The rookies and free agents looked on the coaches as secure and powerful, but the coaches knew that their jobs were never secure. #3 The coaches and the scouts were anxious about the new season. He was terrified of what they might reveal about him.
#2 Greg Bunch, a black player, had the same psychological tests done on him as Steve Hayes did, but he had to do them a second time because of a mistake. The rookies and free agents were at the brink of their dreams, which was to play under contract in the NBA. The veterans, who had made the team before, had guaranteed money in their contracts. Sample Book Insights: #1 In the fall of 1979, the Portland Trail Blazers were a team of rookies and free agents. For that brief stretch, the team seemed perfect.Īnd then Bill Walton got hurt and the team pretty much fell apart.Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. They tried an array of players and coaches, but could never quite put it together-until, that is, a brief run at the end of the 1976-1977 season, when they won the championship, and the first 60 games of the next season, in which they went 50-10.įor that brief stretch, Bill Walton, a college star at UCLA who had struggled in his first two years in Portland, was the best rebounder and defensive center in the league for that brief stretch, Maurice Lucas became a dominant offensive force for that brief stretch, Lionel Hollins and Dave Twardzik were a dynamic guard combo. The Portland Trail Blazers began the 1970s as a feeble expansion team, winning 47 total games in its first two seasons.
The problem is that The Breaks of the Game is a book about the 1976-1978 Portland Trail Blazers that covers the 1979-1980 Portland Trail Blazers. There is a quote from Bill Simmons on the cover of my copy of The Breaks of the Game by David Halberstam, calling it “the perfect book about the perfect team.” Unfortunately, neither superlative is accurate.Ĭalling a book “perfect” is generally an overstatement, but it’s less often that an appraisal gets the subject of a book wrong.
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