suited for great television. Halberstam missed this pivotal story and instead focused his story on a sub .500 team.
4.0 stars but only because the writing is so good. My brother and I were at our peak in collecting baseball and basketball cards in 1979 so I remember all of these players in the book and Halberstam admittedly goes awfully deep when discussing players like Lionel Holland and Bobby Gross. I feel like for casual basketball fans or much younger readers none of these names would resonate.
As you may have guessed by the title the 1979-1980 season featured in the book went even further downhill for the Blazers. Walton was traded away and many players became tired of Dr.Jack Ramsey’s exacting coaching style.
Halberstam is one of my favorite non-fiction writers of all time; sports, wars or civil rights he simply could write about anything. Despite his captivating writing style and impeccable research, the problem with this specific book is its lack of timelessness and dare I say general lack of relevance. It was published quickly after the Blazer’s disastrous season. Well it just so happened that 1980 was a seismic shift in the NBA with the introduction of Larry Bird and Magic Johnson. They helped lead the NBA into the modern style of play that was so well suited for great television. Halberstam missed this pivotal story and instead focused his story on a sub .500 team.
4.0 stars but only because the writing is so good. My brother and I were at our peak in collecting baseball and basketball cards in 1979 so I remember all of these players in the book and Halberstam admittedly goes awfully deep when discussing players like Lionel Holland and Bobby Gross. I feel like for casual basketball fans or much younger readers none of these names would resonate.
March 14, 2021
A mandatory read for any true basketball fan. One of the most satisfying and densely pleasurable books I've ever read.
The set-up--Halberstam spends a season with the 1979-80 Portland Trailblazers, three years after their championship season, after the transcendent Bill Walton has left the team--may not sound particularly enticing to the modern fan, but the scope of the book is so much wider than just the 1979-80 Blazers: Halberstam goes deep on race in the league, the former quotas college and pro teams had on how many black players they would play at one time, the power of television over the league and its owners, the evolution of the superstar and superstar contract, the intra-team jealousies over contracts and minutes, the struggles to unionize the players, the racial and value judgments in classifying basketball played "the right way," the arrival of Bird and Magic, the dominance of Kareem, the hypnotic genius of Julius Erving, the power of Moses Malone, the dignity of Lenny Wilkins, the ruthlessness of Red Auerbach, the will to succeed of Kermit Washington, the monomania of Jack Ramsay, the shady recruiting tactics of Jerry Tarkanian, the fleeting magic of the early-70s Knicks with their giants, Frazier, Bradley, Reed, the neuroticism of Dennis Johnson in Seattle, Rudy Tomjanovich getting punched in the face and almost dying, and the beer-and-cigar stink of the Boston Garden.
It’s a book about one season with one team but it’s also, somehow, about everything in basketball, and remains incredibly relevant 36 years after it was first published. I can't recommend this book highly enough to basketball fans.
The set-up--Halberstam spends a season with the 1979-80 Portland Trailblazers, three years after their championship season, after the transcendent Bill Walton has left the team--may not sound particularly enticing to the modern fan, but the scope of the book is so much wider than just the 1979-80 Blazers: Halberstam goes deep on race in the league, the former quotas college and pro teams had on how many black players they would play at one time, the power of television over the league and its owners, the evolution of the superstar and superstar contract, the intra-team jealousies over contracts and minutes, the struggles to unionize the players, the racial and value judgments in classifying basketball played "the right way," the arrival of Bird and Magic, the dominance of Kareem, the hypnotic genius of Julius Erving, the power of Moses Malone, the dignity of Lenny Wilkins, the ruthlessness of Red Auerbach, the will to succeed of Kermit Washington, the monomania of Jack Ramsay, the shady recruiting tactics of Jerry Tarkanian, the fleeting magic of the early-70s Knicks with their giants, Frazier, Bradley, Reed, the neuroticism of Dennis Johnson in Seattle, Rudy Tomjanovich getting punched in the face and almost dying, and the beer-and-cigar stink of the Boston Garden.
It’s a book about one season with one team but it’s also, somehow, about everything in basketball, and remains incredibly relevant 36 years after it was first published. I can't recommend this book highly enough to basketball fans.
