W:07 Seconds or Less: My Season on the Bench with the Runnin' and Gunnin' Phoenix Suns is a book written by Jack McCallum about the Phoenix Suns' 2005–06 NBA season. It gives an inside look about the NBA team and its players, including Steve Nash and Shawn Marion, as well as the head coach, Mike D'Antoni, and his assistants.
WBad As I Wanna Be is a 1996 book that is the first autobiography of NBA player Dennis Rodman and was written during the 1995-96 season when Rodman was a part of the Bulls team that went on to win three NBA Championships. Tim Keown was Rodman's ghostwriter.
WBasketball : A Collection of Questions Asked, Answered, Illustrated is a 2017 book written by Shea Serrano and illustrated by Arturo Torres, with a foreword from former NBA star Reggie Miller.
WBasketbolo žaidimas (krepšiasvydis) ir Lietuvos sporto lygos oficialės basketbolo taisyklės 1926-27 metams is the first basketball rules book published in Lithuania. It was written by the legendary Lithuanian pilot Steponas Darius, who wished to popularize new sports genres in Lithuania. It is his second book published in Lithuania, followed by the baseball rules book.
WBird at the Buzzer is a 2011 sports book written by Jeff Goldberg about the 2001 Big East Championship women's basketball game between the University of Connecticut and Notre Dame.
WThe Book of Basketball: The NBA According to the Sports Guy is the second book by former ESPN columnist Bill Simmons. Published in 2009, it covers the history of the National Basketball Association (NBA). In 2019, Simmons launched a sequel podcast series, Book of Basketball 2.0, which analyzes the evolution of the league since the book was published.
WThe Breaks of the Game is a 1981 sports book written by Pulitzer Prize winning reporter David Halberstam about the Portland Trail Blazers' 1979–1980 season. The Trail Blazers are a professional basketball team which plays in the National Basketball Association (NBA). Aside from a recap of the Blazers' season, the book attempts to give a detailed history of the NBA, the 1976–77 Portland Trail Blazers championship team, the injuries faced by departed star Bill Walton, and the life of Kermit Washington after his two-month suspension for punching Rudy Tomjanovich. The book also puts basketball into a social context and contains extensive discussion on race in the NBA.
WThe Crossover is a 2015 children's book by American author Kwame Alexander and the winner of the 2015 Newbery Medal and Coretta Scott King Award Honor. The book, which is told entirely through verse, was first published in the United States in hardback on March 18, 2014 through HMH Books for Young Readers. The story follows two African-American twin brothers who share a love for basketball but find themselves drifting apart as they head into their junior high school year. They also run into many obstacles that they must overcome, like a girl who starts conflict between them, Alexis.
WDirk Nowitzki : German Wunderkind is a biography of the German NBA basketball star Dirk Nowitzki, written by German sports journalists Dino Reisner and Holger Sauer. It was published in 2004 by the German "Copress" publishing house. It follows Nowitzki's life as a boy in Würzburg, how he turned to basketball as a teenager, broke through in Germany and eventually became the franchise player of the Dallas Mavericks in the NBA.
WFurious George: My Forty Years Surviving NBA Divas, Clueless GMs, and Poor Shot Selection is an autobiography by former professional basketball coach and former player George Karl, and co-author Curt Sampson. It is Karl's debut as an author.
WThe Great Wall of Lucy Wu is the 2011 debut novel of Wendy Wan-Long Shang. It was first published in January 2011 through Scholastic Inc.. The work focuses on the concept of a young girl starting the sixth grade and dealing with the troubles that come with growing up but also with having a split cultural identity. The book is considered suitable for girls age 8-12.
WHeaven Is a Playground is a 1976 book by Rick Telander. It describes Telander's observations of the streetball culture in Brooklyn during the summer of 1974. Among the players featured in the book are Fly Williams and Albert King. The book was ranked #15 in a 2002 Sports Illustrated list of the Top 100 Sports Books of All Time.
WI May Be Wrong but I Doubt It is a memoir by former American professional basketball player Charles Barkley. The book became a bestseller in 2002 and sold more than 125,000 copies. It reflects Barkley's own personality, experiences, and opinions. It explores a wide range of interests and discusses a variety of controversial topics. Each chapter has its own theme, and ranges from politics to lack of minority control in sports. It also recounts some of Barkley's memorable experiences during his Hall of Fame NBA career, such as his involvement with Michael Jordan as a member of the legendary U.S. Olympic gold medal winning "Dream Team."
WThe Jordan Rules: The Inside Story of a Turbulent Season with Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls is a 1991 book by Sam Smith, chronicling the Chicago Bulls' 1990–91 championship season. The book takes its name from the "Jordan Rules" strategies used by the Detroit Pistons at the time to limit Michael Jordan's effectiveness.
WKrepšiasvydis vyrams is regarded as the first basketball educational book in Lithuanian language. It was written by Karolis Dineika in 1922. It is a modest, but significant book for cognition of basketball at that period in Lithuania. During these times, basketball in Lithuania was still called "Krepšiasvydis". It is a mixture of two Lithuanian words: "krepšys" (basket) and "sviesti" (throw). Yet later it was renamed to "Krepšinis". This name is still used nowadays.
