FreeDarko Presents: The Macrophenomenal Pro Basketball Almanac: Styles, Stats, and Stars in Today’s Game

Unlike regimented football or stats-happy baseball, The National Basketball Association is above all else a league of characters . Over the course of a season, games are, of course, won or lost, but for millions of devoted fans, the final result is almost incidental to the way the league’s best players perform on – and off – the court. This book is the indispensible companion to today’s game – a roundball Rosetta Stone that hilariously decodes the trends and tendencies of this enormously popular game. The NBA of the moment is a league of hugely charismatic celebrities, crackling aesthetic intrigue, socio-political undercurrents, and raw humanity: every Kobe Bryant pump-fake or LeBron James dunk symbolizes the changing landscape of professional sports and holds within it a Shaq-sized load of meaning. Fans who know the sport recognize how much more there is to basketball than, well, basketball. The Macro-Phenomenal Pro Basketball Almanac is a brilliantly illustrated guide to this tumultuous and exciting landscape. It explains what each player–from Tim Duncan and Gilbert Arenas to Amare Stoudemire and Lamar Odom–reveals, through their play and conduct, about who they are and, more importantly, who the fans want them to be. Like the game it celebrates, The Macro-Phenomenal Pro Basketball Almanac is simultaneously authentic and cerebral, funny and accessible, wholly original, and always entertaining.