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The Book of Basketball: The NBA According to The Sports Guy

Bill Simmons

4.19 · Rating details · 31,989 ratings · 1,020 reviews

There is only one writer on the planet who possesses enough basketball knowledge and passion to write the definitive book on the NBA.* Bill Simmons, the from-the-womb hoops addict known to millions as ESPN.com’s Sports Guy, is that writer. And The Book of Basketball is that book.

Nowhere in the roundball universe will you find another single volume that covers as much in s ...more

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Hardcover, 736 pages

Published October 27th 2009 by ESPN (first published May 5th 2009)

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Oct 30, 2009 William Johnson rated it it was ok

Shelves: 2009, since-joining-goodreads, hardwood-tales

Reprinted from my website Secure Immaturity:

The Sports Guy (aka Bill Simmons) is an engaging, Internet personality. He previously wrote a book that was a collection of his highly successful and entertaining Internet postings regarding his beloved Red Sox. Any fan of Simmons knows that he is a rabid Boston sports fanatic, most notably the Celtics and Red Sox. If there is any weakness to his writing it is that he is insanely biased to those Boston teams. When approaching topics from a fan perspect Reprinted from my website Secure Immaturity:

The Sports Guy (aka Bill Simmons) is an engaging, Internet personality. He previously wrote a book that was a collection of his highly successful and entertaining Internet postings regarding his beloved Red Sox. Any fan of Simmons knows that he is a rabid Boston sports fanatic, most notably the Celtics and Red Sox. If there is any weakness to his writing it is that he is insanely biased to those Boston teams. When approaching topics from a fan perspective (like the love of the game (MLB or NBA) or fan experiences) then Simmons is top notch but when it comes to overall analysis that involves perspective and objectivity, the bias comes out and makes his opinions seem less relevant.

The sad thing about The Book of Basketball is that it is Simmons gargantuan attempt at putting the NBA in perspective by ranking the all-time greatest teams and players for most of its length. When Simmons focuses on fan experiences or the love of the game he excels. The book starts out this way and is highly engaging. The prologue may be about his beloved Celtics but it describes his attendance at games, his joy at watching some of the greatest players play and sharing those experiences with his father. The next chapter focuses on ‘The Secret’, a concept Isiah Thomas explained to him about winning. Since the concept is something Simmons and the reader can remember and has (or currently is) witnessed/witnessing, the concept and portrayal in the book is equally as engaging as the opening, heart felt prologue.

The problem is the ‘objective’ analysis sections. A majority of the book is a breakdown of the 96 greatest players of all time (separated into five levels, the top being the Pantheon). This is all fine and dandy until you realize almost every Celtic ever known is on this list. I can’t particularly argue with it (as my friend and SI contributor Tony points out ‘they did dominate basketball for multiple decades) but while the Celtic players get almost heavenly like bios, other players come under scrutiny and ‘but they had this problem’. . .kind of analysis that makes you wonder if you are reading a ‘Greatest’ list or a ‘Great but. . .’ list. The nastiest trick is that Simmons pretends to be unbiased by placing his beloved Larry Bird as #5 all time behind hypothetical rival Magic Johnson (#4) and real enemy Kareem Abdul Jabbar (#3). He even references, verbatim, ’see, I’m not a homer. . .I put Magic 4th!’. But then he puts Bill Russell as #2. Despite the dominance of the man (and a respect I equally share with the author) there is no way the dude is #2 all time! Simmons even spends hundreds of pages describing how pre-merger NBA players wouldn’t stand a chance against post-merger NBA players. . .so how could Russell, a player from the 60s who had virtually no competition at his position and faced fewer (and less talented) teams be placed so high? Because he’s a Celtic damn it. . .that’s why.

The worst offender is the Greatest Teams section which is also heavily dominated by Celtics teams. I’m not saying Celtics teams from different eras don’t deserve credit but placing the 1986 Boston Celtics over the 1996 Chicago Bulls as the greatest team of all time is just plain blasphemy. And I’d like to say Simmons uses great research to back up his decision but when the only thing he can come up with is ‘the Bulls struggled in the playoffs’ (they went 15-3) and ‘the Sonics, with no bench, won 67 that year. . .that season was a joke’, I’m not really buying the argument. He derides the players on the bench (Luc Longley, Jud Beuchler, etc) as not holding a candle to Bostons’ Hall of Famers. Duh? Those ‘losers’ on the bench won 72 games and defended their title two more times. The ‘86 Celtics won 60-odd games and didn’t even defend the title the following year (which he chalks up to injuries and Len Bias’ death. Great piled it on the dead guy! Plus he says injuries are part of the game in one section but uses it as his major defense in this section). Something tells me the Bulls won more with less and did it better. Keep in mind. . .I’m an Orlando Magic fan. I got swept in the ‘96 Eastern Finals by that Bulls team.