WThe Last Amateurs is a book by John Feinstein. First published in 2000, the book chronicles the 1999–2000 Patriot League basketball season.
WThe Last Season: A Team in Search of Its Soul is a book by the former American basketball coach Phil Jackson, originally published by the Penguin Press in 2004. The book deals with the ups and downs of the Los Angeles Lakers' 2003-04 season and offers Jackson's insight into the team's season that ended in a breakup but not a championship, despite boasting future Hall of Famers Shaquille O'Neal, Karl Malone, Gary Payton, and Kobe Bryant.
WLast Shot: A Final Four Mystery is a young adult novel by John Feinstein. It tells the story of two young reporters, Stevie Thomas and Susan Carol Anderson, who stumble upon a plot to blackmail fictional Minnesota State basketball player Chip Graber into throwing the Final Four in New Orleans.
WLoose Balls: The Short Wild Life of the American Basketball Association is a sports book originally published in 1990 by Simon & Schuster. The book, a history of the original American Basketball Association, was written by sportswriter Terry Pluto, although much of his writing is limited to introductions and summaries of each season. Most of the dialogue is from former players, league executives, and journalists, among others.
WA March to Madness: A View from the Floor in the Atlantic Coast Conference is a book written by John Feinstein. It was written about the 1996-97 Atlantic Coast Conference basketball season, chronicling each ACC school's team's season, from the first practice, to the Big Dance. It includes, among other things, Dean Smith's final season at the University of North Carolina, and his team's Final Four run of that year.
WPersonal Foul: A First-Person Account of the Scandal That Rocked the NBA is an autobiography written by former National Basketball Association (NBA) referee Tim Donaghy and published by Florida-based VTi-Group, Inc. in December, 2009. Donaghy, who had resigned from the league as a central figure in the 2007 NBA betting scandal, describes his involvement in and inner workings of the scandal, as well as his gambling addiction.
WPlay Their Hearts Out: A Coach, His Star Recruit, and the Youth Basketball Machine, by Pulitzer Prize winning author George Dohrmann, is an award-winning exposé of the underbelly of grassroots youth basketball in the AAU. The author follows the lives of the coach and players of an elite team, documenting the exploitation and manipulation of the children and their families by coaches seeking the best players, and the influence of shoe and sports gear companies seeking to use the sport to promote their products. Dohrmann is a senior writer with Sports Illustrated.
WRo-Kyu-Bu! is a Japanese light novel series written by Sagu Aoyama and illustrated by Tinkle. ASCII Media Works published 15 novels between February 2009 to July 2015. The series follows a high school freshman Subaru Hasegawa who becomes the coach of a grade school's girls' basketball team after his own basketball club is disbanded for a year due to a scandal. Three manga adaptations and three PlayStation Portable visual novel games were produced. A 12-episode anime television series, animated by Project No.9 and Studio Blanc, aired between July and September 2011. A 12-episode second season titled Ro-Kyu-Bu! SS, animated solely by Project No.9, aired between July and September 2013.
WA Season on the Brink is a 1986 book by John Feinstein which detailed the 1985-86 season of Indiana University's men's basketball team, led by the controversial coach Bob Knight. Granted almost unprecedented access to the Indiana University basketball program, as well as insights into Knight's private life, the book spawned a new genre, as a legion of imitators wrote works covering a single year of a sports franchise.
WA Sense of Where You Are, by John McPhee, profiles Bill Bradley during Bradley's senior year at Princeton University. Bradley, who would later play in the National Basketball Association and serve in the United States Senate, was widely regarded as one of the best basketball players in the country, and his status as a Rhodes Scholar playing in the Ivy League only added to his allure. Published in 1965, this book describes Bradley's rise to stardom at Princeton, then follows Bradley through the final year of his college career, culminating in Princeton's third-place finish in that year's NCAA Tournament.
WSpalding is an American sports equipment manufacturing company founded by Albert Spalding in Chicago, in 1876. It is now headquartered in Bowling Green, Kentucky. Spalding currently focuses on basketball, mainly producing balls but also commercializing hoops, rims, nets and ball pump needles. Softballs are commercialized through its subsidiary Dudley Sports.
WSpalding Athletic Library sold sports and exercise books through American Sports Publishing Company from 1892 to 1941. Both companies were owned and founded by Spalding. Books cover over 30 different sports and exercises, and over 20 different organizations.
WWhen Nothing Else Matters is a 2004 non-fiction book by Michael Leahy. The book chronicles basketball player Michael Jordan's last comeback to the NBA playing for the Washington Wizards.
WWilt: Larger Than Life (ISBN 1572439157) is a biography of NBA professional basketball player Wilt Chamberlain by journalist Robert Cherry. The 416-page book was published in November 2004 by Triumph Books. The foreword is written by Jerry West, Chamberlain's teammate and friend on the Los Angeles Lakers.