Who'd have thought I'd end up reading, let alone truly enjoying, a book centered on basketball? Not me, friends, but here we are.
I was late to start enjoying sports, and early on, any interest I might have had in basketball was tainted twice-over. My brother loved the game, but wasn't put on teams because he was told he 'wasn't aggressive enough' even though he could make any free throw. Years later, I had a basketball player in my class who was, without question, the least motivated and most frustrating student to enter my classroom in over a decade of teaching; him being one of the stars of our school's high-profile team didn't exactly endear the sport to me, even as I was finally becoming interested in sports. The first tinge of interest I got came years later when I got roped into running the scoreboard for a basketball game at the summer camp where I taught creative writing and drama. Between that experience and knowing some of the kids on *that team*, who were in my drama and creative writing classes on a regular basis, I finally grew some interest (and kept on running that scoreboard or taking pictures for the team in years after that).
And so, somehow, when a friend in a server mentioned this book, my interest was piqued just enough.
Abdurraqib blends history, memoir, sports, and identity here to make a fantastically engaging work focused in on basketball and what it can mean to a community. Although I had only the vaguest knowledge of the players he talked about, the passion in his prose brings them to life in these pages, and the conversation stretches so far beyond a simple game in a gym that there's endless meaning and value in these pages. The book is a powerful statement on community and identity, worth reading for anyone.
Absolutely recommended.