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WORK TITLE: The Soul of Basketball
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE: 1959?
WEBSITE: https://www.ianthomsen.com/
CITY: Boston
STATE: MA
COUNTRY: United States
NATIONALITY:
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born c. 1959; married; children: two.
EDUCATION:Northwestern University, B.A., 1983.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Sports writer. Boston Globe, sports writer; National Sports Daily, feature writer, 1990-91; International Herald Tribune, sports columnist; Sports Illustrated, senior sports writer, 1998–.
WRITINGS
Contributor of articles to various venues, including Boston Globe, National Sports Daily, the International Herald Tribune, Sports Illustrated, and NBA.com.
SIDELIGHTS
Ian Thomsen is a Boston-based sport writer who has published articles in the Boston Globe, National Sports Daily, and NBA.com. He was a sports columnist in Europe for the world’s largest daily newspaper, the International Herald Tribune. Then in 1998 he joined Sports Illustrated and is a senior writer focusing on basketball. Thomsen covered many prominent moments in basketball, such as the NBA Finals of Magic Johnson versus Larry Bird, the Barcelona Olympics Dream Team, and the 2001 scandal of overaged Little League pitcher Danny Almonte. He also wrote the first Sports Illustrated cover story on Kobe Bryant in 1998. In 1985, Thomsen published Flutie! about the 1984 Heisman Trophy winner whose sixty-five yard pass clinched a victory for Boston College over Miami in the final seconds of the game.
In 2018, Thomsen wrote The Soul of Basketball: The Epic Showdown Between LeBron, Kobe, Doc, and Dirk That Saved the NBA, a chronicle of the pivotal 2010-11 basketball season from the Los Angeles Lakers’ 2010 championship to the Dallas Mavericks win in 2011. He compares veteran players like Kobe Bryant, Paul Pierce, and Kevin Garnett, with up and coming superstars like LeBron James and Dirk Nowitzki. The most notable event was James using his free agency option and leaving the Cleveland Cavaliers for the Miami Heat, which helped reshape professional basketball amid big money. Thomsen also addresses the NBA’s business practices, free agency, collective bargaining, and 2011 lockout. Chris Wilkes observed in Library Journal: “By covering multiple teams, coaches, and players, this work sometimes suffers from a lack of a cohesive narrative.”
Thomsen also explores the clash of egos, old-school owners versus the ruthless wealth seekers like Mark Cuban, and the unintended consequences of basketball run as entertainment rather than sport. The book is “Perhaps not the soul of basketball but certainly the wallet. A fine work of sports journalism and a must for every bookish roundball fan,” according to a Kirkus Reviews critic. With his knowledge of NBA’s biggest names and events, “Thomsen offers a fascinating, thorough look at pro basketball’s continuing evolution to becoming the ‘sport of the American Dream,’” noted a Publishers Weekly writer.
A contributor online at the Guy Who Reviews Sports Books reflected: “The book is certainly one of the best basketball books one will find about recent NBA history and one of the best I have had the pleasure to read.” The contributor remarked that with the slow pace of baseball and the violence and concussions of football, basketball is carving out its own identity, adding: “The book is a compelling case for arriving at this conclusion and is one that any NBA fan will want to add to his or her library.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Kirkus Reviews, March 1, 2018, review of The Soul of Basketball: The Epic Showdown Between LeBron, Kobe, Doc, and Dirk That Saved the NBA.
Library Journal, March 15, 2018, Chris Wilkes, review of The Soul of Basketball.
Publishers Weekly, February 12, 2018, review of The Soul of Basketball, p. 71.
ONLINE
Guy Who Reviews Sports Books, http://sportsbookguy.blogspot.com/ (February 25, 2018), review of The Soul of Basketball.
Ian Thomsen has been writing about sports in America and around the world for three decades on behalf of the Boston Globe, The National Sports Daily, the International Herald Tribune, Sports Illustrated and NBA.com. He was courtside for the three NBA Finals of Magic Johnson versus Larry Bird, and in Barcelona when they joined with Michael Jordan on the original Dream Team. Since 2000 he has been focusing exclusively on the NBA from his base in Boston, Massachusetts.
Ian Thomsen
Senior Writer, Sports Illustrated
Sports Illustrated Senior Writer Ian Thomsen, who joined the magazine in 1998, is one of SI's top basketball scribes. Along with writing columns and features for SI, Thomsen is a frequent contributor to SI.com.
Before joining SI, Thomsen spent six years in Europe as the sports columnist for the International Herald Tribune, the world's largest international English-language daily. While at the paper Thomsen wrote about an array of sports for a global audience, including the major world and European soccer tournaments, the 1995 Rugby World Cup, Olympic Games, Ryder Cups, Grand Slam tennis events, Grand Prix auto races and, very rarely, cricket.
Thomsen, who graduated from Northwestern with a journalism degree in 1983, was a feature writer for The National Sports Daily during its short, expensive run of 1990-91. His first job was with The Boston Globe, where he covered Doug Flutie's Boston College Eagles and all three of the Celtics-Lakers NBA Finals of the 1980s.
Thomsen was a feature writer at SI before taking on the NBA beat fulltime in 2000. With Luis Fernando Llosa and Melissa Segura, Thomsen covered the 2001 scandal of overaged Little League pitcher Danny Almonte and wrote the first SI cover story on Kobe Bryant in 1998.
