What do Julius Erving, Larry Brown, Moses Malone, Bob Costas, the Indiana Pacers, the San Antonio Spurs and the Slam Dunk Contest have in common? They all got their professional starts in the American Basketball Association.
The NBA may have won the financial battle, but the ABA won the artistic war. With its stress on wide-open individual play, the adoption of the 3-point shot and pressing defense, and the encouragement of flashy moves and flying dunks, today's NBA is still -- decades later -- just the ABA without the red, white and blue ball.
Loose Balls is, after all these years, the definitive and most widely respected history of the ABA. It's a wild ride through some of the wackiest, funniest, strangest times ever to hit pro sports -- told entirely through the (often incredible) words of those who played, wrote and connived their way through the league's nine seasons.
Customer Review: Great Read, Facinating History
I can't recommend this book highly enough. I love basketball to death but have the misfortune of coming of age in the late 90's, well after the holy trinity of MJ, Bird, and Magic and WELL after the ABA.
This book is an oral history that gives some amazing insights as to how things were before the world of cable and internet and before the NBA was the marketing juggernaught it is today. It is also full of ridiclous stories about players, coaches, fans, and owners. It is facinating to see what aspects of the ABA resonate in todays NBA. Though some of the book is dated (the book was written in 1990) in terms of how things are relayed to the reader, the essense of the book has and will continue to hold up very well.
Customer Review: Best Sports Book Ever.....Probably So
What can I say about Loose Balls that has not already been said??...Probably nothing...There is a reason why Sports Illustrated ranked this book Number 13 on the Top 100 Sports Books of alltime and why it is still in print 18 years after first coming out....That reason is it's a great book that is the definitive history of the ABA and at the same time has you literally laughing out loud at times...I had more laughs reading this book than I do at most movies....Most people in other reviews have noted the principals like Fly Williams...Marvin "Bad News" Barnes....John Brisker..Pat Boone.. Julius Erving..etc..etc so I won't rehash or spoil the tales but they are memorable because they are true....Pluto's genius in putting this book together was that he let the principals tell their stories and he just put them on paper in an orderly format and let the story tell itself...No need to do anything else...I was pretty young during the ABA Days so I only remembered a little about it,but after reading this book I felt like I was there for all 9 years of the ABA....I can't recommend a book any more than I do this one...Buy this book...you will not be able to put it down once you start and I guarantee you will get a ton of laughs