Total Basketball: The Ultimate Basketball Encyclopedia

Rating:
Summary: very well written Book
Review: a must have for any Hoop Fan of the NBA. very detailed&full of Information. I enjoy all the details&never get tired of reading on the Nba&it's history. a must have.

Rating:
Summary: Bigger and Better
Review: I have two basketball encyclopedias, the one the NBA did four years ago at 911 pages and now the 2004 Total Basketball: The Ultimate Basketball Encyclopedia weighing in at eight pounds and 1470 pages. It is the most complete basketball book ever compiled. Period. Hey, when it comes to encyclopedias, size matters.
The data base includes all 3,530 players ever to play in the NBL, BAA, and NBA. It has regular season and playoff stats for every player. It has a color photo section of the greatest all-time players. I haven't read everything yet, but there are stories about the game's invention, development, the evolution of equipment, the 20 best trades and free agent acquisitions in history, history and records of the ABA, a history of the NCAA tournament and college basketball records (what other book ever combined college and pro ball?) a history of early and defunct leagues, the 100 best players, the history of league attendance and of every arena, the first black players, the history of women in basketball, special stories on Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Larry Bird and Bob Pettit. Bob Ryan and Sam Smith, two of the best basketball writers in the country, did some of the writing. There are photos throughout.
I'm so glad I got this book-it leaves nothing out. If you think you know basketball, think again. This book will show you how much you don't know.

Rating:
Summary: Best Basketball Book ever
Review: This a must get for any stats fan of basketball. This has every basketball league that has ever played from Naismith time to the present time. Most books only have the NBA and maybe if you are lucky the ABA. I would give this 10 stars if they were available.

Rating:
Summary: "Martin Taragano's Basketball Book Review"
Review: Total Basketball is a towering accomplishment and a wonderful addition to the basketball literature. It is currently the most authoratative single volume of 100+ years of basketball history on the bookshelves. It's readable and important and a significant contribution to past & present NBA glory; however, in numerous respects it's coverage is indeed parsimonious; for example, there's but a mere scattering of biographical information on the 3500+ professional players; myriad biographical entries explored in more vivid and analytical narrative depth would have more positively supplemented the standard statistical exhaustion of encyclopedic single-volume sports tomes of this nature. Nonetheless, TB is a winner.