December 16, 2011
Fascinating book! It's a conversational history of the NBA until 1981, told through the lense of the 1979-80 season of the Portland Trailblazers. As the team's season touches on various characters and issues, Halberstam pauses to explore them. Great character sketches/bios of most of the great players up until that point, the most interesting discussions I've read of the defining issues of the NBAs early years (race, TV rights, team ownership etc), as well as plenty of basketball content -- team play vs one on one, coaching styles, some great comments into the nature of the game itself, some selective play by play at key moments. The 1979-80 Blazers are an intriguing subject for the book -- an underachieving disfunctional team of resentful stars (Maurice Lucas, Lionel Hollins), players looking for redemption (Kermit Washington), aging veterans and hopeful rookies (Billy Ray Bates, Jim Paxson). Bill Walton had left the team the previous year, but together with Coach Jack Ramsey he is the central character in the book. At the close of the book (1981), the overall outlook for the NBA is very grim -- a mostly forgotten context for the rejuvenation which came with the Larry-Magic rivalry, Michael Jordan and (for Portland) Clyde Drexler (neither Jordan nor Drexler is mentioned in the book).
August 6, 2014
Truly a fantastic, fascinating book. As a life-long Blazer fan, I started the book with the hopes of understanding the roots of my hometown team. What I found was an in-depth examination of the NBA in a period of evolution and stunted growth, with the '79-'80 Blazers as a vehicle to move the narrative forward. Halberstam's coverage of racial, social, and economic actions and consequences is direct and objective and provides far more of a historical read than I had expected. As it relates to my beloved team, Halberstam balances a presentation of facts from each player and the organization at large with his own commentary and observations that only a non-Portlander could provide objectively.
Given the media climate surrounding the league and the players today, it's unlikely we'll see so talented an author with such unprecedented access to a team again. Basketball and Blazers fans alike will find this well-worth their time. Highly recommended!
Given the media climate surrounding the league and the players today, it's unlikely we'll see so talented an author with such unprecedented access to a team again. Basketball and Blazers fans alike will find this well-worth their time. Highly recommended!
April 1, 2020
Stunning - A trailblazing novel, that dared to be different and to get inside the game like no one had ever truly
Written about before at the level. Halberston takes the reader quite literally, inside the game! Whether it’s tactics, analyses both full court, half court & not the front office. Halberston even showcases the.unique skill of accurately faithfully portraying the ambience, tension, scent & sense of the game to the reader - I felt like I was in Philly, transported to a time I could smoke in the stands, gesture rudely to the officials & receive only applause.. It’s masterful work & the pages turn themselves, perhaps from the energy created by the intensity & heart that beats into the veins of the pages from a master owning his craft...
Anyone who hasn’t read this, yet has even a passing interest in Ball, needs to get this in the must read pile.. No, matter of fact it needs to be on the top of said pile - You’ll thank me later.
Written about before at the level. Halberston takes the reader quite literally, inside the game! Whether it’s tactics, analyses both full court, half court & not the front office. Halberston even showcases the.unique skill of accurately faithfully portraying the ambience, tension, scent & sense of the game to the reader - I felt like I was in Philly, transported to a time I could smoke in the stands, gesture rudely to the officials & receive only applause.. It’s masterful work & the pages turn themselves, perhaps from the energy created by the intensity & heart that beats into the veins of the pages from a master owning his craft...
Anyone who hasn’t read this, yet has even a passing interest in Ball, needs to get this in the must read pile.. No, matter of fact it needs to be on the top of said pile - You’ll thank me later.
July 6, 2018
GO TRAIL BLAZERS!
(We’re all becoming Trail Blazers fans next season. We’re all going to watch the games and then find some random book to talk about it on.((Hell, more I watch the WNBA, the more I realize its where it’s at)) K? When you get down to it, basketball, like politics, is all about aesthetics.)
Great book. It was perfect for me. The Blazers are so good, they have the best sports book written about them. This is less a story and more a hundred stories. Portraiture. It’s a group portrait by Frans Hal. That’s what it is. Basketball as a way of viewing America and its brand of capitalism. What happens when millionaires use teams as tax write offs, as well as the brown water deluge of television. Basketball was also the fastest sport to go black and Halberstam does not let up on the inherent racism that went with this.
Non-secuitor here: In this last season Nikola Mirotic, then a Bull, was punched in the face by his teammate Bobby Portis. He suffered a fracture and missed the first part of the season. When he got better he played well and quick as he could got himself traded to the New Orleans Pelicans (who would go onto decimate my Blazers in the playoffs). This scenario is mirrored almost exactly in the person of Kermit Washington, (Kerm however punched an opponent) Halbertam makes blood & flesh of Washington. How he was vilified. Guilty with no trail. Nobody came to his defense. The same goddamn thing happened with Portis. I didn’t take much notice of it when it happened, but in a small way, I too had pictured this player I’d never seen as a bad basketball man. So I’m thinking, “I was guilty of the same thing. Do I have to read a goddamn book for every situation in life? Might I be able to turn this automatic obedience of snip-sized information into incredulous curiosity?”
