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Basketball has so many great stories, so many interesting anecdotes-about college and pro teams, players from all levels, announcers, and even owners-that one book just isn't enough to hold it all. That's why Potomac Books, Inc. is introducing Basketball's Most Wanted™ II: The Top 10 Book of More Hotshot Hoopsters, Double Dribbles, and Roundball Oddities. With even more fun tales and interesting facts from the world of hoops, there's something in here for all fans of basketball.

Which NBA team attempted to draft a player straight out of high school in 1969-a female player from the Iowa six-on-six league? What standard features in today's NBA were originally introduced in the renegade American Basketball Association? Who are the best three-point shooters in both the pros and college? Which high school team had an amazing four future NBA players on its roster? With which team did Wilt Chamberlain begin his professional career? (Hint: It wasn't an NBA team.) You'll find the answers to all those questions and so much more in Basketball's Most Wanted™ II, including the best and worst basketball movies, the most shocking NCAA tournament upsets, top names from basketball's "Asian invasion," and even guys who played one game-and only one game-in the NBA.

So join David L. Hudson, Jr. as he looks at the amazing and the amusing, the wacky and the wonderful, the best and worst of everything basketball has to offer. It's a slam dunk!

Few plays in basketball are more exciting for the fans or more devastating to the opponent than the fast break. But what happens when a team starts a fast break and has to abort it? This is when a good half-court offense comes into play, and how a team handles that situation can mean the difference between winning and losing. Basketball's Offensive Sets is the most complete book available on half-court offensive plays. Author Tom Reiter has included a complete guide to sets that can be customized to meet the needs of any team. There are quick-hitters that can be used following timeouts and other breaks in game action, and plays that can be run when the initial fast break doesn't work out. Reiter explains the half-court offense's potentials, the defensive weaknesses it can exploit and the type of personnel to make it most effective.

Perhaps the least controversial sports honor in living memory was the selection of John Wooden as "Coach of the Century" by ESPN, honoring his ten NCAA basketball championships in a twelve-year stretch. His UCLA teams won with great centers and with small lineups, with superstars and with team effort, always with quickness, always with class. Wooden was a teacher first and foremost, and his lessons -- taught on the basketball court, but applicable throughout one's life -- are summarized in his famed Pyramid of Success. Andrew Hill was one of the lucky young men who got to learn from Wooden in his favored classroom -- though that is hardly how Hill would have described it at the time. An all-city high school player in Los Angeles, Hill played -- a little -- on three national champions, from 1970 to 1972. Hill was left embittered by his experience at UCLA; he was upset at how unequally Wooden treated his starting players and his substitutes. Hill went on to a successful career in television, rising to the presidency of CBS Productions, where he was responsible for the success of such popular series as Touched by an Angel and Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. Hill's job required him to manage many creative people, with the egos and insecurities that usually go along with such talents. And one day, some twenty-five years after he graduated, he was hit with the realization that everything he knew about getting the best out of people he had learned directly from Coach John Wooden. With no small trepidation, Hill picked up the phone to call and thank his old coach and unexpected mentor. To his surprise, Wooden greeted him warmly and enthusiastically. A strong friendship, sealed in frequent visits and conversations, ensued, and endures. Be Quick -- But Don't Hurry! tells the story of that friendship. But it also shares the lessons and secrets that Hill learned from Coach Wooden, which hold the key to managing creatively in the idea-driven economy of the twenty-first century. Among those lessons are: The team with the best players almost always wins Be quick, but don't hurry: there is never enough time to be sure (and if you are sure, you're probably too late), but you must always keep your balance Failing to prepare is preparing to fail The team that makes the most mistakes...wins! Full of sound advice and warm reminiscence, Be Quick -- But Don't Hurry! is the management book of a lifetime.

Everything you need to know about the teams, players, coaches and history.

This book is a handy reference of detailed and up-to-date information. All twenty-eight NBA teams are covered from the four major divisions: Eastern Atlantic, Eastern Central, Western Midwest, and Western Pacific. Team facts include date of entry into the NBA, number of championships won, and a concise history of the club.

Profiles of the game's eighty greatest players are profiled and include such legends as: - Kareem Abdul-Jabbar - Larry Bird - Kobe Bryant - Wilt Chamberlain - Julius Erving - Patrick Ewing - Walt Frazier - Michael Jordan - Karl Malone - Hakeem Olajuwon - Shaquille O'Neal - Dennis Rodman - Bill Russell.

A section on basketball's renowned coaches features Red Auerbach, Phil Jackson, K.C. Jones, Don Kundla, Dick Motta, Don Nelson, Jack Ramsay, Pat Riley, Jerry Sloan and Lenny Wilkens. Basketball's most memorable games are described from 1947 to the 2003 league championship, including the 1992 Olympic Dream Team.

The final third of the book contains detailed player and team statistics that cover: - Career regular season - Career playoffs - Individual single season - Final standings - NBA finals results - All-Star Game results - Hall of Fame inductees - NBA awards.