This kind of writing suits the Internet but not a 700 page book meant to be the end-all be-all of basketball info. I picked this book up looking for excellent analysis and unbiased opinions: looked like I picked the wrong guy. Since Simmons is an Internet writer first with a gimmick (the fan’s perspective) I gave him a pass. But over 400 pages of ‘objective’ analysis is pushing it. The book does have a ‘you’ve worn out your welcome’ feel to it. The four hundred mark would have been fine but this book gets old after you start entering the 600 page area. Simmons is known for his humorous footnotes and pop culture references but they also overdue there welcome. While I enjoyed the experience overall, I think it would have behooved the Internet writer to make his first foray into book writing be less gargantuan and interested mainly in his gimmick/expertise. I never could trust Simmons for objectivity before and I certainly can’t trust him now.

This is a hard one to recommend. If Simmons’ ESPN articles are PG/PG-13 then this book is Rated R. There is some foul language, an unbelievable amount of dick jokes and the ability to rip apart anyone he wants without input from his web hosts and employers. Simmons spends one chapter comparing Bill Russell (Celtic) and Wilt Chamberlain. The goal, in the beginning of the chapter, was to compare why Russell was a better winner and player then Wilt despite statistics to the contrary. Instead it ends up being how much of an asshole Wilt was and how bad of a person he was. In the end I felt bad for Wilt even if some of the things he did were pretty assholeish (new word). This is not objective writing. . .this is ‘academic’ bashing.

I admire the amount of work that went into the book but despite the 700 pages it does feel like it is missing something (besides credibility and objectivity). I feel that for a book its size it should have more to it then just a bunch of lists and random analysis. I also feel that the book should have been a)edited better (there are myriad amounts of typos towards the end which proved the book was being rushed) and b)released later. To release a book after the 2009 Playoffs (the transcripts were written before or during the Playoffs) where major arguments (especially about Kobe and Dwight Howard; The Lakers and Orlando Magic) are made is asking for trouble. The book’s release date made some of the book instantly obsolete. And why not just change all of the transcript? Simmons adds an epilogue focusing on the ‘09 Finals and a few footnotes showing how the transcript was made false by the Playoffs. Why? Just change a paragraph here or there. Ugh. . .it was frustrating and doesn’t make a lot of sense.

Oh well. . .you get a decent book here. But when you sit down and lug around a 700 page book I want a large amount of quality, not a large amount of mediocrity. Enjoy at your own risk if you are a fan of basketball or of a specific team. If you are a fan of the Boston Celtics then this is God’s gift to you. ...more

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Nov 03, 2009 Joe rated it it was ok

Shelves: 2010

Ultimately, a pretty disappointing book. As a big fan of the Sports Guy's columns about the NBA, I thought I would be laughing from beginning to end and learning a lot. Neither turned out to be true. By expanding upon the worst parts of his columns - his obsessive biases towards certain types of players and teams - and mostly ignoring the profound insight he usually incites with his biting humor, Simmons comes off as someone who spent too much time watching pro basketball and now can do nothing Ultimately, a pretty disappointing book. As a big fan of the Sports Guy's columns about the NBA, I thought I would be laughing from beginning to end and learning a lot. Neither turned out to be true. By expanding upon the worst parts of his columns - his obsessive biases towards certain types of players and teams - and mostly ignoring the profound insight he usually incites with his biting humor, Simmons comes off as someone who spent too much time watching pro basketball and now can do nothing but rant about it. I wanted to learn about all the great players of history in this book, but instead I mostly learned what Simmons thinks is wrong with them.

It's clear that Simmons has thrived online due to the work of his editors in corralling his babbling and refining his humor. The supposedly hilarious footnotes in this book consist of nothing but bad porn star humor, bad 80's movie humor, and Simmmons making jokes about how he can't stop making porn star and drug jokes. It is to our great benefit that ESPN keeps this boorish immaturity out of his columns. I began glazing over them about halfway through the book. I thought, perhaps, that I was just on Sports Guy overload, but I kept reading his columns online while I read this book, and they continued to make me chortle. By the last section, "the best teams ever," I was skipping pages entirely, as it was obvious that Simmons was just blasting out whatever it took to prove his favorite team of all time, the '86 Celtics, were also the best team of all time.

You could pick apart this book's rhetoric from many different angles, but I think it can be nicely summarized by saying that Bill Simmons is a second rate writer who, because of the popularity of his humor and his honest insights, has been tricked into thinking he is in the upper echelon. The best parts of this book are when Bill quotes other writers. But just because you hang out with Malcolm Gladwell and Chuck Klosterman (and get them to contribute amazing passages to your tome of rants) doesn't mean you can keep up with them on the page. ...more

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Apr 12, 2010 Paul Mcleod rated it it was ok

When Chuck Klosterman and, of all intellectual giants, Bill Walton can destroy the theoretical foundation of your 700-page book's analysis in ten pages worth of cameos...well, it's probably asking too much for you to admit that you wasted the last two years of your life and start over from scratch, but that's probably what you should do. The Book of Basketball works alright as entertainment, though the expanded license for dick jokes fails to enhance Simmons' humor much, but as a work of analysi When Chuck Klosterman and, of all intellectual giants, Bill Walton can destroy the theoretical foundation of your 700-page book's analysis in ten pages worth of cameos...well, it's probably asking too much for you to admit that you wasted the last two years of your life and start over from scratch, but that's probably what you should do. The Book of Basketball works alright as entertainment, though the expanded license for dick jokes fails to enhance Simmons' humor much, but as a work of analysis, it's a complete waste. In what field besides sports could someone claim to be an expert on a widely discussed subject without even attempting to engage the latest rigorous research devoted to it? Wait, Sarah Palin, don't answer that.

