#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The wildly opinionated, thoroughly entertaining, and arguably definitive book on the past, present, and future of the NBA—from the founder of The Ringer and host of The Bill Simmons Podcast “Enough provocative arguments to fuel barstool arguments far into the future.”— The Wall Street Journal   In The Book of Basketball, Bill Simmons opens—and then closes, once and for all—every major NBA debate, from the age-old question of who actually won the rivalry between Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain to the one about which team was truly the best of all time. Then he takes it further by completely reevaluating not only how NBA Hall of Fame inductees should be chosen but how the institution must be reshaped from the ground up, the result being the Pyramid: Simmons’s one-of-a-kind five-level shrine to the ninety-six greatest players in the history of pro basketball. And ultimately he takes fans to the heart of it all, as he uses a conversation with one NBA great to uncover that coveted thing: The Secret of Basketball. Comprehensive, authoritative, controversial, hilarious, and impossible to put down (even for Celtic-haters), The Book of Basketball offers every hardwood fan a courtside seat beside the game’s finest, funniest, and fiercest chronicler. “[A] slam dunk.”— USA Today “The work of a true fan . . . It might just represent the next phase of sports commentary.”— The Atlantic “May be one of those literary lollapaloozas that Simmons’s fans must buy.”— The New York Times   “Wildly prolific, ceaselessly witty, harmlessly crass, and generally wise, Simmons has built an everydude empire by triangulating the trashy pop-culture futon talk of Chuck Klosterman and the stats-heavy philosophizing of Malcolm Gladwell.”— The Village Voice   “This is just plain fun. . . . The true NBA fan will dive into this hefty volume and won’t resurface for about a week.”— Booklist (starred review)   “The book flows much like Mr. Simmons’s ESPN columns. . . . Opinion gushes out of him. But he backs it up with equal parts serious research and off-angle observations. . . . He has produced enough provocative arguments to fuel barstool arguments far into the future.”— The Wall Street Journal NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE Bill Simmons is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Book of Basketball and Now I Can Die in Peace . He is the founder and CEO of The Ringer and the host of The Bill Simmons Podcast, the most downloaded sports podcast of all time. Chapter One THE SECRET I LEARNED THE secret of basketball while lounging at a topless pool in Las Vegas. As I learned the secret, someone’s bare breasts were staring at me from just eight feet away. The person explaining the secret was a Hall of Famer who once vowed to beat me up and changed his mind only because Gus Johnson vouched for me. (Do I tell this story? Yes. I tell this story.) Come back with me to July 2007. My buddy Hopper was pushing me to accompany him for an impromptu Vegas trip, knowing that I wouldn’t turn him down because of my Donaghy-level gambling problem. I needed permission from my pregnant wife, who was perpetually ornery from (a) carrying our second child during the hot weather months in California and (b) being knocked up because I pulled the goalie on her back in February.1 But here’s why I’m an evil genius: with the NBA Summer League happening at the same time, I somehow convinced her that ESPN The Magazine wanted a column about Friday’s quadruple-header featuring my favorite team (the Celtics), my favorite rookie (Kevin Durant), and the two Los Angeles teams (Clippers and Lakers). “I’ll be in and out in thirty-six hours,” I told her. She signed off and directed her anger at the magazine for making me work on a weekend. (I told you, I’m shrewd.) I quickly called my editor and had the following exchange. me: I don’t have a column idea this week. I’m panicking. neil (my editor): Crap. I don’t know what to tell you, it’s a dead month. (A few seconds of silence ensues.) me: Hey, wait...isn’t the NBA Summer League in Vegas right now? neil: Yeah, I think it is. What would you write about, though? me: Lemme see what the schedule is for Friday. [I spend the next 20 seconds pretending to log onto NBA.com and look this up.] Oh my God— Clippers at 3, Celtics at 5, Lakers at 6, Durant and the Sonics at 7! You have to let me go! I can get 1,250 words out of that! [Neil doesn’t respond.] Come on—Vegas? The Celtics and Durant? This column will write itself! neil (after a long sigh): “Okay, fine, fine.” Did I care that he sounded like I had just convinced him to donate me a kidney? Of course not! I flew down on Friday, devoured those four games and joined Hopper for drunken blackjack until the wee hours.2 The following morning, we woke up in time for a Vegas Breakfast (16-ounce coffee, bagel, large water), then headed down to the Wynn’s lav