A must read for any NBA junkie, June 1, 2008

By jmhard (Fort Worth, TX) –

This review is from: Tip-Off: How the 1984 NBA Draft Changed Basketball Forever (Hardcover)

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.

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A Must Read, July 19, 2007

By N. Verhoeven (Australia) –
  

This review is from: Tip-Off: How the 1984 NBA Draft Changed Basketball Forever (Hardcover)

If you are looking for an anthology on Michael Jordan, then stop reading now. But if you are looking for a definite history on the NBA, its clubs and some of the Top 50 greatest players, this is a must. It not only provides insights into the NBA draft and how it changed the landscape of the game, but it also provides a behind the scenes look into what teams were thinking and trying to achieve. Probably the best basketball book I have ever read.

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The ’84 draft really did change the NBA – Filip Bondy tells you how, May 17, 2007

By Andy Orrock (Dallas, TX) –
  

This review is from: Tip-Off: How the 1984 NBA Draft Changed Basketball Forever (Hardcover)

It’s quite a privilege to be the first amazon.com reviewer to weigh in on Filip Bondy’s excellent book about the 1984 NBA Draft, a seminal event in league history in which four sure-fire Hall of Famers were drafted: Hakeem Olajuwon, Michael Jordan, Charles Barkley, and John Stockton. To a lesser extent, the Bondy’s book also covers Sam Perkins, another class of ’84 draftee whose nice career fell a bit short of Hall standards. The best part of the story though is Bondy’s inclusion of the famous pick #2: Sam Bowie. Famous for the wrong reason because MJ was pick #3. The nice part of the book is Bowie’s cooperation with the author. I was very pleased to see and read of his gentle manner, his happiness in life and his “no regrets” look back to his injury-prone career. He seems unperturbed by naysayers who term his pick as “the NBA draft’s biggest historic blunder.” Because, as Bondy skillfully points out, this is revisionist history. This was ‘before Michael was Michael.’ Dean Smith kept Jordan’s breakout talents well-concealed with the UNC team system. Barkley, speaking in Bowie’s defense, says (in typical Barkley hyperbole) “No one but me knew how good Michael was.” Moreover, the prevailing wisdom in the NBA back in those days was that you win with a big man. And, in the draft, given the option between a good big man and a good playmaker, you always went with the big man. Portland, with its reverie of Bill Walton’s glory days culminating in the 1977 Association championship, was certainly very susceptible to that thinking…especially with Dr. Jack still at the helm. That’s the reason why Bondy subtitles his book “How the 1984 NBA Draft Changed Basketball Forever.” Post-Jordan, there was no longer second-thinking in going for a playmaker if there was even the slightest chance they’d turn into a Jordan. That new mindset generated a new game and rejuvenated the league (vs. the moribund 1970s) which then proceeded to put forth a brilliant product starting in 1984 and ending with the last of MJ’s titles in 1998. In between, dominance shifted from Lakers/Celtics, to the Pistons and then to the Bulls (with the Rockets capitalizing on Jordan’s two-year ‘retirement’). If you’re an NBA fan, you’ve got to have Filip Bondy’s book. It’s a fantastic read.

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