
When the Game Was War
The NBA's Greatest Season
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Narrated by:
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Cary Hite
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By:
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Rich Cohen
About this listen
The gritty, no-holds-barred account of the 1987 NBA season, a thrilling year of fierce battles and off-the-court drama between Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Isiah Thomas, and Michael Jordan—from New York Times bestselling author Rich Cohen.
“Plug in to a world where rivalries really mattered.”—Bob Ryan, sports columnist emeritus, The Boston Globe
AN ESQUIRE BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
Four historic teams. Four legendary players. One unforgettable season.
The 1980s were a transformative decade for the NBA. Since its founding in 1946, the league had evolved from a bruising, earthbound game of mostly nameless, underpaid players to one in which athletes became household names for their thrilling, physics-defying play. The 1987–88 season was the peak of that golden era, a year of incredible drama that featured a pantheon of superstars in their prime—the most future Hall of Famers competing at one time in any given season—battling for the title, and for their respective legacies.
In When the Game Was War, bestselling author Rich Cohen tells the story of this incredible season through the four teams, and the four players, who dominated it: Larry Bird and the Boston Celtics, Magic Johnson and the Los Angeles Lakers, Isiah Thomas and the Detroit Pistons, and a young Michael Jordan and his Chicago Bulls. From rural Indiana to the South Side of Chicago, suburban North Carolina to rust-belt Michigan, Cohen explores the diverse journeys each of these iconic players took before arriving on the big stage. Drawing from dozens of interviews with NBA insiders, Cohen brings to vivid life some of the most colorful characters of the era—like Bill Laimbeer, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Danny Ainge, and Charles Oakley—who fought like hell to help these stars succeed.
For anyone who longs to understand how the NBA came to be the cultural juggernaut it is today—and to relive the magic and turmoil of those pivotal years—When the Game Was War brilliantly recasts one unforgettable season and the four transcendent players who were at the center of it all.
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Story
The definitive history of the 1990s New York Knicks, illustrating how Pat Riley, Patrick Ewing, John Starks, Charles Oakley, and Anthony Mason resurrected the iconic franchise through oppressive physicality and unmatched grit. Blood in the Garden is a portrait filled with eye-opening details that have never been shared before, revealing the full story of the franchise in the midst of the NBA’s golden era. And rest assured, no punches will be pulled. Which is just how those rough-and-tumble Knicks would like it.
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Great book, horrible performance.
- By Sean Conway on 07-21-22
By: Chris Herring
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The Church of Baseball
- The Making of Bull Durham: Home Runs, Bad Calls, Crazy Fights, Big Swings, and a Hit
- By: Ron Shelton
- Narrated by: Ron Shelton
- Length: 8 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Bull Durham, the breakthrough 1988 film about a minor league baseball team, is widely revered as the best sports movie of all time. But back in 1987, Ron Shelton was a first-time director and no one was willing to finance a movie about baseball—especially a story set in the minors. The jury was still out on Kevin Costner’s leading-man potential, while Susan Sarandon was already a has-been. There were doubts. But something miraculous happened, and The Church of Baseball attempts to capture why.
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Great movie, great story
- By Kathy Morris on 07-11-22
By: Ron Shelton
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Playing for Keeps
- Michael Jordan and the World He Made
- By: David Halberstam
- Narrated by: JD Jackson
- Length: 20 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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In Playing for Keeps, David Halberstam takes the first full measure of Michael Jordan's epic career, one of the great American stories of our time. A narrative of astonishing power and human drama, brimming with revealing anecdotes and penetrating insights, the audiobook chronicles the forces in Jordan's life that have shaped him into history's greatest basketball player and the larger forces that have converged to make him the most famous living human being in the world.
