Hebrews 11:1

Despite covering the NBA in-depth with media credentials last season there are still countless aspects of the season I haven’t full grasped. Call it a case of going through my rookie season and some things being a blur, but even after being full submerged in the NBA by talking with countless coaches and players, there are still some stories I still don’t full appreciate or comprehend.

Unfortunately, watching the Boston Celtics magical march from the worst record in the NBA to being crowned NBA Champions is one such story line.

It’s not that I wasn’t aware of how special this feat was, it’s just that there are so many bylines that as a journalist based out of Toronto I wasn’t able to fully grasp all of the roster moves, hard work and luck that went into assembling last years NBA Champions.

After reading Peter May’s book “Top of the World” I now have a greater appreciation for all that went into the Celtics Championship season last year.

The book started with a chapter called “Ping-Pong History” with anecdotes about the lucky suit Wyc Grousbeck wore to the NBA Draft Lottery, how close Boston was to dealing Paul Pierce in 2007 for the draft pick which would turn into Chris Paul, how Danny Ainge was one of the few people in the Celtics organization set on building a team around Greg Oden or Kevin Durant, insight into what went through Paul Pierce’s mind when he found out Boston had secured the fifth overall pick in the 2007 NBA Draft and a look at how close Pierce came to being dealt to the Los Angeles Clippers.

The book then shifted into accounts of two pivotal deals Danny Ainge did make: the acquisition of future Hall of Famers Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett through some shrewd deals.

I’ll admit that while watching the 2007 NBA Draft at a pub in Toronto I was chuckling that the Raptors divisional rival had dealt for an aging jump shooter coming off surgery on both of his ankles. Little did I know the Allen deal was only a precursor to a much larger deal which would see Garnett dealt to Boston. The Celtics had a deal in place before the draft for Garnett, but the forward rebuked the deal because he didn’t want to turn his back on the state of Minnesota or join another team that lingered near the bottom of the standings.

Cue the Allen deal which helped Garnett and Pierce realize the Celtics were serious about turning things around in Boston.

Until the Allen deal was finalized, neither Pierce nor Garnett felt the Celtics were serious about contending for an NBA Championship. But with Allen in the mix alongside Pierce, it provided Garnett with peace of mind to see that going to Boston wouldn’t result in another season hovering in the bottom third of the standings.

What’s amazing is how close the Allen deal came to stalling. Seattle was holding firm on a package involving Rajon Rondo and it was only at the last moment they relented and agreed to the Celtics package. If this hadn’t gone through I doubt we would have seen Garnett in Boston last season. Instead, Celtics fans would have seen Shawn Marion, Pau Gasol or Jason Kidd. While all three of those players are talented and would have formed a nice trio alongside Pierce and Al Jefferson, I don’t think it would have resulted in a championship for Boston.

While it’s easy to look back at all the move Danny Ainge made and shrug your shoulders and easily dismiss what happened as just another championship, the fact that he was able to turn a team with the worst record in the NBA to it’s champions is utterly remarkable. Reading this book provided me with an opportunity to learn about how some deals almost fell through, why Ainge elected to sign certain players to the roster and how assistant coach Tom Thibodeau almost wasn’t hired because Larry Brown wanted the gig. All of these twists and turns added to my amazement that their championship season unfolded like it did.

Because of this, reading this book was like sitting down to an all-you-can-eat buffet and stuffing myself full of stories, anecdotes and insight into one of the more memorable seasons in the history of the NBA; my only complaint is that it was that my feast only last 235 pages.

When I received a copy of “Open Your Heart With Basketball” in the mail to review I shuddered when I saw a basketball with a heart around it on the cover. Who wants to read a book about basketball with a huge heart on the cover? Not this kid. My immediate reaction was dismay that I’d have to read through 100 pages of fluff because I figured that if I wanted a sappy recount of someone’s experience with basketball I could just sit in front of my television for a couple hours and watch “Love & Basketball” instead.

However, once I opened up the book and actually began to read through it I was quickly won over because of the passion Christopher Bibey has for the game despite all of the adversity he has faced in his playing career.

