When I received a copy of “Open Your Heart With Basketball” in the mail to review I shuddered when I saw a basketball with a heart around it on the cover. Who wants to read a book about basketball with a huge heart on the cover? Not this kid. My immediate reaction was dismay that I’d have to read through 100 pages of fluff because I figured that if I wanted a sappy recount of someone’s experience with basketball I could just sit in front of my television for a …

Earlier this month I had the pleasure of reading Bill Woten’s book “Game 7: Inside The NBA’s Ultimate Showdown” and after exchanging some emails with Bill last week he agreed to come onto the Hoops Addict Podcast to discuss his book.
Some of the topics we cover during this interview include:

What motivated him to write about all of the Game 7’s that have occurred in the history of the NBA?
What was the most challenging aspect of writing this book?
What has been the most rewarding part of writing this book?
What were …

By Ryan McNeill

After reading through Andrew Blauner’s book “Coach: 25 Writers Reflect on People Who Made a Difference” this winter I was surprised to see that Andrew had come across my site and took the time to write up an email last week to thank me for mentioning his book in some posts that I have made recently on Al McGuire. After exchanging some emails I summoned up the courage to ask Andrew for 20 minutes of his time for an interview about his book and he graciously accepted.
Some of …

By Ryan McNeill
This Hoops Addict Podcast is a gem because I was able to get Adrian Wojnarowski on the show to talk about his national best seller “The Miracle of St Anthony.” Adrian writes for Yahoo Sports and his book “The Miracle of St. Anthony” is a national best seller.
For his book Adrian chronicled a year in the St Anthony basketball program and he is able to provide readers with some great insight into Coach Hurley’s program and all of the struggles that the coach and players faced that season. …

By Ryan McNeill
This winter I had the chance to read “Ball Don’t Lie” by Matt de la Pena and it instantly become one of my favourite books. The development of Sticky was so riveting that I found myself staying up past midnight reading it because I couldn’t put the book down and I found myself rooting him on despite all of his personality quirks. If you haven’t had a chance to read this book make sure you head out to your local bookstore this weekend and pick up a copy …

By Ryan McNeill

For this Hoops Addict Podcast I had the chance to chat with Rus Bradburd about his book “Paddy on the Hardwood.” Rus has coached alongside two of the top coaches in the history of college hoops in Lou Henson and Don Haskins (who the movie Glory Road was based on) but he got “burnt out” with college ball and decided to head to Ireland for a year. During his time in Ireland he coached a pro team while he finished writing a book and learned how to fiddle. …

By Ryan McNeill
This week I was able to chat with Christopher Bibey about his book “Open Your Heart With Basketball” and how his life changed after he was diagnosed with cancer during his freshman season of college basketball.
During this chat we also talked about what motivated him to write about all the highs and lows that he experienced while playing basketball, how his struggles as a basketball player in high school helped him build the character and perseverance that he needed to beat cancer, he explained how he was able …

By Ryan McNeill
I was fortunate to be sent a copy of Mark Kriegel’s book “Pistol: The Life of Pete Maravich” to review on HoopsAddict.com and after picking it up Sunday afternoon and I wasn’t able to put the book down until I had devoured all 323 pages of this epic biography. Since I’m in my mid-20’s I wasn’t able to witness the genius of Pistol Pete firsthand so this book provided me some great insight into what shaped and transformed Pete into the basketball player he was and the …

By Ryan McNeill

While searching through Chapters last month a book that caught my attention was Darcy Frey’s “The Last Shot” because it featured an in-depth look at Stephon Marbury’s high school career. While the feature on Marbury’s high school career motivated me to read this book the insight into the perils and pitfalls that await teenage boys growing up in Coney Island is what made this a book I won’t easily forget.

By Ryan McNeill

While searching through the sports section at Chapters last month for a book to read over my Christmas break a book that immediately grabbed my attention was “Transition Game: How Hoosiers Went Hip-Hop” by Jon Wertheim. The concept of melding the state of Indiana with Hip-Hop combined with Ron Artest on the cover was an tantalizing tandem so I quickly snagged this book.