Most every potentially interesting position Simmons takes depends on just-so stories or special pleading or just plain circular logic. The Bill Russell vs Wilt Chamberlain chapter has been widely deplored, and rightfully so. I became viscerally angry as I read it. Most of the player-ranking section is less maddening, but the bit at the end in which Simmons ranks the top teams in NBA history sets our teeth to gritting once more. A more accurate and less risible version would've been called "Top NBA teams that Bill Simmons enjoyed watching or, having not been alive to see them, enjoys the idea of watching." Not a very interesting list, sure, but at least it would have been honestly labelled.

Nothing is as dumb as the Isiah Thomas / "The Secret" story, though (no, not that Secret. It's a different Secret that applies only to the NBA). He'd teased the story in his column for years, and I was fully prepared to have my mind blown. And then it turns out to be a fairly uneventful conversation between three minor celebrities about the fake almost-fight that two of them had, which culminates in the earth-rending revelation that BASKETBALL IS A TEAM SPORT. I could see how, if you were Bill Simmons, this whole episode might have seemed a bit surreal, but to a third party it's not that astonishing at all.

Or at least Simmons lacks the ability, even though he strains, to convey the surreality and astonishment to we the reading third parties. And that's the main problem: Bill Simmons is at best a competent writer. He's agreeably conversational for the most part, and he has excellent comic timing (although if you've read many of his columns you can anticipate his rhythms as they unfold by now), but eliciting emotional responses is beyond him and has always been. So is producing prose that is a pleasure to read just for its construction (a rare gift, sure, but one that Klosterman possesses so obviously that his one-page passage makes the text around it seem little but a vast ashen wasteland). Simmons knows this, and apologizes for it frequently, but the best apology would have been to abstain from mediocrity in the first place. ...more

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Dec 05, 2009 Andrew rated it it was ok

It's incredibly entertaining at best, infuriating and a drunken digression at others. Simmons views himself as an expert, and that comes through on every page - whether in his decision that John Stockton played in era of "inflated assists" or his condemnation of the last twenty minutes of NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN. He's just not that smart, frankly. In both cases, he makes specious claims and then moves on to more specious claims or backs them up with statistics that are supposed to be taken at fac ...more

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Apr 07, 2012 Doug Stotland rated it it was amazing

Shelves: sports

If you're a huge NBA fan, a guy, are between the ages 40 and 48 (as of 2012) and have watched an insane amount of TV and movies this is a no-brainier 5 star book(1). Otherwise I don't think you'll like it.

I haven't enjoyed a book this much in a very long time. Malcom Gladwell nails it in the forward here he says Bill Simmons is what you would be if you had endless hours to devote to being a fan. Bill Simmons is hilarious + his love of the NBA and his ability to create analogies from random stuff ...more

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Dec 18, 2009 Jake rated it really liked it

Here's the problem with being a huge fan of a prolific columnist: When you've read every single word a guy has squeaked out for 7-plus years, you start to know all his (or her, I suppose) jokes, all their beats and all their tendencies. You lose the element of surprise.

So when it was announced that The Sports Guys new basketball book was more than 700 pages, I cringed. Not sure if I could take that many pages of Karate Kid jokes and Celtics handjobs. My infatuation with the guy has died wuite a ...more

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Jan 10, 2010 Hilary rated it liked it

I have to confess that finishing this book felt like something of a chore. At 700 pages, you really have to love basketball, or Bill Simmons - or both - to get through it. I like basketball a lot, but I can't pretend to have followed it very closely, historically. The Book of Baseball would have been an easier read for me, because I already know more about the main characters. I started this months ago and plugged away, plugged away, finally devoting the better part of a weekend to finishing it. I have to confess that finishing this book felt like something of a chore. At 700 pages, you really have to love basketball, or Bill Simmons - or both - to get through it. I like basketball a lot, but I can't pretend to have followed it very closely, historically. The Book of Baseball would have been an easier read for me, because I already know more about the main characters. I started this months ago and plugged away, plugged away, finally devoting the better part of a weekend to finishing it. I told myself, "You bought this book, now read it!"

And why did I buy it? I do love Bill Simmons. Or, at least, I did. I think I need a little break from him, for the time being. His writing is much better suited to (relatively) pithy internet columns. In this book, he makes too many jokes about his forthcoming Pulitzer for any of them to be very funny. And enough jokes about the inevitable publication of "The Second Book of Basketball" to make me nervous. I need a two-week vacation from any sentence beginning "The Mount Rushmore of [obscure pop culture reference:] would have to include...."

