Falling from Grace

by Terry Pluto

The Nat. Basketball Assoc. may have been the runaway success story in sports in the 1980s, but midway through the 1990s the league was more like a runaway train, with superstars who cant make a free throw, all-stars who give their coach a blank check up front to cover their fines for the season, & shoe companies that make commercials with a spokesman who led the league in flagrant fouls, fines, ejections & suspensions. The troubles can be seen in every aspect of the sport. In this book, coaches, owners, refs, players, broadcasters, & general managers discuss, whats going wrong with pro basketball, & whether it can be saved.

Genres: Basketball, Sports

288 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1995

About the author

Terry Pluto is a sports columnist for the Plain Dealer. He has twice been honored by the Associated Press Sports Editors as the nations top sports columnist for medium-sized newspapers. He is a nine-time winner of the Ohio Sports Writer of the Year award and has received more than 50 state and local writing awards. In 2005 he was inducted into the Cleveland Journalism Hall of Fame. He is the author of 23 books, including The Curse of Rocky Colavito (selected by the New York Times as one of the five notable sports books of 1989), and Loose Balls, which was ranked number 13 on Sports Illustrateds list of the top 100 sports books of all time. He was called Perhaps the best American writer of sports books, by the Chicago Tribune in 1997. He lives with his wife, Roberta, in Akron, Ohio."

Reviews

[W · Rating 4 out of 5]

Probably the weakest of Pluto’s basketball novels, which still means it’s a great book but it lacks something that the others had.

[Mattmiller · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is about what was wrong with the NBA. I believe it was written in 1995. Interesting to read it from today's vantage point (2010). The author is even-handed most of the time, which is a positive. Sometimes he takes the tone of a guy who's era's over and he's harping on how the new generation does things (why aren't guys shooting underhanded freethrows! Why aren't there any commercials touting great shooters!). This can be tiresome.

If you remember how dismal NBA basketball was after Jordan stepped away the first time you'll have a good handle on the context of this book. On offense you saw a lot of pick-n-rolls while the three other guys stood around on the opposite side. Overly physical defense that grinded the game to a snail's pace ruled the day (thanks Pistons and Knicks). Rookies were making way too much money with their first contracts and it was hurting their development and team chemistry. All of these points and more are discussed by a vast array of individuals that the author interviewed.

Overall a good read, if you are a basketball fan that was paying attention in the first half of the 1990s.