One of the most exciting teams in the NBA, the Dallas Mavericks have taken the sports world by storm. Now readers and fans will finally get the chance to hear the stories and witness the action that defines the powerhouse team that captured the 2011 NBA title. In this newly updated edition of Tales from the Dallas Mavericks Locker Room, Jaime Aron brings all the power and passion of the Dallas Mavericks recent glory years to life. Readers will relive all the adrenaline of the Mavericks-Spurs rivalry, get the inside scoop on life under head coach Rick Carlisle, and of course, revel in the glory of the Mavericks NBA championships! This treasure trove of team history includes stories about some of the best Mavs players to grace the court including: Dirk Nowitzki, Mark Aguirre, Jason Kidd, Seth Curry, and more. Tales from the Dallas Mavericks Locker Room is more than just a team history—it’s a chance to get to know the legendary players, coaches, and executives of the Dallas Mavericks like never before.

Sparty, the mascot for the Spartans of Michigan State, tours the campus and attends a football game.

In the 1990's, Dallas was a basketball wasteland. Luckily for the city, along came Dirk Nowitzki, a towering Würzburg, Germany native with a cool efficiency and the ability to basket shots from seemingly impossible angles. Nowitzki spent his entire 21-season NBA career with the Dallas Mavericks, the longest tenure of any one player with one team in the league's history, and led them to their first and only NBA championship, while being named a 14-time All-Star, a 12-time All-NBA Team member, and the first European player to receive the NBA's Most Valuable Player Award. Zac Crain, award-winning journalist for D Magazine who moved to Dallas the same year that Nowitzki began his career in the city, memorializes Nowitzki’s career through a lyric essay reminiscent of Hanif Abdurraqib's Go Ahead in the Rain that mixes with author's story with the basketball legend's, charting the highs and lows (and mostly highs) of the Mavs' all-time statistical leader’s career and what they mean to the city of Dallas and its now basketball-obsessed citizens.

For 31 years, The Dallas Mavericks had seasons end in disappointment. Every year, they tried again to find the right combination, only to find another dead end. But in the 2010-11 season, the Mavericks finally found the right mix around their superstar, Dirk Nowitzki, and shocked the basketball world by winning their first NBA Championship. Through extensive interviews and covering the Mavericks as a passionate journalist, Sturm illuminates what exactly brought the Mavericks together as a team. THIS YEAR IS DIFFERENT covers all the important details of the Dallas Mavericks' 2011 championship season, including: The transformation of the Dallas Mavericks franchise from perennial loser to NBA powerhouse. Dirk Nowitzki's career-long battle to cement his dynasty with an NBA championship, including a bitter loss in the 2006 Finals to Dwyane Wade's Miami Heat. Tracing the ups and downs of the 2011 campaign, as the Mavs soared to the top of the standings, only to suffer critical injuries mid-season and a string of losses which threatened their playoff hopes. A game-by-game recap of the Mavericks' 2011 playoff run, as they battled through the quarter-, semi-, and Western Conference Finals for a chance to compete for the NBA championship. The epic story of the 2011 NBA Finals, as Nowitzki and the Mavs took on Miami's "Big Three," in a rematch of Dallas' heartbreaking loss in the 2006 Finals, and how the Mavericks overcame all odds to win their first NBA Championship.

