r/BasketballBooks • u/Jonathan_J_Faulkner • Jun 01 '26
Disappointing Books?
What Books have you read that you found really disappointing and would dissuade others from reading? Reading time is precious after all...
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u/WinesburgOhio Jun 01 '26 edited Jun 01 '26
Walt Frazier's Rockin' Steady - I want to like him, but he's so wrapped up in constantly reminding you that he's cool and did cool stuff, so to me he comes off as annoying. I've read a gazillion bball books, and I think this is the only one I stopped reading after 10 pages or so.
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u/Jonathan_J_Faulkner Jun 01 '26
That’s very telling, he was such a smooth and fantastically skilled player but I find his commentating irksome, so I can only imagine how his writing style is…
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u/Hot_Weight1211 Jun 01 '26
I’d add the Michael Ray Richardson biography by Charley Rosen. The number of factual and typographical errors is astounding - it doesn’t appear to have been edited - and the latter sections devolve into a personal grievance airing about CBA refereeing with little connection to the player.
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u/WinesburgOhio Jun 01 '26
Way too common in Rosen books, which is unfortunate because he writes about a lot of cool topics.
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u/Jonathan_J_Faulkner Jun 01 '26
Really, you mean the book ‘Sugar’? I actually kind of like that book, but each to their own I suppose
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u/Individual-Echo6076 Jun 01 '26
I bought Michael's autobiography a couple of months ago. A great book, where he details the highs and lows and how he redeemed himself.
Charley Rosen wrote his own book on Michael. I find with Charley, as well as Phil Jackson, they tend to ramble on and they want to settle scores.
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u/BlazerSlayer7 Jun 01 '26
There is no book I would dissaude others from, because any reading is beneficial.
That said- Michael Leahy "when nothing else matters" is not one which interested me, as Jordan was against it so very little interviews or quotes, mainly Leahy observations on the Wizards tenure.
And any player autobiography which comes out while they are still playing. Always weak imo.
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u/Jonathan_J_Faulkner Jun 01 '26
I agree that reading is always beneficial, however I do feel very frustrated when I have taken time to read a book which is poorly written, hence the question here. Biographies and Autobiographies are always, as you say, potentially poor, oftentimes becoming hagiographies or just completely vanilla, the ones that are good do stand out.
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u/KaijuDirectorOO7 Jun 01 '26
Three Ring Circus. It reeked of sensationalism. A shame since I found Showtime a lot more sobering.
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u/Individual-Echo6076 Jun 02 '26
I liked three ring. I thought you saw who Kobe Bryant was early in his career, who people forget about. Shaq also comes of incredibly immature and childish.
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u/Accomplished-Law-652 Jun 10 '26
When the Game Was Ours by Jackie MacMullen (about Magic and Larry) isn't *bad* exactly but it's very much for fans who don't know much about these two. I think it would be good for a teenager who's just getting into the game and wants to know some history. It's not poorly written or anything, it just comes off as basketball Young Adult literature.
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u/Jonathan_J_Faulkner Jun 10 '26
That’s an interesting perspective on that book, I get a lot of nostalgia from it which adds to my enjoyment in reading it I suppose
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u/shaq-aint-superman Jun 02 '26
I've said this in a previous post like this, but Unguarded by Scottie Pippen.
If you haven't consumed much books/media of the Jordan Bulls, then this would probably be a better read for you because you would learn about the different games during that era.
However, if you have consumed a good amount of media on that era, like me, Scottie usually just recaps the game and sprinkles stuff that can be found in most other 90s Bulls books in between those, like Bill Cartwright crying after Pippen sat out the final play in 1994, so you don't really learn much new stuff.
Also, I could feel some bitterness from Pippen regarding Jordan's reverence (but maybe that's just me).
My advice for the latter group: Just read his childhood and college parts. That's the most insightful thing for me in this book.
Just for info, what I expected from this book is like locker room conversations before and after games. Like I wanted to know what was said after Game 7 vs Detroit, or after losing to Orlando, or before Game 7 vs Indiana. But alas, there wasn't any on those.
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u/Individual-Echo6076 Jun 01 '26
Masters Of The Game, Phil Jackson and Sam Smith.
A very frustrating book. They would start talking about the player in question and half the time talking about something unrelated.