But he IS entertaining, and that's why I stuck with it. I definitely learned a lot about a sport of whose history I was fairly ignorant. The huge middle section of the book is devoted to the ranking - and detailed analysis - of the players Simmons deems the 96 greatest of all time. Ninety-six! (He's leaving room for four more to emerge in the modern era.) He starts with #96 and works his way up, so it was somewhere in the eighties that I lost steam and gave up for a while. However amusingly written, it is really hard to read pages and pages about Arvydas Sabonis and Cliff Hagan if you knew next to nothing about them, going into it. But once I renewed my commitment to finish the damn thing, his countdown grew more and more interesting, as we entered the territory of players with whom I was more familiar. A statistical comparison of Bailey Howell and Bobby Dandrige is tough going for me, but by the time I reached Simmons' Top 30 I was much more interested.

Here's the thing, though: Simmons ends his book by assembling - with the previous 650 pages as evidence - The Greatest Team of All Time. He's not just picking the twelve greatest players, of course, but the twelve who would best function together, complementing each other and assuring victory. And guess what? He picks all post-merger players. Going back to his Top 96 ranking, he included Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, Jerry West, Oscar Robertson and Moses Malone in his Top 12 "Pantheon" - but none of these merit inclusion on his Greatest Team Ever roster. Not even on the bench. The reason is obvious: we aren't confident that their game would translate to the modern era. I understand that, and I even agree. But what, then, is the point of ranking those top 96 all on one scale, if we're admittedly judging them on completely different criteria? And, since this list takes up 300+ pages, the obvious next question is: What is the point of this goddamn book?

Simmons finally comes close to offering an answer, in his epilogue: he visits Bill Walton at his San Diego home and, in the course of their conversation, Walton jokes about being known to later generations as "Luke's dad." Simmons is enraged, but his motivation for writing this book comes into clearer focus for me, as the reader. He just wants us to know and appreciate these guys. I don't know how many people will make it through the whole thing, but I appreciate what he's trying to do: pay homage to a sport's history, and to the men who helped it evolve.

Ultimately, I'd say that Simmons failed to convince me that lists like these - the bread and butter of his NBA columns - are anything less than wildly arbitrary. He does, however, provide a terrific reading list of the NBA-related books mentioned throughout his own, and once I finally feel the need to pick up a basketball book again, there are several on there I definitely want to check out. Just give me a couple of months. ...more

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Nov 02, 2009 Bobby Otter rated it it was ok

Thoughts (Simmons style):

Simmons must have hired John Iriving's editor to edit this book... and that's not a complement. What was the point of the Grumpy Old Editor? To not edit?

I think this is the world longest coffee table book.

The Most Valuable Chapter? Why was this in the book? This was excruciating to read...

Over all, it's hard to disagree with where Simmons ranked everyone. The only WTF ranking I saw was Garnett over Isiah and Pippen. But everything else is nitpicking.

I'm not sure I need Thoughts (Simmons style):

Simmons must have hired John Iriving's editor to edit this book... and that's not a complement. What was the point of the Grumpy Old Editor? To not edit?

I think this is the world longest coffee table book.

The Most Valuable Chapter? Why was this in the book? This was excruciating to read...

Over all, it's hard to disagree with where Simmons ranked everyone. The only WTF ranking I saw was Garnett over Isiah and Pippen. But everything else is nitpicking.

I'm not sure I needed a few thousand words about how Simmons once sat next to Jordan at a resturant. Actually, I'm positive.

Again, the editing of this book killed my rating of it. Stories are told twice, footnotes are repeated, guys are mislabeled or represented... crappy editing that absolutely killed this book. When talking about the '83 Philadelphia 76ers, when mentioning who they lose to in the playoffs next year, it says Philly in five. Apperently Vancouver and Minnesota entered the league at the same time (they didn't, Toronto and Vancouver did). These mistakes happen all the time. I know mistakes are made in a 700 page book, I expect three or five things to get past people... but twenty-five or more?

Most annoying aspect of the Book of Basketball? When Simmons starts out with quote from a former player (say Bill Bradley) discussing another player (random 70s player). Simmons tells us that this PERFECTLY describes random 70s player... and then Bill spends a few thousand words discussing random 70s player. 'hey look, I know that Bill Bradley just totally nailed Jerry West, but I'm going to lob on an extra 2,900 words to hammer home my own views on a guy I never saw play and as I said, is perfectly described by what Bill Bradley said already!'

Finally, I should say, Simmons' passion and love of basketball comes though and his endearing style makes the book hard to hate. But the flaws are too great to over come what should have been a fantastic book. The book wasn't a history of basketball as much as a review of the games great players and a few teams. I can't help but think that a "Fever Pitch" type book where Bill discusses his love for the Celtics would have been a trillion times better. I know Bill has said that this is the best book he'll ever write... but he's setting the bar far too low. ...more

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Nov 18, 2009 Jan rated it really liked it

This highly entertaining book is many things: a fan's love letter to his favorite sport (and the players and teams who made it so), an attempt to place professional basketball in the cultural (and racial) landscape of twentieth century America, and an attempt to settle arguments about what matters on the basketball court.

Bill Simmons is successful on the first two counts, but is tenuous on the third. The first is the emotion of the fan's experience; there are passages that sent shivers down my s This highly entertaining book is many things: a fan's love letter to his favorite sport (and the players and teams who made it so), an attempt to place professional basketball in the cultural (and racial) landscape of twentieth century America, and an attempt to settle arguments about what matters on the basketball court.