The biggest road block that Bibey faced during his playing career was being diagnosed with cancer during his freshman year of college. Most young men will throw up their hands in frustration and quit when life throws them an obstacle like this but instead Bibey used the life skills that basketball had been teaching him to beat cancer and he used this tough situation to build persistence, determination and devotion in his life. Bibey did a great job of informing readers about the countless road blocks that coaches and life threw at him during his playing career and how instead of getting bitter or quitting he used these events to toughen his resolve and make him a stronger player and a better person.

Throughout this book Bibey did a great job of showing how attributes like persistence, determination and devotion that are learned on the hardwood can transfer to other areas of your life like dealing with getting dumped by the hot girl you’ve been dating, not getting the promotion you want at work or any of the countless hurdles that life can throw your way.

Another reason why I was fan of this book was because Bibey did a great job of addressing the mental aspect of basketball. When I was at university one of my favourite course was Sport Psychology so I was stoked to see that Bibey addressed this topic in a chapter called “Mind and Body.” Far too often fans think that the best athletes make the NBA but they fail to realize that the mental aspect of the game is just as important. In this chapter Bibey did a great job of breaking down some ways that he overcame a lack of physical ability to have a success playing career because of his mental preparation prior to games, he explains the important role visualization had in his training and preparation for games and he did a great job of explaining to readers the struggles he faced getting his body to reawaken following his cancer treatments. I could relate to him being a player that overcame physical limitations so he became symbolic to me of a “basketball underdog” and as I read through his book I couldn’t help but root for him.

Something else I enjoyed while reading reading this book were the quotes from college coaches about what they look for in recruits and their perspective on how the game of basketball has changed their lives. Arizona Wildcats head coach Lute Olson provided the forward for the book and throughout the book there quotes from other college coaches like Bill Lilly from West Virginia Wesleyan, Ron Slaymaker from Emporia State University, Scott Lang from La Roche college and Paul Hogan from New Hampshire Tech. Bibey was able to collect some great insight into how basketball has changed these coaches lives, what they enjoy most about basketball and how they motivate their players.

Besides being a heart warming story because he was able to beat cancer and play NCAA basketball following his fight with cancer, this story is a must read for any teen that loves the game of basketball because it shows that road blocks can be a hidden blessing because they can help you grow as a player and a person if you approach adversity with the right perspective.

Earlier this month I had the pleasure of reading Bill Woten’s book “Game 7: Inside The NBA’s Ultimate Showdown” and after exchanging some emails with Bill last week he agreed to come onto the Hoops Addict Podcast to discuss his book.

Some of the topics we cover during this interview include:

• What motivated him to write about all of the Game 7′s that have occurred in the history of the NBA?
• What was the most challenging aspect of writing this book?
• What has been the most rewarding part of writing this book?
• What were some of the struggles that you faced while trying to get this book published?
• There were two quotes by Rick Fox on Kobe Bryant that explained how Bryant rubbed some teammates the wrong way early in his career and I had Bill talk about these quotes and why he chose to include them in his book.
• In a chapter called “Duel At The Garden” he talked about Dominique Wilkins being one of the greatest players of his era yet not getting all the credit he deserved because he never won a championship so I asked Bill if he thought that Vince Carter is this generation’s version of Wilkins.
• As of the 2006 season 96 playoff series were decided by a game seven. So far in the NBA playoffs only the Utah-Houston opening round series has gone seven games so I had Bill talk about if he were to include this series in the next release of your book what he would write about.

Click here to listen to this Hoops Addict Podcast.

By Ryan McNeill

After reading through Andrew Blauner’s book “Coach: 25 Writers Reflect on People Who Made a Difference” this winter I was surprised to see that Andrew had come across my site and took the time to write up an email last week to thank me for mentioning his book in some posts that I have made recently on Al McGuire. After exchanging some emails I summoned up the courage to ask Andrew for 20 minutes of his time for an interview about his book and he graciously accepted.

Some of the topics that we covered during our chat include:

• Why he choose to write a book about coaches
• What it was like to get some of his favourite writers to contribute to this book
• My favourite chapter in his book was the one that Frank Deford wrote on Al McGuire. Andrew gives listeners some insight into this chapter and why he included it even though he grew up as a Notre Dame fan
• One of the more interesting chapters was chapter written by Jane Leavy called “Coaching Bob” that deals with a woman being a “death coach” to a man. Andrew tells listeners a about this chapter and explains how this article found it’s way into the book about sports.

