Bill Bradley was a three-time basketball all-American at
Princeton, Olympic gold medalist, Rhodes scholar, member of the New
York Knicks from 1967 to 1977 and two-time NBA champion; he was
elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1982. He served as United
States senator from New Jersey from 1979 to 1997. Since leaving the
Senate, he has been affiliated with Stanford University, the
University of Maryland, and Notre Dame. Bradley is the author of
Life on the Run, The Fair Tax, and Time Present, Time Past. Bill
Bradley, U.S. Senator from New Jersey from 1979 to 1997 and a
member of two championship New York Knicks teams, returns to the
scene of his first career, and his first great passion, basketball.
Things have changed since his championship days — the shorts are
longer and the salaries higher — but what separates winners and
losers remains very much the same: No collection of players, no
matter how good, can win unless they form a team. And no team can
succeed unless it shares common values, among them courage,
discipline, resilience, respect, and an unmitigated passion for the
game.
In 10 essays, filled with intensely personal observations and
reflections, Bradley revisits the basketball court with the fire of
the competitor and the eye of the writer, and explores these
qualities in action: the dynamics of teammates on the court and
off; the pure love of the game that leads to the unselfish pass or
the screen away from the ball; the individual courage to risk the
last-second shot, to face a hostile crowd, to say "I blew it"; the
responsibility to teammates, coaches, and fans to stay in shape,
play hard, and honor the game.
Values of the Game is illustrated with more than 120 dramatic
photographs of players, coaches, and classic games, culled from the
NBA archives and the author''s personal collection: from legends
such as Bill Russell, Oscar Robertson, and Bob Cousy, through the
brilliant Magic JohnsonLarry Bird years to young stars such as
Grant Hill and Glen Rice, and of course the greatest ever, Michael
Jordan.
In his best-selling Life on the Run, Bradley offered fans a
fascinating account of the day-in day-out experiences of an NBA
star. In Values of the Game, he shifts his thinking to a larger
universe. He pulls back the curtain once again, letting us in on
basketball''s secrets — many of which, it turns out, extend to life
beyond the hardwood court.