Bill Simmons is successful on the first two counts, but is tenuous on the third. The first is the emotion of the fan's experience; there are passages that sent shivers down my spine, particularly about the nearly indescribable feeling of watching someone like Michael Jordan or Larry Bird walk into a packed basketball stadium with very little doubt as to who would win the game in the end. The second refers to both the author's facility with pop culture references and analogies, which provoke genuine laughter page after page, but also the league's impact on the American consciousness as it has evolved since the 1950's.

Simmons provides insights into players' psychology and experience, mainly to try to explain the Secret of basketball, which is that team play and unselfishness trump ball-hogging and stats in a sport which often seems to revolve around individual excellence. Can we really say that a player like Wilt Chamberlain was great when he often obsessed over reaching various statistical milestones rather than willing his team to win at all costs? What if his teammates considered him a pain to play with, and being around him often made the game more difficult?

On an emotional level, all of these arguments make great sense, which to me invalidates the central structure of the book, which is a comprehensive ranking of the greatest NBA players from 1-96 (in addition to the best teams). As Simmons says himself, there have been maybe fifteen players who have understood the Secret. That's it. An ordered ranking of these players seems like splitting hairs, and it distracts from the central pleasure of the Book of Basketball: a steady stream of great anecdotes about inhuman talents, flashy dunkers, the kinds of men who couldn't bear anything but winning, and those who could never quite push themselves to lift the veil. ...more

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Jul 29, 2011 Derek rated it really liked it

Shelves: sports, pop-culture, owned

The Sports Guy is known for his willingness to authoritatively state his opinions in an entertaining manner featuring his parenthetical prowess, command of pop cultural metaphor, crazed zeal for his subject matter, seemingly endless encyclopedic dissertation of facts, and personal connection to the material and the reader. His 700-page tome features all of these Simmons standby techniques, as well as his signature voice, punctuated by his overactive love of footnotes and casually vulgar interjec ...more

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Jan 18, 2013 John Saylor rated it it was amazing

This book was very fun to read. It was full of everything from basketball to movies, and it wasn't just another boring informational. It reads very well, and even if you don't read all of it order, each section could be a miniature book.
Along with entertaining you throughout, Bill Simmons puts a lot of thought into his writing. He takes everything from the Hall of Fame to An All time All-NBA team. Even if you are an NBA fan yourself, and don't agree with his choices at first, he explains them i ...more

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Jul 18, 2011 Jesse rated it liked it

a lot of great basketball history almost ruined by two things: 1) a sometimes sickening love for the boston celtics and 2) finding david fosters wallace's style in a book about basketball (replete, with made-up proper noun titles, exuberant friendly narrative voice and a scholarly knowledge mixed with bawdy asides and metaphors, oh - and the dead giveaway - footnotes (not that dfw has a total claim to footnotes, but simmons uses them in almost the exact same way)... but other than these two thin ...more

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Dec 27, 2011 David Lomax rated it it was amazing

So I read this book during the basketball lockout to keep me company. And I finished just as the strike ended. I didn't buy this book as a hardcover even though I know a lot of people who raved about it. But when I flipped through it in the store, I just couldn't get myself to pay for it because the writer is such a die hard Celtics fan.

When it came out in paperback, and was updated to incorporate the Lakers winning the championship (yeah, you guessed it, I'm a Lakers fan) I saw that the writer So I read this book during the basketball lockout to keep me company. And I finished just as the strike ended. I didn't buy this book as a hardcover even though I know a lot of people who raved about it. But when I flipped through it in the store, I just couldn't get myself to pay for it because the writer is such a die hard Celtics fan.

When it came out in paperback, and was updated to incorporate the Lakers winning the championship (yeah, you guessed it, I'm a Lakers fan) I saw that the writer took that into account and it was what got me to buy it.

I'm glad I waited to read this version because obviously his opinions are updated with the recent success of the Lakers, but also there's a lot of info that's been updated (with footnotes that are clearly marked as "updated" footnotes - I would have hated to have been this guy's editor!) which adds to his opinions, even changes some (in the case of Kobe).

Look Simmons has a ton of insight that not just a long love of the game has given him. Like any expert who has insight one of the requirements has to be an obsessive attraction to the subject matter and there is no question Simmons has that. And he is an entertaining writer. Yes, many of his pop culture references will probably be dated in less than a decade, but as he points out in the book, so will the appreciation we have for the athletes we so admire... then forget after they retire.

And Celtic and Laker rivalry aside, Simmons tried to be fair when he needed to be. He rags on Kareem throughout the book... except when he breaks down his standing in the player greats section. He sets aside the jabs and writes a very clear headed, balanced assessment of his game, ranking him number 3 of alltime. No Laker/Kareem fan can really ask for better treatment than that. On other Lakers he is also insightful. His chapter on Magic is very smart as Simmons is able to put Johnson in the proper perspective not only as a great player, but someone that changed the sport... and even transcended it with his personal life. His writing throughout the book on Wilt Chamberlain seems accurate enough, but will come off as harsh to his supporters. Too bad the big guy is not alive to have his say (wonder if Simmons planned it that way!). His chapter on Jerry West was really interesting, something I wasn't sure I felt captured the vibe of the player and the franchise he played for (and where I thought one of the places Simmon's bias for the Celtics showed through). But now that I've read West's book, I had to reassess Simmon's take -- it is very consistent with the way West himself saw his own playing days!

