I've always loved basketball but certain times over the last 15 years my love has waned. I was a Celtics fan before they got Bird so this book was exciting for me because the author is a life long Celtics fan and had season tickets for a long time in his youth seeing all the classic Larry Bird years. This book offers many things for the fan, Simmons goes over everything that is important to the game, analyzing the various great players, their records, statistics and team games. He points out so many valuable perspectives on why one guy is better than another even though you may not agree, his arguments may persuade you. He gives a lot of inside information, and little known facts about aspects of the game. (well unknown to me).
He may infuriate the Laker fan a bit because of his rabid love of the Celtics but he is also fair rating Magic as better than Bird. At 700 pages there could have been some editing seeing as Simmons uses a lot of bad language and juvenile talk that really isn't needed. I did however appreciate his analogies of the sport with various movies. There were many funny things and memorable stories, that can easily move a person to become an engaged fan once again.