"When the Game Was Ours" | When the Game Was Ours | Larry Bird, Earvin Johnson Jr., ...

Takes awhile to get going then really pulls you in | When the Game Was Ours | Larry Bird, Earvin Johnson Jr., ...

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	• When the Game Was Ours Larry Bird, Earvin Johnson Jr., ... Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2009 - 352 pages average customer review:based on 106 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Great book about two legendery players

I am not a big basketball fan but I enjoyed this book alot. This book details basketball history which, alone, would make it a big bore. However, it goes way beyond that. It gives the reader insight into how these two players who transformed the game felt about one another, the great rivalry they had as well as a strong friendship. I learned a good deal about them, their careers and their feelings for each other. I remember when Johnson revealed that he had contracted HIV. There was a great deal of negative press about it and disparaging remarks made about him. Larry Bird, on the other hand, was one of his biggest supporters; he was a true friend. This book is highly recommended.

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"When the Game Was Ours"

I bought this book for my brother, as a present, after seeing a friend at work reading it - - and my brother read the whole thing in one day, he enjoyed it so much!

Takes awhile to get going then really pulls you in

Sports books written with the athletes themselves are pretty hit or miss, so are the ones that are co-written with athletes such as this one. The sports books I enjoy most are usually from a literary writer whose subject happens to be sports, think David Halberstam. Or the rare sports book written by an athlete that is just really good, such as if you are a tennis fan, A Handful of Summers. BUT after a dry start, this book really drew me into the basketball lives of Bird and Magic.

The book is partially a narrative of the championship seasons of both players, interspersed with remembrances. It is also about the relationship of the two and Magic's retirement and then gold medal run. What I really started to enjoy was not the history of the wins and losses but when there was talk about team dynamics and the interplay between teammates on both teams. I had no idea just how hard both players worked and how very similar they were in their intensity. Bird also comes off perhaps most remarkably at to how he was able to play with and through pain.

Because the book goes from MacMullan then to one player then to another it is hirky-jerky. But ultimately it is a really satisfying look and insight into what it takes to win a championship and how two players from seemingly vastly different backgrounds found out that in reality they were extremely similar and, at least on the basketball court, kindred spirits.

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Better ballplayers than authors

Larry and Magic played the game the right way and at a level all their own. Any fan of the NBA that lived to watch their captivating rivalry will enjoy some of the insights in the book. It is true that there is very little revealed in its pages that anyone surpassing a casual fan would not already know, but it's nice to read the story anyway. Sort of like catching a game on ESPN classic - you know how it turns out, but it's still fun to watch. However, the main problem with the book is the prose itself. It's just plain badly written. The best explanation I can think of is that they were targeting the book for young people who may not know who Larry and Magic were, or their importance to the history of the game; it almost seems written on about a 6th grade level. But if you can overlook that, it's not a bad read. These two men pushed each other to heights they might not have otherwise attained. And that is good story all by itself.

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From the moment these two players took the court on opposing sides, they engaged in a fierce physical and psychological battle. Their uncommonly competitive relationship came to symbolize the most compelling rivalry in the NBA. These were the basketball epics of the 1980s--Celtics vs Lakers, East vs West, physical vs finesse, Old School vs Showtime, even white vs black. Each pushed the other to greatness--together Bird and Johnson collected 8 NBA Championships, and 6 MVP awards and helped save the floundering NBA at its most critical time. When it started they were bitter rivals, but along the way they became lifelong friends. With intimate, fly-on-the-wall detail, When the Game Was Ours transports readers to this electric era of basketball and reveals for the first time the inner workings of two players dead set on besting one another. From the heady days of trading championships to the darker days of injury and illness, we come to understand Larry's obsessive devotion to winning and how his demons drove him on the court. We hear him talk with candor about playing through chronic pain and its truly exacting toll. In Magic we see a young, invincible star struggle with the sting of defeat, not just as a player but as a team leader. We are there the moment he learns he's contracted HIV and hear in his own words how that devastating news impacted his relationships in basketball and beyond. But always, in both cases, we see them prevail. A compelling, up-close-and-personal portrait of basketball's most inimitable duo, When the Game Was Ours is a reevaluation of three decades in counterpoint. It is also a rollicking ride through professional basketball's best times.

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