The problem I had with the book is obvious. As a fan of the Celtics I believe the writer gives too much credit to players like Russell and Bird and even Hondo. Look all three were great players, and two of the three changed the sport, but I have a problem with Bird being ranked 5th (again to his credit, Simmons ranks Magic 4th) when arguably one of the things that Bird lacked was defense. Obviously a fantastic shooter and passer and a great teammate... but not a great defender. He was obviously... a winner and that's why I concede Bird certainly belongs in the top ten with his offensive prowess. Again, I believe that if Simmons is going to rank Bird 4th he got it right with putting magic ahead of him. Magic was a better all around player and he could change his game to fit whatever personnel and style his teammates were capable of playing. Russell is another matter entirely. He is ranked 2nd. Should he be that high? Perhaps, but still Russell dominated as a player playing on a string of great teams in a very talent light league. I don't put Chamberlain as high for exactly the same reason (and more, which Simmons goes into relentlessly).

The other place the bias shows is the ranking of the greatest teams of all time. He has the 72 lakers at 9th. I watched every game that year and I can tell you, that team was amazing. Way better than they come off on paper. I tell people, this team was so good... Elgin Baylor started on the team at the beginning of the year... and retired. But the real egregious mistake is ranking the 2001 Los Angeles Lakers as 5th all time. As Simmons points out, this team had injuries throughout the season, but come March, and then throughout the playoffs, they were unbeatable... and I mean that almost literally. They came within one game of sweeping the entire playoffs. I got to believe that may never happen again. And you want to know something, I still don't think the above covers how awesome this team was. Again, saw every game and there was no question the Lakers were going to win it all... no one was even close.

So who does Simmons rank higher: the 89 Pistons (please!!!); 87 Lakers (I agree that team is in the running) the 96 Bulls (despite their W-L record, I believe they are a bit overrated, but yes I will acknowledge they are certainly in the top 5; and... wait for it... the 1986 Celtics. C'mon... really... seriously??? Simmons actually says that the 86 celtics would have "swollowed up" the 2001 lakers. Only in Simmon's dreams. First off, I think the 87 Lakers were better, and so were the 96 bulls.

So, as you can see, I had some problems. And I focused on these problems in this review... but it takes nothing away from what Bill Simmons achieved with this book (which I certainly hope he continues to update like Bill James once did with the Baseball Abstract). In fact this book is hands down the best book ever written on capturing the sport's greatness, and all over newcomers will probably be compared to this as the first and final test. This book was so insightful... that the last year Phil Jackson coached the Lakers he handed out a few copies to chosen players he knew were hoping to be students of the game.

...more

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Aug 25, 2014 Justin Evans rated it really liked it

Shelves: history-etc

Each summer we in the United States go from having 3 great sports to watch and talk about, to having one okay sport. But sports television keeps going for 24 hours a day. I watch sports TV with lunch, but in summer, it's so boring that I often end up doing the dishes instead.

For the last three years, I've spent my summer lunches going through this book. Simmons is better than most sports journalists inasmuch as he can write more than one sentence without making me cringe, and he has a sense of ...more

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Jul 12, 2013 Markus Molina rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I'm so grateful a book like this exists about basketball. It's the basketball bible. Any hardcore basketball fan should read this ASAP. It's an in depth view of the history of the league and contains fun lists and comparisons to different eras and teams and players. It's just a lot of fun to read. I'll admit, for being five stars, the book isn't incredibly written, but Simmons makes up for it with humor and pop culture references. He throws in about 1000 Boogie Nights references, which is one of ...more

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May 14, 2011 Brad rated it liked it · review of another edition

Disclosure: I regularly listen to Bill Simmons B.S. Report podcasts and I usually read his columns on espn.com thus I'm a fan of his work.

That being said, I was somewhat disappointed with TBOB. Overall it was very insightful, but parts of it were a little tiresome. I found myself skimming certain portions - especially if they dealt with players that played in the NBA during the 50s and 60s. Other than a few interesting tidbits about the history of the NBA (evolution of the shot clock, 3-point sh ...more

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Jan 28, 2010 Nick rated it liked it

I am a fan of Bill Simmons' columns and podcasts. I also read his earlier book on the Boston Redsox.

Compared to his other work, this book was just a grind. I didn't read it so much as cross it off my todo list. At 700 pages, it is long, but I actually didn't notice myself watching the page number too much. It was more that the different rankings and lists just seem to go on forever. I also don't think the book turned out this way due to a lack of effort on Simmons' part. It just seems to not be ...more

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Jul 29, 2011 Ben rated it it was ok

Shelves: nonfiction

Don't get me wrong, I am a big fan of Simmons. Sure he's not the "best" sportswriter (my personal favorite is ESPN's Phil Ball, who covers the Spanish soccer league, La Liga) but it is easy to chuckle while reading his columns and appreciate how he weaves pop culture into his columns. His new fabulous Grantland website is also something that should be applauded.