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If You Liked "The Last Dance," You Will Love This
- By John on 06-13-20
By: David Halberstam
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Cheated
- The Inside Story of the Astros Scandal and a Colorful History of Sign Stealing
- By: Andy Martino
- Narrated by: Andy Martino
- Length: 9 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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The ensuing scandal rivaled that of the 1919 "Black Sox" and the more recent steroid era, and became one of the most significant that the game had ever seen. The fallout ensnared many other teams, either as victims, alleged cheaters or both. The Los Angeles Dodgers felt robbed of a World Series title, and fended off accusations about their organization. Same for the New York Yankees. The Boston Red Sox were soon under investigation themselves. The New York Mets lost a promising manager before he ever managed a game.
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Take away the 2017 WS Trophy!!
- By Sonny on 07-10-21
By: Andy Martino
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The Franchise
- Building a Winner with the World Champion Detroit Pistons, Basketball's Bad Boys
- By: Cameron Stauth
- Narrated by: Matt Martucci, Jeff Martin
- Length: 13 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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In January of 1989, Cameron Stauth became a fly on the office wall of Pistons General Manager Jack McCloskey. He watched day by day, crisis by crisis, as McCloskey, Coach Chuck Daly, and a handful of immensely talented and ambitious basketball players—the Bad Boys of Detroit—won the NBA championship.
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Bad Boys Risen
- By Jarvis Kolen on 09-04-22
By: Cameron Stauth
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Game
- An Autobiography
- By: Grant Hill
- Narrated by: Grant Hill
- Length: 11 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Grant Hill always had game. His choice of college was a subject of national interest, and his arrival at Duke University cemented the program’s arrival at the top. In his freshman year, he led the team to its first NCAA championship, and three championship appearances in four years. His Duke career produced some of the most iconic moments in college basketball history, and Coach K proved to be a lifelong mentor.
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Ok
- By Dani Brown on 07-16-22
By: Grant Hill
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The Back Roads to March
- The Unsung, Unheralded, and Unknown Heroes of a College Basketball Season
- By: John Feinstein
- Narrated by: John Feinstein
- Length: 14 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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John Feinstein has already taken listeners into the inner circles of top college basketball programs in The Legends Club. This time, Feinstein pulls back the curtain on college basketball's lesser-known Cinderella stories - the smaller programs who no one expects to win, who have no chance of attracting the most coveted high school recruits, who rarely send their players on to the NBA. Feinstein follows a handful of players, coaches, and schools who dream, not of winning the NCAA tournament but of making it past their first or second round games.
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A love letter to college basketball
- By Hebern on 01-27-22
By: John Feinstein
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Magic: The Life of Earvin “Magic” Johnson
- By: Roland Lazenby
- Narrated by: JD Jackson, Roland Lazenby
- Length: 30 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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The definitive biography of the basketball legend Earvin “Magic” Johnson, from the highly respected, career sportswriter and author of Michael Jordan: The Life.
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The Definitive Book on Magic
- By Hebern on 03-04-24
By: Roland Lazenby
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Michael Jordan
- The Life
- By: Roland Lazenby
- Narrated by: Bob Souer
- Length: 21 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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The definitive biography of a legendary athlete. The Shrug. The Shot. The Flu Game. When most people think of him, they think of his beautiful shots with the game on the line, his body totally in sync with the ball - hitting nothing but net. But for all his greatness, this scion of a complex family from North Carolina's Coastal Plain has a darker side: He's a ruthless competitor and a lover of high stakes. There's never been a biography that encompassed the dual nature of his character and looked so deeply at Jordan on and off the court - until now.
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horrible naration
- By Hiro on 03-27-18
By: Roland Lazenby
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Talk of Champions
- Stories of the People Who Made Me: A Memoir
- By: Kenny Smith
- Narrated by: Kenny Smith
- Length: 6 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Kenny Smith was a star at the University of North Carolina before his storied NBA run, in which he won two championships with the Houston Rockets. His popularity skyrocketed when he joined TNT’s new show, Inside the NBA, which has thrived for twenty-four years and won multiple Emmys, receiving enormous acclaim for the insight, humor, social commentary, and unrivaled basketball coverage from Kenny Smith, Charles Barkley, Shaquille O’Neal, and Ernie Johnson, Jr. Kenny is known to fans for his laser-sharp analysis and eloquent observations of the basketball scene and culture.
