It is difficult for me to read any of these books that talk about the changes in a game regardless of the sport. This book about the NBA was difficult for a few reasons. One I still don’t think the average cares where the NBA came from, they just care about where it is today. It will be like this review, it history for when I started watching Basketball was 1969 on a small black and white T.V., and most of the games were taped delayed. Most people don’t even know what any of that means. Even the finals were on taped delayed and that was when you had the Lakers and Knicks playing. When the ABA started their game was different from the red, white, and blue ball in the style they played. Dr.j was doing dunks that Jordan would do years later but because of national television people remember his not bad or good different. The ABA made the NBA fight for prime television time and for the finals to be played live, showed live. Of course, it helped when Magic and Bird came into the league and Jordan. But first, the big change was the NBA merging with the ABA even some of the styles of basketball started to change like it was in the ABA fast-paced instead of slow down. That is what this book I felt was missing most people know that Jordan changed the game
For me Dr.J the Ice Man Geroge Gervin for you that don’t know that name, George McGinnis, just to name a few. The ABA had the 3-point shot not yet in the NBA for me during the 70s the ABA was fast fun and exciting when they merged it took a while for the NBA to catch my attention. I felt this book could have been so much more or maybe I was expecting something different. For most, I am sure this will be a good book.

Subtitled: Business, Entertainment, and the Birth of the Modern-Day NBA

I received an advance reader copy of this book from the publisher through Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.

From Hang Time to Prime Time follows the evolution of the NBA from its low-profile status in the early 1970s to the worldwide sensation it became by the end of the 1980s. It identifies several key factors behind that evolution and studies them in-depth.


Croatto begins with the hiring of Larry O’Brien as league commissioner. Shortly after taking the post, O’Brien made a point of settling some long-standing legal issues he felt were holding back the league’s development. One of those issues was the completion of a merger with their competition, the American Basketball Association. A handful of ABA teams were absorbed into the NBA, and players who were not on those teams came into the league as free agents. Hall of Fame players such as Julius Erving, George Gervin, Artis Gilmore, Moses Malone and Dan Issel increased the talent level in the NBA immediately upon their arrival.

When David Stern succeeded O’Brien in the commissioner post, he provided the NBA with more marketing prowess and overall vision than they’d ever had before. The league focused on promoting stars such as Erving, Magic Johnson, and Larry Bird at first, then really took off upon the arrival and rise to stardom of Michael Jordan.

Television contracts, merchandising, shoe contracts, and the rise of hip-hop culture all played big roles in bringing the NBA to the status it enjoys today.

I gave From Hang Time to Prime Time five stars. I first began following NBA basketball in the early 1970s, so I was familiar with at some of the things the book addressed, but there was a lot more happening behind the scenes that I wasn’t aware of until I read this book.

I've read several histories of the NBA, many of which tell the time-honored tale of "the league was made of cocaine until Larry and Magic saved the day!". So it was refreshing to see Croatto come at this from a perspective of "yes, but!" instead. The look behind the scenes of how the sausage was made was fascinating, given how many sources Croatto was able to get on the record. He also weaves in various cultural forces, such as hip-hop and sneaker culture, that are indelibly intertwined with the NBA. If you don't care about names like Rick Welts, this might be a bit too much inside basketball, but if you want to hear about how the NBA became the global force it is today, one deal at a time, this is the book to get.

Current fans of NBA basketball are treated to not only the sport itself, with the displays of athleticism and flash provided every game, but also to a complete entertainment package whether watching at the arena or at home. The league has been the leader in many innovations when it comes to making a game an entertainment spectacle, but it hasn’t always been that way. This book by Pete Croatto is an excellent account of how the league went from irrelevance to the global phenomenon it has become.

Many people, including non-basketball fans, know about Julius Erving, or “Dr. J”, for his entertaining dunks in the 1970’s when his career was at his peak. Basketball fans, even casual ones, know that he performed at this level not in the NBA, but the rival ABA league. While that league eventually merged with the NBA because of its financial situation, the NBA wasn’t in much better shape. The league had just gone through a lengthy court battle with the player’s association over free agency with the end result being that their reserve clause was struck down. Led by commissioner Larry O’Brien (who gets a lot of credit for the state of today’s NBA by the author), the NBA not only took in four ABA franchises and now had Dr. J playing for one of their signature teams, but also started looking at how to better market themselves through television and other forms.

