Books with title Sports Illustrated: The Basketball Book

Continuing Sports Illustrated's tradition of producing best-selling coffee-table books for the holiday season, SI presents The Basketball Book, a lavish celebration of the athleticism and pageantry of both the college and professional game. With the same kind of unforgettable photographs and award-winning writing that propelled The Baseball Book, The Football Book and The Anniversary Book to The New York Times best-seller list over the past three years, this volume brings to life the legendary players, the classic action and the great rivalries of the court. In 294 oversized pages, The Basketball Book commemorates the epic teams and characters, the personalities and performances and artifacts that have created legions of passionate fans since Dr. James Naismith nailed up a peach basket and devised the Original 13 Rules of the game more than 100 years ago.

The history of college basketball is a tale of giants (Mikan, Russell, Alcindor), mammoth personalities (Wooden, Knight, Krzyzewski) and larger-than-life moments (N.C. State's upset in 1983, Laettner's shot in 1992 and, just last year, Butler's near-miss at a championship miracle). With over a half-century of experience covering the game, Sports Illustrated is uniquely positioned to tell that story, and in 256 super-sized pages, continuing in the tradition of its annual sport-specific coffee-table series, it has found just the right format to capture the enormously entertaining wonder of it all. Hall of Fame writers, including Frank Deford, Curry Kirkpatrick, Alexander Wolff and Gary Smith, have covered all the great back-door plays, morality plays and passion plays of perhaps our most emotional sport. They were there for North Carolina's triple overtime takedown of Wilt Chamberlain and Kansas in 1957, for Texas Western's historic upset of Kentucky in 1966 and for Villanova's brilliant upending of Georgetown in 1985. Having chronicled all the madness from the fall (Midnight) through the spring (March) year after year, SI's award-winning photographers have captured the indelible images of buzzer-beating shots, of court-storming celebrations and of some of the world's largest men bawling over heartbreaking defeats. Those memorable stories and pictures are presented here as never before in this magnificent, must-have book for any college hoops fan.

On the heels of the successful Sports Illustrated 50th Anniversary Book comes a spectacular celebration of professional football that will be treasured by fans of Americas Game. With the same kind of unforgettable photographs and award-winning writing that made the SIs 50th Anniversary Book a best-seller, this lavish coffee-table volume brings to life the bone-rattling action of NFL football and the extraordinary athletes who have made it Americas true national pastime. In 256 oversized pages, The Football Book commemorates the dynasties and the dominating players, the crucial plays and classic games, the personalities and performances that propelled the NFL during SIs first 50 years of publication, from a marginal, ragtag league to the biggest game in town.