The Breaks of the Game by David
Halberstam
Captures A Time And Place In A Way That Speaks To All Of Life
The Breaks of the Game is sports reporting at its finest--basketballs
equivalent to Roger Kahns The Boys of Summer. Join David Halberstam
on his yearlong journey with the 1979 Portland Trail Blazers and witness
professional basketball from the inside, where front-office egos, big-
money contracts, and the colorful personalities of coaches and players
collide, and winners and losers emerge. This insightful account is
evidence of how much basketball has--and hasnt--changed since 1979,
before the money really started rolling in.
Personal Review: The Breaks of the Game by David Halberstam
The Breaks of the Game is a great sports book.
The difference between good books on sports and great books on sports is
that the great books aren't really about sports. Ok, ok, that's not quite fair.
The Breaks of the Game expertly chronicles the 79-80 Trailblazers and

captures the ebbs and flows of an NBA season: the injuries, the mastery of
the coach, the skill of the players, the relief of NBA victory and the very
real (for Jack Ramsey, especially) pain of defeat. This is a book very
much about sports and its heroes.
But, more than that, The Breaks of the Game is about the growing pains of
the NBA as it entered its golden age--the age of Magic and Bird--and the
way those pains were felt. What makes this book so incredible is the way
that Halberstam blends objective observation with his keen knowledge of
the game, its history, and his great capacity to see the humanity in
everyone. When all of his considerable skills are dedicated to painting a
portrait of Maurice Lucas, for instance, the player becomes the man,
vibrantly portrayed and filled with conflicting instincts and emotions.
Halberstam deftly works into his analysis of the players, the team, and the
league as a whole the seminal aspects of money, respect, and race. The
ideas and observations fueling the book are fantastic, and Halberstam's
subtle, lyrical prose makes them all the more powerful. Ultimately, this is a
book about people: who they are, why they play, what they need, how they
interact.
In short, this is the best book on basketball--and one of the best books,
period--that I've ever read. It is thorough, fiercely intelligent, and captures
a moment in time when the NBA was in flux between the white, poor
league it was and the black, rich league it has become.
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