Summary of David Halberstam's The Breaks of the Game

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview:

#1 In the fall of 1979, the Portland Trail Blazers were a team of rookies and free agents. The veterans, who had made the team before, had guaranteed money in their contracts. The rookies and free agents were at the brink of their dreams, which was to play under contract in the NBA.

#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. He was terrified of what they might reveal about him.

#3 The coaches and the scouts were anxious about the new season. The rookies and free agents looked on the coaches as secure and powerful, but the coaches knew that their jobs were never secure. The only players who seemed powerful were the marginal players over whom they could exert little authority.

#4 The conversations between coaches and players these days tended to be a bit melancholy. Basketball had become too commercialized, and the mood inevitably affected the players, who arrived at Inman’s door complete with agents and lawyers.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Jun 7, 2022
• ISBN: 9798822533530

IRB Media

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Insights on David Halberstam's The Breaks of the Game

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 4

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

In the fall of 1979, the Portland Trail Blazers were a team of rookies and free agents. The veterans, who had made the team before, had guaranteed money in their contracts. The rookies and free agents were at the brink of their dreams, which was to play under contract in the NBA.

#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. He was terrified of what they might reveal about him.

#3

The coaches and the scouts were anxious about the new season. The rookies and free agents looked on the coaches as secure and powerful, but the coaches knew that their jobs were never secure. The only players who seemed powerful were the marginal players over whom they could exert little authority.

#4

The conversations between coaches and players these days tended to be a bit melancholy. Basketball had become too commercialized, and the mood inevitably affected the players, who arrived at Inman’s door complete with agents and lawyers.

#5

Ramsay was a professional coach, and he believed that no loyalty, either from those above who employed him or those below who played for him, could be expected. He rationed his emotions in his personal relations with his players, as they might produce this year but he would still have to let them go next year.

#6

The owner of the Portland Trail Blazers, Larry Weinberg, was not with his coaches that night. His player payroll was the fifth highest in the National Basketball Association, yet no one in his basketball operation seemed very happy.

#7

The players, who were now being paid more than they had ever been before, were not any happier. The increasing preoccupation with money was upsetting, and it loomed so large on a team. The game had become too commercialized.

#8

The commercialization of basketball began in the mid-sixties, and for ten years, the game served its new sponsors well. But then greed took over, and the game began to degrade artistically and commercially.

#9

The same thing was happening to basketball, and many other products in America. The impulse behind basketball had been genuine, but the product was good only because it was sold to the public. The value of the product skyrocketed, and it was not long before companies began buying up basketball teams to increase their tax revenue.

#10

In sports, the crucial change was caused by the coming of television. The norms of the sports were now being defined by the commercial interests of the leagues and the advertisers.

#11

The history of professional basketball on national television was short, at first lucrative, and now, increasingly unhappy. The owners and the networks, who had signed a 74 million dollar, four-year contract in 1978, were now deeply disenchanted with each other.

#12

When Madison Avenue, at the end of the sixties, perceived basketball as a hot sport, the price of a club began to rise. This made it possible for older owners to recoup their original investments and pay their ongoing debts.

#13

The game of basketball was becoming less and less intense as the years went on. The no-cut contract, given to many players in the seventies, made them function on automatic pilot in many games.

#14

The game, for all its problems, remained a popular attraction for fans. The players were not just the most interesting but also the most honest professional athletes in the country. The pressures of dealing with such volatile and talented young men meant that the coaching was better than ever before.

Insights from Chapter 2

#1

In 1977, the Portland Trail Blazers won the championship, becoming the youngest team to do so. The city was ecstatic. The team’s captain, Bill Walton, said if they won again, it would be his pants he would throw into the crowd.

#2

The NBA was broadcast live on CBS, but the die-hard basketball fans who had stayed the course of a long and laborious twin season of basketball, waiting to see what Bill Walton looked like in victory, saw instead the head of the Kemper Insurance Company welcoming them to a golf course.

#3

The decision to switch to golf was made out of indifference, not malice. It was a more pleasant athletic and social endeavor than basketball, and it was a far more serious one in the eyes of the network executives.

#4

That summer was a high point for the city of Portland and the team. The players were champions, and the city was made bigtime by the victory. It had even achieved parity with the hated city to the north called Seattle.

#5

In the summer of 1977,