Playing for Keeps: Michael Jordan and the World He Made

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One of the finest nonfiction writers in any lineup, Halberstam likes to alternate what he's deemed his serious work--books like The Best and the Brightest, The Fifties, and The Children--with his sporting interludes, though in his hands, sports are much, much more than fun and games. Books like The Breaks of the Game and October 1964 use sports as a prism. Culture, race, society, and history are all filtered through it, and Halberstam refocuses--and interprets--what comes out the other side.

That he would now turn his considerable abilities to exploring Michael Jordan is not surprising. Halberstam loves hoops, and Jordan not only defines the game, he defines an era. His fame crosses international borders as easily as he dribbles past half-court lines. In focusing on Jordan--as athlete and force of nature--and his osmosis from a young hoop dreamer to product pitchman to the world, Halberstam is really examining intangibles like myth and legend, celebrity and fame, wealth and image, excellence and genius, race and style, the qualities of heroism and the pursuit of perfection. "That there had been even one Michael Jordan seemed in retrospect something of a genetic fluke," he writes, "and the idea that anyone would arrive in so short a span of time and do what he did both on and off the court seemed highly unlikely." But the phenomenon that is Jordan did just that.

FROM OUR EDITORS

The Barnes & Noble Review
Over the course of an extraordinary writing career, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and historian David Halberstam has covered events and personalities that define significant moments in American history. In his latest book, Playing for Keeps: Michael Jordan and the World He Made, Halberstam turns his insightful eye to not only the greatest basketball player ever but also a man who revolutionized the sport and in doing so became the most famous human being on the planet.

Written with the quality prose that is all but expected from Halberstam, Playing for Keeps chronicles how a skinny kid from Wilmington, North Carolina, went on to win an NCAA title with North Carolina, two Olympic gold medals, and an astonishing six world championships with the Chicago Bulls. But Halberstam also covers the formative years of the eventual world champion, the time long before Jordan, the son of a supervisor at a General Electric factory, was winning big on a national level.

The average fan probably isn't familiar with the facts of Jordan's early life. "Of the five children," Halberstam writes, "Michael was by his own account the laziest, or at least the one most skilled at talking his way out of doing his share of household chores, shrewdly leveraging his allowance to buy his way out if possible." Through his coverage of a young Jordan, Halberstam captures the foundation of an unparalleled competitiveness that would ultimately drive Jordan to athletic accomplishments never before seen. As great as Michael Jordan would become, Halberstam points out, he was still dominated onthebasketball court by his older brother, Larry, until late in his high school years, when Larry stopped growing and Michael continued, even through college, to get taller. "Every day the Jordan backyard saw some form of athletic combat: day after day the two of them banged against each other on the small court that James Jordan had built."

Playing for Keeps then takes readers through Jordan's college years, a formative time that would forever shape Jordan as a basketball player and as a man. While at the University of North Carolina, Jordan had the opportunity to play for the legendary Dean Smith. Behind all great athletes, there is always a great coach. From Dean Smith, Jordan learned to play proper defense on the court, but more important, as Halberstam shows, Smith's values and ethics would forever influence Jordan's life.

Once Jordan entered the NBA, his life would never be the same. As a college great and Olympic champion, Jordan saw the beginnings of what was yet to come, but it wasn't until he was drafted by the Chicago Bulls, in 1984, that he would start to become the legend that he is today. Halberstam demonstrates the skills for which he is so respected in his coverage of Jordan's brilliant professional career both on and off the court.