While I enjoyed parts of this book, the problems I see with it are as follows:
1) length (750 pages) 2) parts of it merely rehash many o ...more

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Jul 21, 2012 Mike rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction

I enjoyed this book, but man a livin' - there aren't many books where you can say the author probably should have cut out 500 pages... Bill Simmons has an incredible knowledge of the NBA (current and historical), much of which is first hand knowledge (having grown up with Celtics season tickets), but even with his internet articles I've always thought he talks too long. I really enjoyed the anecdotes (which he draws from his own life, but also from all of the NBA books and interview he has read) ...more

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Feb 13, 2010 Daniel rated it really liked it

Recommends it for: sports fans, history buffs, Celtics fans

In the interest of complete disclosure, I have to say that I am one of the biggest fans of the NBA that you will find. I have been since about 1980 and I have a lot of useless basketball trivia floating around in my head. That said, I have nothing on Bill Simmons (though I would love to chat with him about it some day).

If you are a casual fan of the sport, this book is probably not for you except maybe for use as a sports reference book or some great bathroom fodder. It reads sort of like an En ...more

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May 24, 2013 Dekean Baines rated it it was amazing

This Book was actually pretty good, I thought this book would have mostly statistics on the latest player and the famous players. This book teaches you how to play basketball and how it works. Bill Simmons shared some "basketball secrets" that most people or players don't even know. Most people think you just have the skills to play basketball since you were a kid or you just can't play at all. But one of Bill Simmons favorite quote is, "But that's the thing of Basketball: You don't play games o ...more

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Jul 29, 2009 Saba rated it liked it

I love basketball and am fan of the NBA (there are a few of us out there), but my knowledge of pro basketball pre-1992 was limited, so I appreciate the book as a resource that is fun to read, well argued, and well researched. Freed from ESPN's censors, however, Bill Simmons' humor unfortunately resorted to one to many dick and tit jokes. Though in his articles he makes subtle (and at times not so subtle) remarks about how he is limited by corporate censorship, it turns out that extra work he had ...more

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Sep 03, 2015 HenryMehring rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2015-16-1st-trimester-7th

I think this book was pretty good. I like basketball and sports, and Bill Simmons is a good sports writer, having his own sports website. The book starts off about him as a young Celtics fan. Each section is kind of like a book. It includes a debate about who's better: Bill Russell or Wilt Chamberlain, and a chapter about what ifs. A big part of the book was the top basketball players of all time. It just has tons of Basketball. I liked this book, and the only downside to me is that the top play ...more

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Oct 31, 2009 Ray Charbonneau rated it liked it

Shelves: sports

Entertaining, but it's 700 pages of opinion masquerading as fact. The fact that he bails out on the history of the league when he reaches the mid-80s is a big problem. So is daring to compare his book to Bill James'. This was fun, but it won't age well. ...more

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Mar 31, 2019 Lee C rated it it was amazing

Bill Simmons knows a lot about the game of basketball. He is a very well renown sports columnist from Boston in the United States, and he has spent around 35 years of his life meticulously following the NBA, the American professional basketball league. The Book of Basketball is essentially a thought dump from Simmons: his personal opinions drive the narrative of this book, and his notable bias for Boston athletes shows in spurts. His anecdotes of popular culture television and movies, in additio Bill Simmons knows a lot about the game of basketball. He is a very well renown sports columnist from Boston in the United States, and he has spent around 35 years of his life meticulously following the NBA, the American professional basketball league. The Book of Basketball is essentially a thought dump from Simmons: his personal opinions drive the narrative of this book, and his notable bias for Boston athletes shows in spurts. His anecdotes of popular culture television and movies, in addition to his own personal events, are thrown out haphazardly and with nonchalance. But what lies with all of this is one of the most beautifully crafted combination of in-depth analysis and anecdotal evidence ever created.

Simmons has a very unique style of writing for sports journalism which utilises footnotes and a focus on popular culture references and anecdotes. The footnotes technique, in general, is mostly done in writing to cross-reference or list sources for a point or phrase that requires evidence to be given. With Simmons, it is merely used as a way to expand upon a point or phrase that would ruin the flow of the sentence if kept in the body of text. Most times, it is used humorously to introduce or extend a joke. This book is very easy to read as a consequence, and it is up to the reader's discretion as to how and when they read the footnotes. The real skill that Simmons has, which is shown tenfold in this book, is immersing the reader in his words so that it is almost as if he is conversing with you about the context, in a similar fashion to how J.R.R Tolkien's 'The Hobbit' gave off bedtime story vibes. It's easy to follow because of Simmons' expert writing talent and diction.

The pinnacle of the book, and the fruit of his labour, is the Hall of Fame Pyramid, a carefully constructed alternative to replace the existing NBA Hall of Fame. The Hall of Fame is a concept in most sports that is designed to enshrine all-time great players of that sport. To be in a sporting 'Hall of Fame', players have to be both extremely talented and successful, and have a noticeable or lasting impact on the sport (at least in theory). Simmons list his reasons for why the current model does not work for the NBA, and suggests his replacement Hall of Fame, a Pyramid style tiering system of five levels that applies strict criteria for each level. To appear in the Pyramid, you need to have met the criteria for that level. Only the best of the best appear at the top, the 'Pantheon', while other extremely skilled, 'great' and even 'all-time great' players occupy the lower levels.