This was helped greatly by two of the biggest names in college basketball, Larry Bird and Magic Johnson, joining the league in the same year and also joining two of the league’s most storied franchises, the Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers respectively, and also by the tireless work by O’Brien’s legal counsel, David Stern. Stern did a lot of legwork to get a new television contract, start the division of NBA Enterprises and oh, yes, negotiate the first salary cap in professional sports history. The stories of people who were working at NBA Enterprises in the 80’s when Bird and Johnson were joined by Michael Jordan as the faces of the league. Their stories of their long hours, the poor working conditions and the endless questions by Stern would usually make a reader cringe, but both the people interviewed and Croatto make them seem like they had the best job in the world.

If the NBA was doing better in both finances and exposure with Bird and Johnson, both of those areas saw explosive growth once Jordan came on the scene. His on-court dunks, his on-camera persona, his savvy business acumen such as his deals with Nike, and oh, yes, winning championships in Chicago, all helped make the NBA an international league. The changes in attitudes toward the skills of international players and the 1992 Olympic team were the catalysts for this change as they are covered in this book as well.

The last aspect of the growth of the league, especially for entertainment, was that it was in tune with the pop culture of the era. When the VCR gained popularity, the league started promoting recordings of highlights and family-friendly entertainment geared around NBA stars tor sale. When rap music gained mainstream popularity, the NBA was right there alongside to incorporate it into its marketing. The league was also willing to now take chances that some more conservative executives and fans may not have considered. One great example of this was allowing Marvin Gaye to sing his version of the national anthem before the 1983 All-Star game. If you have never heard it, make sure you do as it can be found on YouTube. Watching the players move to the beat is just as good as the singing.

Croatto’s in-depth research, hundreds of interviews and writing style that is so engrossing make this a book that every person interested in basketball, the NBA or the pop culture of the 1980’s should read. It will capture your attention at the start and will be one that is very difficult to put down.

I wish to thank Atria Books for providing a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

The NBA is big business these days.

Players are global icons, recognizable to billions of people. They are literally world famous, making eight figure salaries and signing even bigger endorsement deals. On the ownership side, TV contracts and ever-escalating franchise values mean big profit for anyone with a piece of an NBA team.

It’s easy to forget that it wasn’t always this way.

Pete Croatto’s new book “From Hang Time to Prime Time: Business, Entertainment, and the Birth of the Modern-Day NBA” takes us back to a time, not so long, when the NBA was a pro sports afterthought, a league that struggled to gain any sort of foothold in the cultural consciousness. The public perception was mixed and the product on the floor was uneven; outside of a few cities, the league was barely holding on. You couldn’t even watch games live; even the Finals were infamously aired on tape delay.

But thanks to some savvy league officials, some smart business moves, a handful of transcendent players and a few lucky bounces, the NBA transformed itself. The period from the early ‘70s through the ‘80s was transformative, a time when the league went from also-ran to clubhouse leader. It was a long journey, and not without obstacles, but ultimately, the NBA got where it wanted to go.

The NBA of 40 years ago bore little resemblance to the megalithic cultural machine that it is now. Even the most successful teams were struggling financially; the league was viewed as a lesser entity by the average consumer. The brief rise of the ABA started things down a different path; while it was a financial disaster and largely behind the elder league in terms of overall talent, it also proved far more willing to experiment than its staid predecessor. We got the red, white and blue ball and the dunk contest and – perhaps most importantly – we got Dr. J.

The NBA/ABA merger happened almost exclusively to get Julius Erving to the NBA. That switch was the catalyst, the first domino in the long tumbling string that would lead to today’s league. Things started moving when Larry O’Brien took over as commissioner in 1975; under his purview, the league started pushing its way to the front of the American consciousness (though it seems clear that much of the legwork was done by rising star and eventual head honcho David Stern).

It didn’t hurt that the end of the 1970s saw the emergence of Larry Bird and Magic Johnson, two rivals cut from the same cloth making the leap from NCAA legends to NBA superstars. That they reinvigorated two of the league’s premier franchises certainly helped as well. Their presence helped push the league into better television deals, and with a go-getter and full-on acolyte like Stern steering the ship, the focus shifted from teams to stars. That change in promotional ideology was the leap forward that the league needed.

And then Michael Jordan showed up.

Jordan kicked wide open the door that Bird, Magic and Dr. J had helped unlock. From the hype videos to the relationship with Nike to the on-court excellence, Jordan was the figure that Stern and the rest of the league needed to break through into the popular consciousness. And from there, the sky was the limit. Or rather … the air.

