When the Game Was Ours
Larry Bird
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Sales Rank: 24300
Larry Bird
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Sales Rank: 24300
A Very Good Basketball Book, 2009-11-02When the Game Was Ours by Larry Bird and Earvin Magic Johnson with Jackie MacMullan is a fine chronicle of a particular era in basketball history. The focus is on the lives of Bird and Johnson, with its eerie parallels; they played one another in college in the NCAA Championships, and Bird's Celtics and Johnson's Lakers met in a number of NBA championships. They are linked despite having had very few personal interactions until later in their careers, but they always were aware of how the other was doing and considered the other the standard they needed to exceed.
The POV of the authors is that Bird and Johnson were the avatars of basketball--the title of the book is When the Game Was Ours, after all. However, as an NBA aficionado who lived in Philadelphia, my memories are somewhat different than some of the ones presented in the book. According to the authors, Boston acquired Dennis Johnson as a defensive stopper for Magic Johnson. There is not even a mention of Andrew Toney, aka The Boston Strangler, for whom the Celtics never had an answer and who consistently torched them in their own Boston Garden. It's hard to play the Lakers in a championship when you can't get by the Sixers--and in Bird's early years, the Celtics rarely did. At the time of the acquisition of DJ, it was explicitly stated that he was acquired to shut down Andrew Toney.
In another section of the book, Bird feels that the Celtics self-destructed in '83 or they would have won another championship. He conveniently forgets the '83 Sixers are generally remembered by most basketball experts as being one of--if not the--best championship teams ever. The book is about Bird and Magic, I know. But to barely mention Dr. J when reliving this era is to rewrite history. Kind of like discussing World War II and ignoring the Germans or the Russians.
Having stated my cavils, I will acknowledge that it is gratifying to get the feelings and insights and opinions of Bird and Magic about their glory days instead of speculations by others. Knowing more about Larry Bird, who I always recognized as clutch but graceless (on and off the court) makes him a more sympathetic character, and Magic, always lovable, is someone whom you respect more, not less, the more you know about him.
I would have rated this book higher, but I have a high standard for five star basketball books. Halberstam's The Breaks of the Game, Woolf's Foul: The Story of Connie Hawkins, and Wojnarowski's The Miracle of St. Anthony set my high standard. This book, while very good, doesn't meet that standard.
Reviewed By A2V8RY58XE5A5OThe POV of the authors is that Bird and Johnson were the avatars of basketball--the title of the book is When the Game Was Ours, after all. However, as an NBA aficionado who lived in Philadelphia, my memories are somewhat different than some of the ones presented in the book. According to the authors, Boston acquired Dennis Johnson as a defensive stopper for Magic Johnson. There is not even a mention of Andrew Toney, aka The Boston Strangler, for whom the Celtics never had an answer and who consistently torched them in their own Boston Garden. It's hard to play the Lakers in a championship when you can't get by the Sixers--and in Bird's early years, the Celtics rarely did. At the time of the acquisition of DJ, it was explicitly stated that he was acquired to shut down Andrew Toney.
In another section of the book, Bird feels that the Celtics self-destructed in '83 or they would have won another championship. He conveniently forgets the '83 Sixers are generally remembered by most basketball experts as being one of--if not the--best championship teams ever. The book is about Bird and Magic, I know. But to barely mention Dr. J when reliving this era is to rewrite history. Kind of like discussing World War II and ignoring the Germans or the Russians.
Having stated my cavils, I will acknowledge that it is gratifying to get the feelings and insights and opinions of Bird and Magic about their glory days instead of speculations by others. Knowing more about Larry Bird, who I always recognized as clutch but graceless (on and off the court) makes him a more sympathetic character, and Magic, always lovable, is someone whom you respect more, not less, the more you know about him.
I would have rated this book higher, but I have a high standard for five star basketball books. Halberstam's The Breaks of the Game, Woolf's Foul: The Story of Connie Hawkins, and Wojnarowski's The Miracle of St. Anthony set my high standard. This book, while very good, doesn't meet that standard.
This review was cited from Amazon.com.
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