Simmons really has a way to combine objective statistical analysis with subjective biased opinions that can convince the user of the legitimacy of the claims he makes. For knowledgeable fans, there is of course a disagreement in rankings of players, and in analysis of teams or events covered in the book. But to the reader, what is undeniable is the impressiveness of the body of work that is 'The Book of Basketball'. It is, simply put, the greatest sports text of all time. ...more

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Jan 13, 2019 Jason Kinn rated it really liked it

Malcolm Gladwell damns this book with faint praise in his foreword. He basically says two things: (1) this book is really long; (2) read the footnotes (implying that they're better than the text).

Yes, the book is long, but it has to be -- it is a comprehensive take on a league that has existed since 1954. And it flies by -- it's easy to pick up this book for a few minutes and find you've read 20 pages.

The allocation of space isn't what I'd like. Simmons spends 400 pages individual players in his Malcolm Gladwell damns this book with faint praise in his foreword. He basically says two things: (1) this book is really long; (2) read the footnotes (implying that they're better than the text).

Yes, the book is long, but it has to be -- it is a comprehensive take on a league that has existed since 1954. And it flies by -- it's easy to pick up this book for a few minutes and find you've read 20 pages.

The allocation of space isn't what I'd like. Simmons spends 400 pages individual players in his Hall of Fame Pyramid. An interesting concept, but when you're reading about the statistical achievements of Bobby Dandridge and George Mikan, that section can seem interminable. Less space is allocated to team-based and chronologically organized histories of the NBA -- but those were the sections I found most interesting.

Many footnotes were great. Basketball went from a time of chain-smoking stumpy white dudes (1950s) to a time where it was on the forefront of evolving attitudes about race in America (1960s) to a time of competing leagues and lots of cocaine (1970s) to Magic and Bird and Jordan and the present. Many pro basketball players had outsized egos or huge character flaws -- and others became philosophers by studying the flow and team dynamics of basketball. Reading about these guys in the footnotes made me want to read more stories, not more statistics.

Many footnotes were not so great. Bill Simmons is almost exactly the same age that I am, but he has watched a lot more bad t.v. A lot of footnotes about 90210, Friends, pro wrestling, and stupid shit like that.

Like Simmons, I spent a lot of time in the 1980s watching and loving NBA basketball. My team was the Lakers, so basketball was always relevant and interesting, and watching those Lakers teams was something I remember fondly. This book is written for people like me. And because it is written by someone the same age as I am, I am willing to forgive a lot of the tangents -- and the fact that this book is about who the author is more than most books. In the end, Bill Simmons is likeable and fun and passionate about basketball.

Oh, and one more thing. The book does not ignore what it means to be black in America. ...more

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May 21, 2020 Zak Zawaduk rated it really liked it

Simmons has a deep understanding of basketball, and I learned a great deal about the NBA and its players from reading this book. It covers past and present, players and coaches, good teams and bad, and a lot of the social context around the game. He focuses on team-oriented players and some of the fundamentals of the game that a casual fan would miss, and he walks through just enough "what ifs" and alternate player/team timelines without devolving some lazy NBA butterfly theory. The best parts o ...more

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Mar 21, 2020 Jonathan Latshaw rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

An enjoyable read if you love the NBA, it’s history, and players. Simmons is funny (and also obnoxious at times), sure. But most importantly, he gets it. He understands what makes the NBA and the game of basketball so great. At 701 pages, this book seems to just scratch the surface of what BS discussed. I mean, the man—a lifelong Celtics fan—only gave Bird like 4 pages (586-590)?!? Four pages to describe Larry Legend? And this was written in 2009... think of all that has taken place in the Assoc ...more

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Sep 02, 2017 Danny Gibson rated it it was ok

Reading this book is like arguing across the Thanksgiving table with your masshole uncle. Simmons has a truly encyclopedic knowledge of pro players, and advances one conceit about teamwork (dubbed The Secret by Simmons and later The Choice by NBA great Bill Walton [the fact that the actual athlete is more poetic tells you all you need to know]) which is called on throughout this collosal text. TBB's most troubling feature is its handling of race. Black and White American dynamics are tied to the ...more

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Jan 23, 2020 D.P. Monet rated it it was amazing

This book is about more than just a summary of the great players in basketball history. It hones in on players that placed winning above all. I knew near to nothing about basketball told like this, of concepts such as building a team with players that fit the right way through traits that can't be noted on the box score. Just by reading this book, I feel I have the edge in every bet, and also a narrative of what's going on in the minds of players, coaches, and general managers in real time. Mayb ...more

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About Bill Simmons

Bill Simmons

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Bill Simmons is a sports columnist, author, and TV personality. He rose to prominence as a columnist for ESPN's online 'Page 3' forum, before becoming editor in chief for Grantland, a sports and pop culture website and ESPN affiliate.

After a dispute with ESPN in 2015, Simmons began working with HBO; both developing a television show and continuing his podcast. ...more