The coach would spend the next two years thinking about that perfect team. Within a year they imploded, ravaged by injuries and jealousy and money and everything else that was ruining the NBA at the time. When he finally won a championship, it happened in the blink of an eye - a young group peaking at the right time, a beautiful mix of speed and teamwork, his vision come to life, a dream finally realized. Deep down, he worried his career could pass without ever finding the right blend of players. He walked the streets for hours after tough losses, frightened players with his passion, challenged them to fistfights in the locker room, never wavered in his belief that basketball should be played a certain way. The coach spent his life waiting for the perfect team. They may have lived within 362 pages of a hardcover book, but I grew up with them. It's about the influence of big media, the fans and the hype they subsist on, the clash of ethics, the terrible physical demands of modern sports (from drugs to body size), the unreal salaries, the conflicts of race and class, and the consequences of sport converted into mass entertainment and athletes transformed into superstars - all presented in a way that puts the reader in the room and on the court, and The Breaks of the Game in a league of its own.They were my friends. This is a story about a place in our society where power, money, and talent collide and sometimes corrupt, a place where both national obsessions and naked greed are exposed. Yet he is writing here about far more than just basketball. The tactile authenticity of Halberstam's knowledge of the basketball world is unrivaled. His work has stood the test of time and has become the standard by which all journalists measure themselves.

A Pulitzer Prize-winner for his groundbreaking reporting on the Vietnam War, Halberstam wrote more than 20 books, almost all of them bestsellers. More than six years after his death David Halberstam remains one of this country's most respected journalists and revered authorities on American life and history in the years since WWII. A New York Times bestseller, David Halberstam's The Breaks of the Game focuses on one grim season (1979-80) in the life of the Bill Walton-led Portland Trail Blazers, a team that only three years before had been NBA champions.

Breaks of the game