The story of Bob Knight and the 1987 Indiana basketball team that became The Team in college basketball by winning the national championship in one of the most thrilling games in NCAA tournament history.

When Norm Stewart retired as the head men's basketball coach at the University of Missouri, the state, the conference and the sport lost one of their most enduring figures. Beyond the Norm chronicles the playing and coaching careers of Norm Stewart, coach of the Missouri Tigers for 32 years. The book includes features on Stewart's top 10 games as a coach, Coaches Against Cancer, and Stewart's life off the court, as well as the record and statistics Stewart has established during his coaching career.

This is the story of perhaps the greatest all-around player in basketball history, told straight from his mouth. The name Oscar Robertson nowadays gets mentioned in conjunction with one of basketball's seminal accomplishments: the triple-double season. The year was 1962. He was all of twenty-three. No player in basketball history had ever done this. No one has done it since--not Magic Johnson, not Larry Bird, not Michael or Kobe. Throughout the first five years of his career, he averaged a triple-double. Videotape does not do him justice. The images are washed out, the colors faded and fuzzy in a manner associated with bygone eras, the fashions and style of play not aging well. And yet there is palpable greatness. He was voted into the Basketball Hall of Fame on the first ballot, and the National Association of Basketball Coaches named him their player of the century. ESPN put him among their fifty greatest athletes of the century, the National Basketball Association on their list of the fifty greatest players. On and on. So many accolades that they run into one another. But the story of Oscar Robertson is about much more than basketball. The story of Oscar Robertson is one of a shy black child growing up in a city so segregated that, until he is ten years old, his only exposure to white people is the distant memory of two Tennessee farm owners whose land his father had worked. It is the story of a poor family, and absent parents working long hours without complaint or reward. The story of Oscar Robertson is also the story of the basketball-crazed state of Indiana and Crispus Attucks High School, the high school he led to the state championship. He joins the University of Cincinnati's basketball team and handles the ball on the perimeter in a way that has never been seen before. Oscar Robertson enters the NBA with the Cincinnati Royals, who have been just barely holding on as they wait for the fledgling star. Robertson does not disappoint. Moving to the backcourt, he simply revolutionizes the game. The story of Oscar Robertson is one of a superstar at the height of his career becoming the president of a union, the National Basketball Players Association, using his fame to try to improve conditions for all basketball players. It is the story of the man who sues the NBA for the right to free agency. He is thirty-one years old when the Milwaukee Bucks trade for him. And so Oscar Robertson's story is also the story of a veteran player who joins young superstar Lew Alcindor (the future Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) and leads Milwaukee to an NBA championship. It is the story of a man who, at thirty-four years old, is forced to leave the game. Who is blacklisted from coaching and is forced out of broadcasting. Who must face questions not about whether he fought the good fight, but how he fought it. Two years after he leaves basketball, after six years of legal wrangling, Robertson wins his lawsuit with the NBA. It is the story of a man who revolutionized the game of basketball twice: once on the court, and once in the way that the business of basketball is conducted. It is the story of how the NBA, as we now know it, was built. Of race in America in the second half of the twentieth century. Of a complex hero. An uncompromising man. It is Oscar Robertson's story.

Chicago Bulls fans thought they had it so good. From 1991 through 1993 the Bulls won three consecutive NBA titles behind the talents of Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen. When Jordan retired in the fall of 1993, those fans thought the good times were over. In the fall of 1995, however, Jordan was ready to make a full return to NBA action, Pippen was still the best number two man in basketball, and then bad-boy Dennis Rodman was signed to join the franchise that had grown to hate him. Suddenly, the Bulls had the greatest team in NBA history. Bill WenningtonÂ's Tales from the Bulls Hardwood tells some of the inside stories from that team, the one that won three more NBA titles from 1996 through 1998. Seen from the eyes of three-time NBA champion center Bill Wennington, the Bulls come to life differently, from an insiderÂ's point of view. The 1995-96 Bulls won an NBA record 72 games and became the Beatles of professional sports. Followed everywhere and talked about endlessly, they captured a national and international audience and kept all eyes upon them for three seasons, even though everyone knew they were going to win. Fans will read about some of the most famous names in basketball history. Jordan, the demanding team leader; Pippen, the true teammate; Rodman, the reckless rebounder; Toni Kukoc, the outsider; Ron Harper, the former star turned role player; Luc Longley, the affable Aussie; Steve Kerr, the John Paxson sequel; all playing for Phil Jackson, the Zen master coach. These are stories fans have not heard before, but itÂ's not their fault. They just werenÂ't there the way Bill Wennington was.

"This is an excellent reference book that will be a valuable addition to any sports reference collection." Choice

Jeff Marcus provides, in alphabetical order, the year-by-year coaching records for every pro major league coach in basketball history beginning with the American Basketball League (ABL), which formed in 1925 and was the first league to play in larger arenas on the East Coast and in the Mid West, then tracking the birth of the National Basketball League (NBL) from its onset in 1937 to its convergence 12 years later with the BAA, forming what we know today as the NBA. Brief but detailed biographical sketches are provided for every coach in these leagues.