Click here to listen to this Hoops Addict Podcast.

By Ryan McNeill

This Hoops Addict Podcast is a gem because I was able to get Adrian Wojnarowski on the show to talk about his national best seller “The Miracle of St Anthony.” Adrian writes for Yahoo Sports and his book “The Miracle of St. Anthony” is a national best seller.

For his book Adrian chronicled a year in the St Anthony basketball program and he is able to provide readers with some great insight into Coach Hurley’s program and all of the struggles that the coach and players faced that season. As a basketball coach I loved reading this book because it gave me some great insight into one of the best high school coaches of all-time. Coach Hurley has won 22 state championships, two USA TODAY national titles and has an amazing 847-97 at a school with no home gym and a student enrollment under 300.

During this interview Adrian chatted with me about how he was given permission to document the team, some of his favourite memories of documenting the team for a season and he talked about some of his favourite players on the team.

Click here to listen to the interview with Adrian Wojnarowski.

By Ryan McNeill

This winter I had the chance to read “Ball Don’t Lie” by Matt de la Pena and it instantly become one of my favourite books. The development of Sticky was so riveting that I found myself staying up past midnight reading it because I couldn’t put the book down and I found myself rooting him on despite all of his personality quirks. If you haven’t had a chance to read this book make sure you head out to your local bookstore this weekend and pick up a copy of this classic novel.

A couple months ago I was lucky enough to chat with Matt for 30 minutes about his book and the upcoming movie based on his novel. Because of the shift from 360ThePitch.com to MVN.com I’ve had to repost some of my older podcasts and I thought this would be a good time to repost one of my favourite interviews.

Some of the topics we covered were;

* What it’s like to have Grayson “The Professor” Boucher, Sharon Stone and hottie Taryn Manning sign up to be part of this movie
* He talked about playing against Steve Nash while he was on a hoops scholarship at Pacific
* We talked about what it was like to go from being a starving writer for four years to having his book picked up by a publishing company and the rights to his movie picked up all within six months
* He talked about what it’s like to have NBA stars like Antawn Jamison write to him about being fans of his book

Matt provided some great answers to my questions and this is one of my favourite interviews that I’ve conducted for my Hoops Addict Podcast series. Bare with me as I stumble through some of my questions because Matt does a great job of throwing back some answers at me that will entertain and enlighten basketball fans.

To listen to this Hoops Addict Podcast click here.

By Ryan McNeill

For this Hoops Addict Podcast I had the chance to chat with Rus Bradburd about his book “Paddy on the Hardwood.” Rus has coached alongside two of the top coaches in the history of college hoops in Lou Henson and Don Haskins (who the movie Glory Road was based on) but he got “burnt out” with college ball and decided to head to Ireland for a year. During his time in Ireland he coached a pro team while he finished writing a book and learned how to fiddle. Instead of a enjoying a relaxing year away from stresses of coaching college ball he was drawn emotionally into a rag tag team and “Paddy on the Hardwood” is a recount of his year coaching pro ball in Ireland.

Some of the topics I had the chance to chat with Rus about include;

- His reasons for writing this book and why he decided to spend a year coaching in Ireland
- Some of the rough conditions he endured playing at The Sports Complex in Ireland
- What it was like having to have a home game moved to the other teams home court
- What it was like to go from coaching in a country where basketball is one of the lead stories to somewhere like Ireland where game recaps were barely mentioned in the sports section
- Rus had the chance to coach alongside Lou Henson and that coach disliked cursing because it showed a lack of emotional control. Rus talked about frustrating was it to hear Kieran Donaghy drop the F bomb so often
- Some of the highs and lows of having Antoine Gillespie join and then leave the team midway through the season
- What it was like to train Earl Watson and Jerry West’s son when he returned to America
- In “Paddy on the Hardwood” Rus wrote about a desire to become a writer but as I read through his book it’s clear that coaching is still in his blood. We talked about if he has any intention to return to coaching

If you haven’t had a chance to check out a Hoops Addict Podcast then this is the perfect time to check one out. Besides the great insights Rus provides listening to this Podcast will give you the prefect excuse to pop open a can of Guinness while he talks about his experiences coaching in Ireland.

Click here to listen to this Hoops Addict Podcast.