Parker Duff’s Reviews > Loose Balls: The Short, Wild Life of the American Basketball Association > Status Update

Mon's HW: The ABA did whatever they wanted to and didn't care about rules. The signed players while they were still playing in college and kept it quiet and broke pretty much every rule imaginable.

Weekend Homework: Reading this really showed me the difference between college and pro basketball. Certain players just can't make the jump to professional basketball because they just don't have the killer instinct and to be the best, you have to work the hardest.

THUR's HW: After reading about the pacers, I'm really impressed with Slick Leonard's coaching. He let them do whatever they wanted off of the court as long as they were able to play well in the games and if you didn't play well, you would be scared to death.

Even though it seems like I'm reading this book slowly there is just a large amount of detail. I'm thoroughly enjoying the book and the stories are fascinating.

Tue's HW: The Miami Floridians were so desperate to attract fans that they hired ball girls to wear bikinis. Many of these girls happened to be in high school, but it still drew a crowd.

Monday's HW: The stories in this book are hilarious. The Pittsburg team was so disorganized that was picking players from the year before in one of the drafts.

It was really cool to see how the three point play was brought into the league. This completely changed coaching because before you didn't have to guard people outside. This allowed people under 6 feet tall to have an impact on the professional level.

THUR'S HW: It's crazy to think that the ABA was even able to survive when they were so disorganized that they forgot to bring basketballs to a teams tryout. Also it weird to think that a good salary back then for a professional basketball player was like ten thousand a year compared to the millions today.

It's weird to think that almost every kid had one of those red, white and blue basketballs. I'm surprised that the NBA hasn't adopted them as they would make a ton of money off of sales.

TUE'S HW: Although I have only gotten through just the beginning of this book, I already find it entertaining. I like the oral history format because it is a change from the usual paragraph structure. It is also really cool because very little is actually known about the ABA and this book sort of changed that.