by Rich Cohen
First published 2024
Rich Cohen reconstructs the 1987-88 NBA season by following four legendary players at their peak. He traces Larry Bird's Boston Celtics, Magic Johnson's Los Angeles Lakers, Isiah Thomas's Detroit Pistons, and Michael Jordan's Chicago Bulls as they battled for the championship. Cohen draws from dozens of interviews with NBA insiders to chronicle the fierce competition between these superstars and their supporting casts, including Bill Laimbeer, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Danny Ainge, and Charles Oakley. The author explores how each player's background shaped their approach to the game, from Bird's rural Indiana roots to Jordan's suburban North Carolina upbringing. Cohen argues this season represented the NBA's transformation from a struggling league of anonymous players into the cultural powerhouse it became. The book captures both the on-court battles and off-court drama that defined this pivotal year, when the most future Hall of Famers ever competed simultaneously for basketball supremacy.
Genres: history, 20th-century, sports, biography-memoir, basketball, american-history
Vibes: emotional, fast-paced, thought-provoking
Tropes: rivals-to-lovers, underdog
Setting: Boston, Los Angeles, Detroit, Chicago
Period: 1987-1988
288 pages · Paperback · Random House Trade Paperbacks