There’s a documentary on the 76-77 season on Youtube I wish I had watched while I was reading this. I fell asleep to it last night, it seems as artistic as it is self-indulgent. Which is fine! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fmtvc...
If there’s any Center in the league that can put up those Walton-like numbers, it’s the Bosnian Beast, Jusuf Nurkic.
Go Blazers!
(We’re all becoming Trail Blazers fans next season. We’re all going to watch the games and then find some random book to talk about it on.((Hell, more I watch the WNBA, the more I realize its where it’s at)) K? When you get down to it, basketball, like politics, is all about aesthetics.)
Great book. It was perfect for me. The Blazers are so good, they have the best sports book written about them. This is less a story and more a hundred stories. Portraiture. It’s a group portrait by Frans Hal. That’s what it is. Basketball as a way of viewing America and its brand of capitalism. What happens when millionaires use teams as tax write offs, as well as the brown water deluge of television. Basketball was also the fastest sport to go black and Halberstam does not let up on the inherent racism that went with this.
Non-secuitor here: In this last season Nikola Mirotic, then a Bull, was punched in the face by his teammate Bobby Portis. He suffered a fracture and missed the first part of the season. When he got better he played well and quick as he could got himself traded to the New Orleans Pelicans (who would go onto decimate my Blazers in the playoffs). This scenario is mirrored almost exactly in the person of Kermit Washington, (Kerm however punched an opponent) Halbertam makes blood & flesh of Washington. How he was vilified. Guilty with no trail. Nobody came to his defense. The same goddamn thing happened with Portis. I didn’t take much notice of it when it happened, but in a small way, I too had pictured this player I’d never seen as a bad basketball man. So I’m thinking, “I was guilty of the same thing. Do I have to read a goddamn book for every situation in life? Might I be able to turn this automatic obedience of snip-sized information into incredulous curiosity?”
There’s a documentary on the 76-77 season on Youtube I wish I had watched while I was reading this. I fell asleep to it last night, it seems as artistic as it is self-indulgent. Which is fine! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fmtvc...
If there’s any Center in the league that can put up those Walton-like numbers, it’s the Bosnian Beast, Jusuf Nurkic.
Go Blazers!
September 19, 2023
Far less a “sports book” the kind that might be written by a former player or coach, and far more a book on the lives of all the people in the greater world of basketball. Arguably the greatest piece of sportswriting ever composed. Most NBA players are truly complicated assholes, but really aren’t we all.
August 13, 2023
I really love this book! It touched very personal part of my life. When I was a young guy and throughout his coaching career, I loved Dr. Jack Ramsey.
I was very surprised to find out that this book is really about the teams, Dr. Ramsey coached During his professional days.
I recommend if you’re a basketball junkie like me!
I was very surprised to find out that this book is really about the teams, Dr. Ramsey coached During his professional days.
I recommend if you’re a basketball junkie like me!
February 11, 2009
Halberstam is a really good writer. He follows the Portland Trailblazers through the 79-80 season, talking extensively with coaches, players, etc. Tells a pretty compelling story. Remember that this is when Magic and Bird are just coming into the league, and noone was sure whether/how long the NBA would survive. Long, interesting story of the history of the TV contract. (Started with ABC/Arledge. He feels screwed when he feels the league unfairly moves to CBS. Invents Superstars to dig into their ratings.) Lots about Walton, his feet, how they won when they won, how he left, etc. The only thing that prevents it from being really great is that I'm not quite familiar enough with all the characters (and there's really dozens) because I wasn't following the league that much then. OTOH, such a book could probably not be written now because access to players, etc, would be much more curtailed.
Really 4.5
Really 4.5
August 1, 2012
Halberstam's The Breaks of the Game chronicles the turbulent season of the Portland Trailblazers two years removed from their Championship season.
The book doesn't tell the story of the cohesive team as much as the individual stories that make for a tediously long NBA season.
Incredible insight into the responsibility these grown men feel being paid a princely sum to play a child's game. From the coaches to the general manager to the lead scout the player personnel feel the pressure of the surmounting television money that is ever increasingly surrounding the game.
A great, and I think timeless look, at how mentally strong a human being must be to perform as a professional athlete at the highest level.
Highly recommended.
The book doesn't tell the story of the cohesive team as much as the individual stories that make for a tediously long NBA season.
