Basketball 100, The: The Athletic

Hardcover Over the course of 100 unexpected player profiles, the best sports newsroom on the planet paints vivid portraits of the game’s most compelling characters. There’s George Mikan, who was cut from his high school team because he wore glasses, then went on to become the fledgling NBA’s first transcendent star. Gary Payton, called “The Glove” for his skintight defense, who talked as much trash to his teammates as he did to his opponents on the court. Dennis Rodman, who started playing basketball at age 20, and in a few short years went from working as a janitor at the airport to being one of the strangest superstars that sport has ever known.