A Byzantine tale of sports, commerce and politics, nimbly shuffled by the astute journalist Larmer.
Newsweek’s Shanghai bureau chief tells dynamically the story of two Chinese basketball stars who made their ways to the NBA through the thickets of Middle Kingdom politics.
By the mid-1980s, writes Larmer, sports was a critical resource for the Chinese government. Unlike the wholesale revamping of the country’s economy, athletics provided a fast track to the global stage, raising China’s stature and projecting a sense of national ambition. As the rest of the country careened down the capitalist path, sports prodigies were viewed in the old Maoist way as state assets, destined to live and work for the glory of the motherland. Two of the most valuable were Wang Zhizhi and Yao Ming, both over seven feet tall, who between them revitalized Chinese basketball. Larmer begins with a short recounting of recent Chinese history, mainly as it affected the families of the ballplayers, and a sketch of the character of China’s sports establishment: long on duty and stoicism, short on fun, exemplified by the credo that athletes must learn to “eat bitterness.” He then turns to the gathering confrontation between the elephantine Chinese bureaucracy and global capitalism, in which sports plays a conspicuous role. When America came calling for its basketball stars, China was reluctant to lose complete control over Wang and Yao by letting them play in the NBA. Authorities eventually agreed in hopes of currying U.S. support for the 2008 Olympics bid by Beijing. Wang ultimately crashed and burned in both the U.S. and China; Yao moved on to stardom, still playing for his Chinese team in the NBA off-season. The NBA was tickled to have a bridge to the vast Chinese market; Nike thought it had one in Yao, nurturing his development for six years before blowing it by alienating his mother and her trusted Chinese-American confidant.
A Byzantine tale of sports, commerce and politics, nimbly shuffled by the astute journalist Larmer.Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2005
ISBN: 1-592-40078-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Gotham Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2005
Doesn’t dig as deep as it could, but offers a captivating look at the NBA’s greatest era.
NBA legends Bird and Johnson, fierce rivals during their playing days, team up on a mutual career retrospective.
With megastars LeBron James and Kobe Bryant and international superstars like China’s Yao Ming pushing it to ever-greater heights of popularity today, it’s difficult to imagine the NBA in 1979, when financial problems, drug scandals and racial issues threatened to destroy the fledgling league. Fortunately, that year marked the coming of two young saviors—one a flashy, charismatic African-American and the other a cocky, blond, self-described “hick.” Arriving fresh off a showdown in the NCAA championship game in which Johnson’s Michigan State Spartans defeated Bird’s Indiana State Sycamores—still the highest-rated college basketball game ever—the duo changed the course of history not just for the league, but the sport itself. While the pair’s on-court accomplishments have been exhaustively chronicled, the narrative hook here is unprecedented insight and commentary from the stars themselves on their unique relationship, a compelling mixture of bitter rivalry and mutual admiration. This snapshot of their respective careers delves with varying degrees of depth into the lives of each man and their on- and off-court achievements, including the historic championship games between Johnson’s Lakers and Bird’s Celtics, their trailblazing endorsement deals and Johnson’s stunning announcement in 1991 that he had tested positive for HIV. Ironically, this nostalgic chronicle about the two men who, along with Michael Jordan, turned more fans onto NBA basketball than any other players, will likely appeal primarily to a narrow cross-section of readers: Bird/Magic fans and hardcore hoop-heads.
Doesn’t dig as deep as it could, but offers a captivating look at the NBA’s greatest era.Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-547-22547-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2009
BOOK REVIEW
One of the NBA’s 50 greatest players scores another basket—a deeply personal one.
A basketball legend reflects on his life in the game and a life lived in the “nightmare of endlessly repetitive and constant pain, agony, and guilt.”
Walton (Nothing but Net, 1994, etc.) begins this memoir on the floor—literally: “I have been living on the floor for most of the last two and a half years, unable to move.” In 2008, he suffered a catastrophic spinal collapse. “My spine will no longer hold me,” he writes. Thirty-seven orthopedic injuries, stemming from the fact that he had malformed feet, led to an endless string of stress fractures. As he notes, Walton is “the most injured athlete in the history of sports.” Over the years, he had ground his lower extremities “down to dust.” Walton’s memoir is two interwoven stories. The first is about his lifelong love of basketball, the second, his lifelong battle with injuries and pain. He had his first operation when he was 14, for a knee hurt in a basketball game. As he chronicles his distinguished career in the game, from high school to college to the NBA, he punctuates that story with a parallel one that chronicles at each juncture the injuries he suffered and overcame until he could no longer play, eventually turning to a successful broadcasting career (which helped his stuttering problem). Thanks to successful experimental spinal fusion surgery, he’s now pain-free. And then there’s the music he loves, especially the Grateful Dead’s; it accompanies both stories like a soundtrack playing off in the distance. Walton tends to get long-winded at times, but that won’t be news to anyone who watches his broadcasts, and those who have been afflicted with lifelong injuries will find the book uplifting and inspirational. Basketball fans will relish Walton’s acumen and insights into the game as well as his stories about players, coaches (especially John Wooden), and games, all told in Walton’s fervent, witty style.
One of the NBA’s 50 greatest players scores another basket—a deeply personal one.Pub Date: March 8, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4767-1686-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
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