Incredible insight into the responsibility these grown men feel being paid a princely sum to play a child's game. From the coaches to the general manager to the lead scout the player personnel feel the pressure of the surmounting television money that is ever increasingly surrounding the game.
A great, and I think timeless look, at how mentally strong a human being must be to perform as a professional athlete at the highest level.
Highly recommended.
March 30, 2018
Absolutely fantastic! One of, if not the best, sports books - no, books I’ve read. I’ve known of it for a long time and have enjoyed other Halberstam books, but I put this one off under the misperception that it was solely a book about one team’s season a long time ago. It’s so much more. The 79-80 Blazers are merely the lens through which Halberstam examines a league in transition, the sociology of basketball, the relationship between sports and media, and so much more. I can’t recommend this enough for anyone who enjoys sport and reading about it.
March 30, 2024
This book is great, but it has one kinda funny thing about it. It has easily the longest chapter of any book I've ever read, seriously. Like the first three chapters are 8-10 pages each or something, so far so normal right? Chapter 4 starts and 20 pages go by... 50... 75... 100!!! I was like wtf Dave! 150...200...250...300... now I'm thinking this guy is going for some Guiness world record or some shit. Turns out it he just stays on chapter 4 for the rest of the whole book... like no joke 80% of the book is one single chapter haha
August 13, 2016
Amazing how topical a book can be 35 years after it was written. I happened to be reading this when Jack Ramsey passed. I love the way Halberstam writes, telling the main story, but leaving on tangents to give you mini biographies on all the bit players involved in the story, and then returning to the main story. One of these days, I will have to read one of his non-sports books (The Fifties, The Best and the Brightest, etc.).
July 17, 2020
This books is a pretty impressive piece of sports Journalism. Halberstam is the rare serious writer who could crank out books about sports that were neither condescending nor forced. He wrote about people and how they fit into systems.
This book follows a single season of a mediocre Portland Trailblazers season. Halberstram chose the team when they were just two years removed from an NBA championship and their roster was lead by Bill Walton, a character that any writer would want to follow for a year. But Walton left to play for the Clippers before the season began. A lesser writer might have abandoned the project, but Halberstam stayed on his beat. The final product is a compelling pastiche of more than a dozen people, most of who are past their prime, but do not know it yet.
The book's biggest value is as a portrait of the NBA just before the money exploded. Some of these players were making less than a $100,000 a year. (About what Lebron James makes for one quarter of one regular season game.) The NBA in 1980 was in danger of losing its TV contract. The 1979-80 season is remembered as the the first year that Magic Johnson and Larry Bird played. They are mentioned here, but only in passing. Even Halberstram could not predict what those two guys were about to do for professional basketball.
Halberstram must have been disappointed as the season went along, and it became obvious that the team he followed for an entire season were not going to make another run at a title. But he kept working at the real story-the men making their way in this difficult time for a sport that within a decade would become one of the most powerful marketing and entertainment brands in the world.
This book follows a single season of a mediocre Portland Trailblazers season. Halberstram chose the team when they were just two years removed from an NBA championship and their roster was lead by Bill Walton, a character that any writer would want to follow for a year. But Walton left to play for the Clippers before the season began. A lesser writer might have abandoned the project, but Halberstam stayed on his beat. The final product is a compelling pastiche of more than a dozen people, most of who are past their prime, but do not know it yet.
The book's biggest value is as a portrait of the NBA just before the money exploded. Some of these players were making less than a $100,000 a year. (About what Lebron James makes for one quarter of one regular season game.) The NBA in 1980 was in danger of losing its TV contract. The 1979-80 season is remembered as the the first year that Magic Johnson and Larry Bird played. They are mentioned here, but only in passing. Even Halberstram could not predict what those two guys were about to do for professional basketball.
Halberstram must have been disappointed as the season went along, and it became obvious that the team he followed for an entire season were not going to make another run at a title. But he kept working at the real story-the men making their way in this difficult time for a sport that within a decade would become one of the most powerful marketing and entertainment brands in the world.
February 27, 2020
4.5 stars
An excellent look at basketball, life, people, racial attitudes and the culture of the late 1970s and early 80s. How times have changed, particularly in the sports world. It was almost amusing to me to read about NBA players, in 1979, striving to get paid, say, $150,000 for a year, when today they are getting $20 million and complaining that they're worth more. The author does a first-rate job of discussing the ups and downs of a very competitive sport, which basketball is, and there seemed to me to be more downs that ups, what with the pain and suffering most of the players dealt with, as well as the uncertainty of holding on to their jobs, and where they would be playing. And then, as stated above, quite a few of the players weren't paid that much. Another theme of the book was how fleeting fame can be, with players considered "old" by the time they are 30, and how they could easily be traded or otherwise cut from their teams, and then, just fade away. Many players and coaches were discussed in the book, and Mr. Halberstam did a wonderful job of telling their stories in a very personal way. I really think this is more than just a sports book, and therefore of interest to general readers as well.