With portraits of the championship games and the teams Jordan and the Bulls beat to reach the top (the Celtics, the Lakers, the Pistons, the Jazz), as well as profiles of the players and people responsible for the evolution of the NBA (Bird, Johnson, and Thomas; David Stern, the architect of the modern NBA; David Falk, the agent who changed the nature of sports representation; Phil Knight, the unconventional head of Nike), Playing for Keeps reveals the people, the politics, and the economics that transformed the NBA and made Michael Jordan's 13-year career so unforgettable. Halberstam has written a book that helps define America in the Jordan era. More than just a sports biography, Playing for Keeps tells the true story of an American legend and his profound impact on not only his sport but also his country and the world.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

The author of the number-one bestseller The Summer of '49 and other seminal books about American sports, politics, and culture now turns his attention to a modern American legend — Michael Jordan — whose name alone evokes excellence. Halberstam explores Jordan's character and achievements, not only as a professional champion, but as a teenager and student athlete. Halberstam also chronicles the commercial forces that have changed the game during Jordan's career and the people behind those forces. And finally, Halberstam documents Jordan's own business acumen, which, together with his athletic ability, has made him into the best-known person on this planet. This is a journalistic triumph, an appraisal and a celebration of the nearly mythical figure that is Michael Jordan.

SYNOPSIS

This is a sweeping, smart analysis of the full story of Michael Jordan from one of the countries most thoughtful historian-journalists. Halberstam covers Michael the teenager, Michael the rising star, Michael the champion, Michael the brand, and Michael the man in his effort to build a portrait not just of one player, but of the larger picture of American sports today and the larger social role of Jordan as the most recognizable man on the planet. It's a book about basketball, and, as with great moments in sport that transcend their playing field and tell us something about ourselves, it is a book about the nation.

FROM THE CRITICS

Michiko Kakutani - The New York Times

...[T]he volume is animated by the author's own passion for the game....[Halberstam] uses that knowledge to convey to the reader the extreme mixture of talent, will and old-fashioned hard work that went into Mr. Jordan's achievements....[as well as] how No. 23's success helped change the N.B.A. and how those changes, in turn, reflected larger developments in the world of sports.

Alex Tresniowski - People Magazine

...[A] thoughtful and fascinating study of Jordan's far-reaching impact on American culture, compiled byone of the most doggedly analytical authors around.

Publishers Weekly

Halberstam (The Children, etc.) has written an excellent book about the game of basketball and its greatest player. Readers familiar with Halberstam's customary insight into American life might think he pulls some punches. But this is an engrossing portrait--much edgier than the ballplayer's own current bestseller, For the Love of the Game. This is an examination of Jordan as athlete and media phenomenon, of the superstar's professional life and also of the NBA's coming of age. The focus is squarely on Jordan's astounding competitiveness and will power, qualities that, Halberstam argues, have as much or more to do with Jordan's success than even his remarkable talent. Meandering back and forth through time, Halberstam covers everything from the invention of ESPN to the genius of Spike Lee's Nike commercials--and every major playoff game Jordan played. With equal enthusiasm, Halberstam profiles the supporting cast: Bulls' coach Phil Jackson, whose job was to "maximize Jordan's abilities, without letting him suck the oxygen away from his teammates"; agent David Falk, who created "the idea of the individual player as a commercial superstar"; teammate Scottie Pippen. The book is filled with salty, informed hoops talk. It does not, however, give readers an intimate look at Jordan, who declined the author's request for an interview. Nor does Halberstam pursue difficult questions about Jordan's character, about the way he has decided to use (or not use) his celebrity and his wealth. (Feb.)

KLIATT

To quote KLIATT's March 2000 review of the Recorded Books audiobook edition: Historian Halberstam writes a detailed history of Jordan and the business of professional basketball. His book is filled with dollar signs as he tells of the astronomical figures paid to players and coaches. The chapters alternate between Jordan's life story and his final season with the Bulls in 1997-98. Halberstam's history is laced with graphic details and graphic language, with the saints and sinners that comprise the world of pro basketball today. Highly recommended to fans of Jordan and the NBA. KLIATT Codes: SA—Recommended for senior high school students, advanced students, and adults. 1999, Random House/Broadway, 434p, 21cm, illus, 99-41931, $14.00. Ages 16 to adult. Reviewer: Janet Julian; English Teacher, Grafton H.S., Grafton, MA, May 2000 (Vol. 34 No. 3)

Library Journal

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