''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. As Halberstam follows this
collection of men through the months, through the losing
streaks and occasional victories, the endless trips and
the brutal schedules, we come to know them and their
world--the other players, coaches, and owners; the
competition, drafts, trades, and traditions; the wives,
the fans, the media connections--a world of grand
dreams, impossible expectations, and bracing realities.
The tactile authenticity of Halberstam's knowledge of
the basketball world is unrivaled. Yet he is writing
here about far more than just basketball. 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.
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. |
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