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Tip-Off: How the 1984 NBA Draft Changed Basketball Forever
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List Price: $25.00
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Manufacturer: Da Capo Press
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 796.323640973
Format: Bargain Price
Label: Da Capo Press
Manufacturer: Da Capo Press
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 281
Publication Date: 2007-05-01
Publisher: Da Capo Press
Studio: Da Capo Press
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Editorial Reviews:
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The 1984 NBA draft is one of the most controversial in NBA history. Teams were losing games very suspiciously during the regular season to enhance their draft position. And who wouldn’t, when the draft featured four future members of the Top 50 NBA Players of All Time team-Hakeem Olajuwon, Charles Barkley, John Stockton, and Michael Jordan. But this draft is most often remembered as the one where Michael Jordan slipped to third and was a reason the lottery system was introduced the next year. How could the experts have been so wrong and, even more astoundingly, how could the Portland Trailblazers, who held the second pick, pass on Jordan and choose the injury-prone Sam Bowie? Filip Bondy sets out to answer that question and many more. Talking to general managers, coaches, and players, Bondy provides the entire back story of the draft: trades that were never made; wrong-headed assessments of players like Charles Barkley and John Stockton, and how Bobby Knight, coach of the 1984 U.S. Olympic team, played a major role in advising certain teams about key players.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: A must read for any NBA junkie
Comment: I really enjoyed this book. It was a very fast read for me. The author focuses on several of the top picks from this draft: Olajuwon, Bowie, Jordan, Barkley, Stockton, and Perkins. He spends a lot of time on each of these players and gets very in-depth, and that alone made the book a worthwhile read to me.
Also, the author talks about some of the fall out from this draft: The NBA draft lottery, salary cap changes, and the globalization of the league. I enjoyed the author's style, lots of quotes from major players at the time and reflecting on the time later. The bibliography is quite extensive. So I felt like the author pulled a lot of info from lots of different articles and books I might have read separately anyway. I felt he did a nice job sorting through the material.
Again, I really enjoyed the book. If you love the NBA and love this particular era, I think you'll enjoy the book.
Customer Rating:
Summary: No, The '84 Draft Didnt Change the NBA But ....
Comment:
overall, this was a pretty decent book, especially for someone who's stopped following basketball in the past 20 years. It contains alot of biographical info on Stockton, Jordan, Olajuwon, Perkins, etc. and every once in a while, it's nice to learn that kind of stuff - maybe it should have been titled "The Awesome 1984 NBA Draft," since it introduced alot of prominent players into the league. I remember wondering why Sam Bowie was the second overall pick that year, too, and this book sheds some insight into Stu Inman's thinking and how no one expected Jordan to become the player he eventually did, due to Dean Smith's system at UNC. The book is well worth it at the price it's at now.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: The Bowie blunder, 25 years later
Comment: With the crystal clarity of hindsight, pro basketball fans have anointed the Portland Trail Blazers' drafting of gimpy-legged center Sam Bowie ahead of Michael Jordan in the 1984 draft as the biggest goof in draft history. Many folks forget that a number of other all-time NBA greats were also plucked in that draft, including Charles Barkley, Hakeem Olajuwon, and John Stockton. Bondy lays out the gory details of how the '84 draft played out and the implications that its results raised for the future of the league. We all know how Jordan, for better or worse, impacted the style of play and the marketing muscle of the league, but I found most of my attention drawn to the tale's tragic hero, Sam Bowie - a fine college player with fatefully fragile legs who never deserved the ridicule that he has received in the wake of Jordan's transcendence. A good read for both college and pro hoops fans.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Very Informative Book
Comment: Just think how the basketball landscape would have changed had the Houston Rockets traded Ralph Sampson straight up for Michael Jordan! The Bulls would have done it and were waiting for the Rockets to call but Rockets coach Bill Fitch was in love with the twin towers idea.
The Sixers had a deal in place to trade the aging Dr. J to the Clippers for Terry Cummings but didn't pull the trigger for fear of fan backlash.
Bobby Knight, the dictator that he is, had Michael Jordan in tears during the Olympic tryouts.
Charles Barkley showed up at the 1984 Olympic trials not with the goal of making the team, but rather improving his draft status.
When the tough Soviet team pulled out of the 1984 games Coach Knight cut Charles Barkley because he didn't care for his personality. But had the Soviets stayed in the Olympics Barkley wouldn't have been cut because his superb playing ability would have been needed to beat the Soviets.
Barkley gained 15 pounds within 24 hours to tip the scales at a Sixers predraft weigh in to scare them away from drafting him.
I could go on and on with all the interesting facts brought out in this book.
This book is not just about who was drafted when but more about how things fell into place. Teams with awful records playing hard at the end of the season because they had traded away their lottery pick - upsetting the teams that had traded for these picks. Teams with their lottery picks tanking it at the end of the season in order to get the highest pick possible. This tanking led to the weighted ping pong ball draft ordering system in place today.
It is amazing how many prior drafts and trades came around to help or haunt teams picking in the 1984 draft. For example, if the Rockets had drafted Clyde Drexler in 1983 instead of Rodney McCray the Blazers would have drafted Michael Jordan in 1984 while the Rockets would have had a dynamic duo of Drexler and Olajuwon.
This was an excellent book. I highly recommend it.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Excellent book
Comment: A previous review is correct - this book is mislabeled. The book spends very little time detailing how this draft changed the NBA forever - but instead focuses on the upbringing and collegiate biographies of Olajuwon, Jordan, Perkins, Barkley, Stockton, and Bowie.
Nevertheless, I found this book to be remarkable. Reading firsthand from various GMs and Stern about the various deals that occurred and didn't occur that resulted in the draft order in 1984 was exactly what I hoped to learn. I wanted to know of the potential trades that could have occurred - resulting in Jordan on the Mavs/Rockets/Blazers/Cavs/etc. All of the inside information that fans never get to know about was presented by Bondy - in addition to the biographical information of each of the "Sweet Six" players that made the draft.
Even the biographical info on each draftee was solid information. Before reading this book I had no idea that Barkely simply saw basketball as a means to an end - a way to make money to set himself up for life - and lobbied hard not to be picked by Philadelphia b/c the franchise was over the salary cap - whereas individuals like Olajuwon and Jordan wanted to play basketball and were willing to go anywhere to make a name for themselves on the court.
Just as interesting was also the information detailing the Olympic trials and Bobby Knight. Seeing how Knight whittled away the talent to create the Olympic team and the way he managed the roster of future stars was an interesting read - as was the information regarding how Barkley/Jordan interacted and worked with Knight was a fun read.
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