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Top 10 Best Basketball Books (2026)

The best basketball books take a few clear shapes: a season lived inside one locker room, an era retold by its players, or one legend explaining his craft. Each shape asks for a different mood, and settling that first makes the pick between ten strong titles almost automatic.

Season chronicles reported from inside real locker rooms sit next to conversational league histories and books from the legends themselves. The eras stretch from the ABA years to the 1990s Knicks to the league of today. Whether you read for history or for personality decides where to start.

1.Expensive Basketball - by Shea Serrano

Expensive Basketball
Big-picture NBA books earn their length by having a point of view, and neither of these two ever pretends to be neutral. Shea Serrano made his name turning fan arguments into real writing, and Expensive Basketball brings that voice to the sport he clearly loves most. The essays read like the conversation after a big game, funny and sincere in the same paragraph. Hand it to a reader who loves basketball but has no patience for solemn sportswriting.
$21.99$30.00-27%
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2.The Book of Basketball: The NBA According to the Sports Guy - by Bill Simmons

The Book of Basketball: The NBA According to the Sports Guy
Bill Simmons builds The Book of Basketball around one enormous argument about which NBA players and teams actually mattered, then keeps interrupting himself with footnotes and jokes. A fan opens it to check one ranking and looks up two hours later. It rewards a reader who enjoys the argument more than the answer.
$17.99$25.00-28%
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3.Masters of the Game: A Conversational History of the NBA in 75 Legendary Players - by Sam Smith, Phil Jackson

Masters of the Game: A Conversational History of the NBA in 75 Legendary Players
Basketball history books land hardest when the people who were on the floor do the talking, and these two hand them the microphone. Seventy-five legendary careers give Masters of the Game its structure, and Sam Smith, who spent decades on the NBA beat, lets long conversations carry the story from the league's first stars to the current era. The format means you can open to any player and start there. It suits a reader who wants the whole league told through people instead of standings.
$23.99$32.00-25%
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4.Loose Balls: The Short, Wild Life of the American Basketball Association - by Terry Pluto

Loose Balls: The Short, Wild Life of the American Basketball Association
The ABA lasted nine seasons, played with a red, white, and blue ball, and produced stories nobody would believe without witnesses, so Terry Pluto rounded up the witnesses. Loose Balls runs almost entirely on the players' and coaches' own voices. It is the funniest book here, and the one for a reader who thinks pro basketball history starts with the NBA.
$15.99$22.00-27%
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5.The Breaks of the Game - by David Halberstam

The Breaks of the Game
A writer who spends a season inside one team comes home with something no camera crew gets, and all three of these were reported that way. David Halberstam followed the 1979-80 Portland Trail Blazers for a full season, and The Breaks of the Game uses that one team to explain money, television, race, and where the league was heading. The reporting has aged into history without losing any pace. Often called the finest basketball book ever written, it is the place to start if you only read one of these.
$15.99$21.99-27%
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6.Blood in the Garden: The Flagrant History of the 1990s New York Knicks - by Chris Herring

Blood in the Garden: The Flagrant History of the 1990s New York Knicks
The 1990s Knicks turned Madison Square Garden into the most dreaded stop in the league, and Chris Herring documents how Pat Riley built that reputation foul by foul. Fresh interviews give even the famous brawls new detail. Readers who remember Ewing, Oakley, and Starks will get the most out of it, though it works fine as a first Knicks book.
$14.99$19.99-25%
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8.The Mamba Mentality: How I Play - by Kobe Bryant

The Mamba Mentality: How I Play
Basketball biographies and memoirs live or die on honesty, and these three hold up to a close read. Kobe Bryant walks through his own game in The Mamba Mentality, breaking down footwork, film study, and how he attacked specific defenders. Andrew Bernstein's photographs run across nearly every spread, so it reads like an annotated film session. It is the natural pick for a reader who plays or coaches the game themselves.
$25.99$35.00-26%
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9.Eleven Rings: The Soul of Success - by Phil Jackson, Hugh Delehanty

Eleven Rings: The Soul of Success
Eleven championships as a head coach is the resume, but Eleven Rings spends most of its pages on how Phil Jackson managed Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, and rosters full of competing egos. The triangle offense gets explained, and so does the meditation. It fits a reader as interested in leadership as in basketball.
$14.99$20.00-25%
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10.Michael Jordan: The Life - by Roland Lazenby

Michael Jordan: The Life
Roland Lazenby starts generations back in the Jordan family tree, which is how Michael Jordan: The Life earns its scale, tracing the story from a North Carolina childhood through the Bulls dynasty and past it. Years of reporting around the team sit underneath every chapter. Choose it over another documentary rewatch when you want the person behind the career.
$17.99$24.99-28%
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Keep the basketball shelf growing

Pick the shape that fits how you like to read, whether that is a season chronicle, an era told by its players, or a legend breaking down his own craft. When one of these leads to five more, basketball biographies are the natural shelf to raid next.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best basketball book to read first?
Start with The Breaks of the Game, which explains the league's money, pressures, and personalities through one Portland season and needs no prior homework. If you would rather laugh while you learn, Loose Balls covers the ABA years through the voices of the men who lived them. Either one makes the rest of the shelf easier to choose.
Are there basketball books written by the players and coaches themselves?
Eleven Rings comes straight from Phil Jackson, and it is candid about how he handled stars rather than a victory lap. Masters of the Game is built from conversations with dozens of legendary players, so their voices carry it even though a reporter holds the pen. Both put you closer to the floor than any outside account.
Is Michael Jordan: The Life worth reading after The Last Dance?
Yes, because Roland Lazenby goes where the series could not: back through the Jordan family's generations in North Carolina and into the years before and after the Bulls. The book has no stake in protecting its subject's version of events. Anyone who finished the documentary wanting more context is exactly who it serves.
What are some funny basketball books that are not dry history?
Expensive Basketball is the clearest answer, since Shea Serrano writes about the sport the way fans joke about it with each other. The Book of Basketball hides real history inside its footnotes and running gags. Neither asks you to memorize a single season before enjoying it.
What is a good basketball book to give as a gift?
The Mamba Mentality works best as a gift, a large-format book of Kobe Bryant's own analysis with Andrew Bernstein's photography that reads well in any order. For a fan with a strong team allegiance, match the book to the team instead, like Blood in the Garden for anyone raised on the 1990s Knicks.

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