“From Hang Time to Prime Time” is a fascinating snapshot of sports history. The NBA took a weird and meandering path to relevance. It took a lot of work by a lot of very smart people to push the league forward; David Stern is the foremost figure, of course, but there were so many behind-the-scenes folks whose contributions were key to the evolution of the NBA brand. NBA Entertainment, Nike, various network partners – all of it happened due to hard work by a lot of people you may never have heard of.

And then there were the players. The arrival of Dr. J, followed a few years later by the simultaneous appearance of Bird and Magic and the ascension and anointing of Jordan just a few years after that … all of that was absolutely necessary for the league to grow like it did. Absent any one of them, the road grows exponentially more rocky – it’s an interesting “what if” to consider the league’s evolution without them.

Croatto captures the predominant feelings of the rapidly-shifting era, bringing a wealth of engaging interviews and some real deep-dive reportage to bear in the service of reconstructing the freewheeling weirdness and financial desperation of the times. One gets a sense of the danger the NBA was in, even as the people whose loyalty and passion worked tirelessly to push it to where they believed it should be.

“From Hang Time to Prime Time” is granular sports history, the kind of wonky stuff that will likely fascinate fans of the NBA’s present as much as those who revere its past. It’s a combination of in-depth research and deft prose, informative and engaging and extremely readable. Am I going to call this book a slam dunk? Yes. Yes I am, cliches be damned.

There seems to be a proliferation of books this year that harken back to sports & entertainment in the ‘80s and this is another one. It does a good job laying out the transition from the O’Brien era to the Stern era in the NBA.

I was in my late teens/early twenties at the time and really hopped on the NBA rocket ship of the tail end of Bird/Magic and the emergence of the Bad Boy Pistons and the Jordan Bulls. This book gave me insight into the struggles the NBA had as it tried to break into the homes of NFL and MLB lovers. The risks that Stern took (and the hours he put in) are very well laid out here and can indeed be used as inspiration for any struggling sports league today.

Croatto does something that few do but really should: focus attention and interview time to the “doers”, the grunt workers that make a business shine. Peppered throughout with quotes from team promotion executives, ad executives, production people, heck even a mascot, accompanied by the requisite input from team owners, player agents and more television executives than should be legal, this book dedicates chapters to the beginning of sneaker culture, the start of the AllStar Weekend as we know it, the introduction of exposing the NBA brand to international fans, and the intense battle to get the NBA on live television versus tape delay.

If you are a basketball fan that enjoys hearing about the business of the game, this is for you. Outside of a few Steph Curry references, you won’t see a lot of mention of todays game, but that is what the internet is for. But if you want to appreciate why Thursday nights and Sunday afternoons are full of ball and how it got there, you’ll love this book.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Atria Books for providing a copy for review.

I've read a lot of the best books about the NBA and its history. This book is a worthy addition to the club.

Croatto was able to convey the enthusiasm and sense of wonder that the NBA's early employees had. When he talks about the men and women who spent long days and nights, the reader feels that sense of accomplishment come through off the page. In the chapter about Marvin Gaye singing the National Anthem, I felt the nervousness and tension that everyone must have felt. There was so much in the line. Advertisers could have left. David Stern, commissioner and colossal figure, could have hated it and launched into one of his withering critiques. The sense of relief when Stern says he loved it was palpable to me as a reader.

The structure of the book was very engaging. His wasn't a straight ahead account of the NBA's handling of the various problems that plagued the league right after the ABA merger. Croatto takes detours into the pop culture and current events of the time to give context to those problems. This technique is not only enjoyable, but it gives the story a dimension I haven't seen in other books about this topic.

I wholeheartedly recommend this book.

This is a very interesting read about the evolution of the NBA & the culture surrounding the NBA from the 70's to the 90's. Most basketball books are about specific players, events, or seasons, but this really goes into depth on less discussed aspects surrounding the game of basketball. What really sets this book apart is the discussion about NBA/basketball culture spanning the 70s-90s like hip hop, sneakers, home movies, all star games, tv deals, Nike, race, business aspects, the ABA merger, & commissioner succession. This book really is about all the cultural aspects that complemented NBA basketball and helped rise the game to what we see today. If you like The Book of Basketball from Bill Simmons, you'll love this.

Despite being a massive NBA fan, this book was wildly uninteresting. It's one thing to romanticize and look at an NBA team with no true critical eye, but to do that with the NBA BUSINESS is so ridiculous. The biggest example of its danger is the section that in no way challenges the idea that David Stern fostering an office environment that caused workers to feel pressure to give up their personal time and work longer hours was so awful.