Before I dive in, I was a huge basketball fan (mainly San Antonio Spurs, but also the league in general) when Tim was in the NBA and this book actually brought back a lot of memories of him, his teammates, and his coaches. A lot of former Spurs players were mentioned, and even Coach Pop who before he was the Spurs coach, he was an assistant in Golden State where Tim played.

I really enjoyed this book and how he grew up in Chicago, and ended up as a Hall of Famer. He talked about his high school days, college days at UTEP under the coaching legend of Don Haskins, his NBA career with Golden State, (Don Nelson) Miami (Pat Riley), Dallas (Don Nelson), Denver, Indiana, and his gold medal in the 2000 Sydney Olympics. He played with a lot of terrific players, and several are in the Hall of Fame as well. He talked about his “trash talking” and his “killer crossover” that made him one of the best point guards while he was playing. While he was playing for the Miami Heat, the New York Knicks were their main rival and a lot of key playoff games were discussed.

He also talked about his son, Tim Jr., who also made it to the NBA (and unlike his had, his teams went to both a College Finals and an NBA Finals).

He even talked about a comment that he made on a radio show, and how it shook his world and turned it upside down. He was able to bounce back, and learned from that mistake.

I am looking at the 1989 NBA draft, and there are actually a lot of well known players:

Sean Elliott – 3
Glen Rice – 4
Mookie Blalock – 12
Tim Hardaway- 14
Shawn Kemp – 17
Vlade Divac – 26
Dino Radja – 40

It’s funny because, I still have some unopened basketball cards from that season of the NBA. Also, that season, David Robinson from the Spurs won the Rookie of the Year and Minnesota and Orlando were in there first year.