An excellent look at basketball, life, people, racial attitudes and the culture of the late 1970s and early 80s. How times have changed, particularly in the sports world. It was almost amusing to me to read about NBA players, in 1979, striving to get paid, say, $150,000 for a year, when today they are getting $20 million and complaining that they're worth more. The author does a first-rate job of discussing the ups and downs of a very competitive sport, which basketball is, and there seemed to me to be more downs that ups, what with the pain and suffering most of the players dealt with, as well as the uncertainty of holding on to their jobs, and where they would be playing. And then, as stated above, quite a few of the players weren't paid that much. Another theme of the book was how fleeting fame can be, with players considered "old" by the time they are 30, and how they could easily be traded or otherwise cut from their teams, and then, just fade away. Many players and coaches were discussed in the book, and Mr. Halberstam did a wonderful job of telling their stories in a very personal way. I really think this is more than just a sports book, and therefore of interest to general readers as well.
May 3, 2020
Legitimately one of the best books I’ve ever read. A sociologist and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist decides to travel with the 1979 Trailblazers and chronicle the lives of people affiliated with the team and sport at large.
If you don’t like NBA basketball at all, then you can probably skip it. If you like NBA basketball at all, this book is transcendent.
An incredibly human look at the players, coaches, executives, agents, owners, and greater societal context of everything going on in their lives.
5/5 stars. Top 10 book I’ve ever read.
If you don’t like NBA basketball at all, then you can probably skip it. If you like NBA basketball at all, this book is transcendent.
An incredibly human look at the players, coaches, executives, agents, owners, and greater societal context of everything going on in their lives.
5/5 stars. Top 10 book I’ve ever read.
April 8, 2024
This a fantastic book about 70s and 80s basketball by one of my favorite historians of all time. My one criticism and the only reason I don't give it 5 stars comes down to it's lay out. This book is 4 chapters long. Chapters 1, 2 and 4 are each about what you would expect from a book of this length. chapter 3 is 80% of the book and just goes on and on and on. I love Halberstam and I love his writing but when Chapter 3 tells the course of a season and rabbit trails into the backgrounds of various figures and events, it just makes the book seem interminable. Oddly enough, he never does this in any other book that I've read.
September 2, 2021
Halberstam has written many excellent books but this is not one of them.
He definitely got better.
Too exhaustive, too repetitive, too willing to microanalyze the sport.
Also, the book is a bit of a time capsule with its talk of the new money, the struggling league, and the falling tv ratings.
This is is like no NBA we know today, which makes it interesting but also antiquated.
He definitely got better.
Too exhaustive, too repetitive, too willing to microanalyze the sport.
Also, the book is a bit of a time capsule with its talk of the new money, the struggling league, and the falling tv ratings.
This is is like no NBA we know today, which makes it interesting but also antiquated.
July 4, 2018
an essential basketball read
Perhaps the most interesting thing about this book is that by looking at a regional team, at an odd juncture in the history of the NBA, it nonetheless manages to encompass the whole of the sport and its relevance in America. Absolutely essential.
Perhaps the most interesting thing about this book is that by looking at a regional team, at an odd juncture in the history of the NBA, it nonetheless manages to encompass the whole of the sport and its relevance in America. Absolutely essential.
November 8, 2020
Great Read
Loved this book. Had meant to read it for 20 years but it didn't make it to the top of my list until now - my loss. Important history of the NBA in the late 70s and early 80s though the seasons of the Portland Trail Blazers. Read it - you'll be glad you did!!
Loved this book. Had meant to read it for 20 years but it didn't make it to the top of my list until now - my loss. Important history of the NBA in the late 70s and early 80s though the seasons of the Portland Trail Blazers. Read it - you'll be glad you did!!
April 22, 2021
A slog to get through with no chapters, but worth it in the end. Not about a team’s season but rather a moment in time for 15-25 people who all had very similar and very different goals.
May 24, 2023
This book is incredible but boy is it dense. Weaves from one story thread to another without any chapter breaks / divisions so can feel like a lot at times. Storytelling is unrivaled and if I was able to sit down uninterrupted and read it in a few days probably would give it 5 stars
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