Thoughts on "The Book of Basketball"

All basketball/NBA fans should pick up a copy of this book.  Written by a guy who obviously loves basketball, it's an easy read, fun, like talking sports with a friend and arguing about what player is better or what team is better.  You pick up a lot of NBA history along the way and a lot of great "behind the scenes" stories about the great players.

Some of the major subjects are: How to improve the NBA, What is the "Secret" of winning basketball, Who are the best players and why, Who are the best teams and why, and Simmons' favorite subject, blowing up the hall of fame, starting over with his somewhat famous "Pyramid", and discussing who belongs and who doesn't.

All sports fans like ourselves love to argue about player and team rankings.  Simmons makes his cases with some good research, lots of anecdotes, some humor, and significant amounts of stats.  We all would see any such lists and cry "foul", but the point is that the arguments are the fun part.  I really hope everyone following this will try to get a copy if you like basketball.  It's a good one to have around.

Simmons ranks the 96 best players, but I'll just give you his top 20:

20. Lebron James
19. Charles Barkley
18. Karl Malone
17. Bob Pettit
16. Julius Erving
15. Elgin Baylor
14. John Havlicek
13. Moses Malone
12. Shaquile O'Neal
11. Hakeem Olajuwon
10. Oscar Robertson
 9. Jerry West
 8. Kobe Bryant
 7. Tim Duncan
 6. Wilt Chamberlain
 5. Larry Bird
 4. Magic Johnson
 3. Kareem Abdul-Jabaar
 2. Bill Russell
 1. Michael Jordan

I love writing them down and thinking about how everyone reading this will be screaming when they see rankings they don't agree with.  Now Simmons puts several pages of information on each player to back up his claim, and that is the best reading in the book.  Just a ton of interesting info on everyone to make his case.  Next is Simmons' all-time best teams:

10.  '91 Bulls
 9.  '72 Lakers
 8.  '83 76ers
 7.  '71 Bucks
 6.  '97 Bulls
 5.  '01 Lakers
 4.  '89 Pistons
 3.  '87 Lakers
 2.  '96 Bulls
 1.  '86 Celtics

Note that Simmons did not believe pre-70's teams could compete with modern teams, even Russell's Celtics.  Finally, here is the 12-man roster Simmons would pick if he had to play a 7-game series against "basketball-playing aliens" with the fate of the planet on the line:

'77 Kareem (starter)
'86 Larry Bird (starter)
'03 Tim Duncan (starter)
'85 Magic (starter)
'92 Jordan (starter)
'86 Kevin McHale
'92 Scottie Pippen
'09 Dewayne Wade
'77 Bill Walton
'10 Lebron James
'09 Chris Paul
'01 Ray Allen

Simmons' criteria was a roster of players who would play together, embrace the team, make each other better, and a team that was flexible, could play big or small, had scorers and shut-down defenders.  I hope everyone reading goes to sleep tonight steaming about why you think some of these picks are stupid.  Read the book!

S