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Great book. Is heavy on racial topics, but appropriate
- By Mathias Noriega on 07-09-23
By: Kenny Smith
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They Said It Couldn't Be Done
- The '69 Mets, New York City, and the Most Astounding Season in Baseball History
- By: Wayne Coffey
- Narrated by: Gary Cohen
- Length: 9 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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The story of the 1969 New York Mets’ season has long since entered sports lore as one of the most remarkable of all time. But beyond the “miracle” is a compelling narrative of an unlikely collection of players and the hallowed manager who inspired them to greatness.
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You don’t have to be a fan
- By paul on 04-17-19
By: Wayne Coffey
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Pounding the Rock
- Basketball Dreams and Real Life in a Bronx High School
- By: Marc Skelton
- Narrated by: Pete Larkin
- Length: 8 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Welcome to Fannie Lou Hamer Freedom High School, in a working-class corner of the Bronx, where a driven coach inspires his teams to win games and championships - and learn Russian history and graduate and go on to college.
By: Marc Skelton
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Wish It Lasted Forever
- Life with the Larry Bird Celtics
- By: Dan Shaughnessy
- Narrated by: Dan Shaughnessy
- Length: 6 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Before primetime ESPN coverage, lucrative branding deals like Air Jordans, and $40 million annual player salaries, there was the NBA of the 1970s and 1980s. Enter Dan Shaughnessy, then the beat reporter for The Boston Globe who covered the Boston Celtics every day from 1982 to1986. It was a time when reporters travelled with professional teams—flying the same commercial airlines, riding the same buses, and staying in the same hotels. Drawing on unprecedented access and personal experiences, Shaughnessy takes us inside the legendary Larry Bird-led Celtics teams.
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Enjoyable Read
- By Donna Daily on 12-03-21
By: Dan Shaughnessy
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Basketball
- A Love Story
- By: Jackie MacMullan, Rafe Bartholomew, Dan Klores
- Narrated by: James Fouhey, Jim Frangione, Sullivan Jones, and others
- Length: 16 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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A sweeping and revelatory history of basketball, drawing upon hundreds of hours of interviews with the greatest players, coaches, executives, and journalists in the history of the game. In an effort to tell the complete story of basketball in all its fascinating dimensions, acclaimed authors Jackie MacMullan, Rafe Bartholomew, and Dan Klores have compiled nearly a thousand hours' worth of interviews with a staggering number of basketball greats. The audiobook that grew out of those interviews is an extraordinary project and quite possibly the most ambitious basketball work ever made.
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Underwhelming
- By Adam Kosberg on 12-02-18
By: Jackie MacMullan, and others
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Finish Strong
- A Father's Code and a Son's Path
- By: Nate Ebner, Paul Daugherty, Urban Meyer - foreword
- Narrated by: Stephen Graybill
- Length: 7 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Nate Ebner and his father were inseparable. From an early age, they worked side-by-side in the family junkyard. Even though Nate was a great peewee football player in football-mad Ohio, he followed his father's passion for rugby and started playing for the same club as his father when he was only 13 years old. But Nate had to face the fact that there was no way to make a living as a professional rugby player in this country. So Nate gave his dad the news that he planned to quit rugby and go out for the football team at Ohio State University, with an eye toward making the NFL.
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Inspiring Story
- By Dawn Ebner on 11-12-24
By: Nate Ebner, and others
Outstanding basketball book
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The greatest NBA season told in fascinating detail
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A fun look back at a classic period
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The back stories.
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Phil Jackson accuses Red Auerbach of cheap tactics
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Superfluous Play-by-Play
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NBA's Greatest
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Magic, Larry, Isiah & Mike
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nostalgic.
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Awesome!
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