Review of "The (Inter)National Basketball Association"

 This book was of interest for me as I enjoy watching many foreign-born players in the NBA such as Joel Embiid and my favorite current NBA player, Luka Doncic.  It was amazing to read about how the view of international basketball has changed in the past three decades.  Here is my review of "The (Inter)National Basketball Association."

Title/Author:

“The (Inter)National Basketball Association: How the NBA Ushered In a New Era of Basketball and Went Global" by Joel Gunderson

Tags:

Basketball, professional, history

Publish date:

November 3, 2020

Length:

264 pages

Rating: 

5 of 5 stars (excellent)

Review:

Basketball players from countries aside from the United States are becoming more and more prevalent in the National Basketball Association (NBA).  From Arvydas Sabonis, Drazen Petrovic and Vlade Divac to today's international stars like Giannis Antetokounmpo, Luka Doncic and Joel Embiid, the league and the sport has become better with this international flavor. That is the central theme of this excellent book by Joel Gunderson.

While the focus on this fundamental shift has been on the star players, such as those mentioned in the previous paragraph and covers an approximate thirty-year time frame, there is more to this book and its central theme than just these players.  That is clear from the beginning when Gunderson starts off by writing about Kobe Bryant and how his death shocked the basketball world in January 2020.  Now, one might wonder what would Kobe, who was born in the United States, have to do with the growth of international basketball – it was because his love of the game has its roots when his family lived in Italy.  From there, Gunderson writes with in-depth knowledge of his subjects and provides several events that aided the growth of the international game.

One factor that should be mentioned is the progressive nature of both the league and its current commissioner Adam Silver. When Sabonis became the first non-American drafted by an NBA team, then-commissioner David Stern mumbled about basketball being "America's game".  That seems odd now considering how much Stern and Silver are responsible for its international growth, but that just shows how much the league has changed in its view of international players.

The key points of when significant changes in this philosophy are well-described by Gunderson.  While there is no one single "ah-ha!" moment that can be used, several events and people are written about at length that made the growth of the game and players from other nations significant.  One is the 1992 "Dream Team" of NBA stars at the Olympics.  That was a blend of old and new stars, a few of whom were already legendary (Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan) and the players from other countries took notice of how much these players were admired and how they wanted to achieve their same status.  Then Gunderson writes about San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich and his forward thinking about overseas players when he brought in Manu Ginobili from Argentina and Tony Parker from France.  These players, along with Tim Duncan (native of the Virgin Islands, attended Wake Forest University) formed the nucleus of four championship teams for San Antonio. 

Other events Gunderson writes about that made more team officials and decision makers aware of the talent in nations other than the United States was the poor showing of the 2004 United States Olympic basketball team, the emergence of Yao Ming from China and the long-overdue realization that the game is played with the same basics everywhere, no matter the level of competition or how these basics translated into other aspects- these are the same across all platforms: dribble, pass, shoot.  One other aspect of international basketball that is addressed is how some former NBA players end up thriving overseas, such as Stephon Marbury in China.

The book concludes with nice write-ups on Doncic and Antetokounmpo (although no one refers to him by that name) and also a tribute to the 2019 champions, the Toronto Raptors as they not only became the first non-American team to win the title but also had a majority of their players born in other countries.  If one wants to read about the growth of the international influence in American professional basketball, this is an excellent book for doing so.

I wish to thank Sports Publishing for providing a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

Book Format Read:

E-book (Kindle)

Buying Links:

https://www.amazon.com/Inter-National-Basketball-Association-Ushered-ebook/dp/B084G9K6KX/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=