West Coast surfing legend Frosty Hesson shares his remarkable life story, the story of his extraordinary friendship with wunderkind Jay Moriarty, and his advice on how to be the best. When Richard “Frosty” Hesson was first approached by a young Jay Moriarty in 1990, the skinny kid with a sparkle in his eye only wanted one thing from the icon: his help in becoming a better surfer. Hesson, one of the first to conquer the huge waves off northern California known as Mavericks, recognized that the kid “had a vision.” Jay quickly demonstrated a resolve that reminded Frosty of his younger self, pursuing his goal with a seriousness far beyond his years. His attitude and work ethic earned Frosty’s respect and, eventually, his friendship. Making Mavericks is the inspiring story of their father-son bond and of the challenges that made each of them who they were—surf legends, and the subject of the upcoming film Chasing Mavericks. In Making Mavericks, Frosty talks about his turbulent youth spent under difficult circumstances, with parents who tried to find a positive way to handle a child with a passion for water and a disregard for his own safety. Throughout his life he developed principles to live by, principles that would become the core tenets of his teaching philosophy. Most significantly, Frosty talks about how one of his best students, Jay Moriarty, used his philosophy to become a surfing phenomenon, and whose life inspired the phrase, “Live like Jay.” Affecting and poignant, Making Mavericks is a celebration of Hesson’s determination to live with joy and purpose, and his desire to help others do the same.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * From the #1 bestselling author of The Dynasty and Tiger Woods—the “definitive…fantastic” (Sports Illustrated) biography of basketball superstar LeBron James, based on three years of exhaustive research and more than 250 interviews. LeBron James is the greatest basketball player of the twenty-first century, and he’s in the conversation with Michael Jordan as the greatest of all time. The reigning king of the game and the first active NBA player to become a billionaire, LeBron wears the crown like he was born with it. Yet his ascent has been anything but effortless and predetermined—the truth is vastly more interesting than that. What makes LeBron’s story so compelling is how he won his destiny despite overwhelmingly long odds, in a drama worthy of a Dickens novel. As a child, he was a scared and lonely little boy living a nomadic existence in Akron, Ohio. His mother, who had LeBron when she was sixteen, would sometimes leave him on his own. Destitute and fatherless, he missed close to one hundred days of school in the fourth grade. Desperate, his mother placed him with a family that gave him stability and put a basketball in his hands. “An absorbing chronicle of talent, character, pluck, and luck” (Wall Street Journal) LeBron tells the full, riveting saga of how a child adrift found the will to become a titan. Jeff Benedict, the most celebrated sports biographer of our time, paints a vivid picture of LeBron’s epic origin story, showing the gradual rise of a star who, surrounded by a tight-knit group of teenage friends and adult mentors, accelerated into a speeding comet during high school. Today LeBron produces Hollywood films and television shows, has a social media presence that includes more than one hundred million followers, engages in political activism, takes outspoken stances on racism and social injustice, and transforms lives through his visionary philanthropy. He went from a lost boy in Akron to a beloved hero who uses his fortune to educate underprivileged children and lift up needy families—and brought home Cleveland’s first NBA championship. But LeBron is more than just the origin story of a GOAT or a recap of his multi-championship, multi-MVP, gold medal–decorated career on the court. Benedict delves into LeBron’s relationship with fame and power: how he has cultivated it, harnessed it, suffered from it, and leveraged it. In these pages, we watch his evolution from a player who avoided politics and was widely criticized for not joining his teammates in protesting China’s role in the Darfur genocide to becoming an athlete who partnered with President Obama; campaigned for Hillary Clinton; became an advocate against gun violence, racism, and voter suppression; and openly clashed with President Trump, empowering other athletes to speak out against social injustice. To capture LeBron’s extraordinary life, Benedict conducted hundreds of interviews with the people who were involved with LeBron at different stages of his life. He also obtained thousands of pages of primary source documents and mined hundreds of hours of video footage. Destined to be the authoritative account of LeBron’s life, LeBron is a “masterful…propulsive” (Los Angeles Times) and unprecedented portrait of one of the world’s most captivating figures.

Did you know Kevin Durant led his AAU team to a national championship when he was only 11? Discover how an amazing high school and college basketball player went on to become an NBA great!

Most Oklahoma City Thunder fans have taken in a game or two at the Chesapeake Energy Arena and have cheered the team on through its string of dynamic playoff appearances. But only real fans watched the debut of a young Russell Westbrook or know the full story behind Kevin Durant's sudden "Mr. Unreliable" moniker. 100 Things Thunder Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die is the ultimate resource for true fans of the Oklahoma City Thunder. OKC sportswriter Darnell Mayberry has collected every essential piece of Thunder knowledge and trivia, as well as must-do activities, and ranks them all from 1 to 100, providing an entertaining and easy-to-follow checklist as you progress on your way to fan superstardom.

Eighteen-year-old Cynthia Anderson wants nothing more than to live her dream of becoming a cosmetologist and rid herself of her perfect big sister, Mary, her daddys obvious favorite. Thank goodness for her best friend, Jessica, and her gorgeous crush, Brian Parkerthe only two people distracting her from all her troubles. But as high school graduation finally arrives, Cynthia has no idea that her challenges have just begun. Cynthias workaholic father wants her to follow in his footsteps and become a lawyer. But she wants to own her own salon with Jessica. After she finally summons the courage to stand up to himjust as her mother did before she abandoned the family years earlierCynthia sets out on a rebellious quest of wild abandonment where she transforms into a rule-breaker determined to find freedom from all her worries. But as she travels down a difficult road lined with bad choices and consequences, Cynthia must decide whether to continue down the path of destruction or turn and head for home. In this inspirational young adult novel, a teenager embarks on a journey of self-discovery where she learns about the power of unconditional love and forgiveness.

Discusses the development of the Dallas Mavericks basketball team and describes some of the major players and coaches.