Thomsen lives with his wife and two children near Boston.
Ian graduated in journalism at Northwestern University, where he covered the losingest team in college football history for The Daily Northwestern and the Chicago Sun-Times. He was hired out of college by The Boston Globe, regarded as the best sports section in American newspapers, for whom he covered all three of the Lakers-Celtics NBA Finals of Magic Johnson and Larry Bird, Doug Flutie's Hail Mary miracle in Miami, and the ball dribbling through Bill Buckner's legs in the 1986 World Series. At age 24 he wrote a tragic feature about twin high school football stars in Pennsylvania that was named best sports story in the U.S. by the Associated Press Sports Editors.
As a charter member of The National Sports Daily, Ian’s subjects included Buster Douglas – before his upset knockout of heavyweight champion Mike Tyson – and Billy Walters, who ran the Computer Group betting syndicate in Las Vegas that introduced analytics to the world of sports. After The National's untimely (but predictable) demise, Ian moved overseas to become sports columnist for the world’s largest daily newspaper, the International Herald Tribune. Based in Paris and London, his assignments included the Olympic Games, soccer’s World Cup and Champions League, the Rugby World Cup in South Africa, the major tennis tournaments and track meets, and – his personal favorite – Europe’s Final Four basketball tournaments.
In 1997 Ian was brought back to the U.S. by Sports Illustrated, for whom he wrote the magazine's first cover story on Kobe Bryant, the emerging 19-year-old star of the Lakers. His biggest story, written with Luis Fernando Llosa and Melissa Segura, revealed that Danny Almonte, the phenom of the 2001 Little League World Series, had lied about his age.
Since 2000 Ian has been covering the NBA fulltime – for SI and more recently for NBA.com – at every major venue from the NBA Finals to the Olympic Games to All-Star Weekend. He has broken news, profiled the league’s biggest stars, written opinionated columns and created mock NBA drafts. Ian embraces the global view of the NBA as a league that plays out the ideals of America. He lives in Boston, not far from the birthplace of basketball.
Look for NBAnswers, Ian’s newsletter for international NBA fans.
Thomsen, Ian: THE SOUL OF BASKETBALL
Kirkus Reviews. (Mar. 1, 2018):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Thomsen, Ian THE SOUL OF BASKETBALL Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (Adult Nonfiction) $27.00 4, 17 ISBN: 978-0-547-74651-7
A blow-by-blow account of the 2010-2011 NBA season, which reshaped the face of pro basketball in a flurry of big money.
There was no end to the talent assembled when the teams lined up to play out that season, but it had opened on a note that was sour to many ears when LeBron James aired a "curious vanity show" meant to promote his brand and "extend his reach further into the entertainment mainstream." He did that, taking his free agency option to leave his home-state Cleveland Cavaliers and sign on with the Miami Heat. As fans will remember, and as NBA.com contributor Thomsen (Flutie!, 1985) painstakingly reminds us, James was but one of an extraordinary group of free agent players whose movements shook up long-settled lineups. There were Shaquille O'Neal, Chris Bosh, and Amar'e Stoudemire, among many others, joining contract-bound players like Kobe Bryant, who had lately emerged as the league's chief bad guy: "Instead of emulating the likability of [Michael] Jordan, Kobe appeared to be following the controversial path of Jordan's adversary Isaiah Thomas." Everyone wanted to be Jordan, and by moving to Miami, aside from raking in a fat paycheck, James would find himself on a squad whose combined talent was guaranteed to crush all comers. It didn't quite work out like that. Thomsen goes deep behind the scenes into locker rooms, conference rooms, and boardrooms to follow what often amounts to a nonstop clash of egos--and a few friendships, too. Notable was the rancor between old-school owners like Detroit Pistons owner Bill Davidson and arrivistes like Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban. "Whereas his rivals tended to see pro sports as a secretive society of sacred traditions," writes the author, "Cuban viewed the NBA as an entertainment industry that needed to evolve." Evolve it did, and with sometimes unintended consequences.
Perhaps not the soul of basketball but certainly the wallet. A fine work of sports journalism and a must for every bookish roundball fan.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Thomsen, Ian: THE SOUL OF BASKETBALL." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Mar. 2018. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A528959768/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=38b39390. Accessed 29 June 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A528959768
The Soul of Basketball: The Epic Showdown Between LeBron, Kobe, Doc, and Dirk That Saved the NBA
Publishers Weekly. 265.7 (Feb. 12, 2018): p71+.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
The Soul of Basketball: The Epic Showdown Between LeBron, Kobe, Doc, and Dirk That Saved the NBA
Ian Thomsen. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $27
(352p) ISBN 978-0-547-74651-7
Through an array of profiles, NBA.com contributor Thomsen insightfully examines the 2010-2011 NBA season, which saw players and coaches negotiating the league's rise in popularity, massive financial success, and increased marketing savvy. Realizing that the NFL and MLB had "recognized their own symbolism" ("Baseball was peace. Football was war"), the NBA board questioned what its "higher calling" might be. Thomsen focuses on four key players he believed helped, knowingly or not, NBA's mission. Veteran Celtics coach Doc Rivers tried to maintain his team's winning team-first tradition in an era when players were more concerned with individual accomplishments; superstar LeBron James turned the scrappy inner-city narrative into unheard-of success, but experienced backlash when he announced on his vanity show The Decision that he was leaving the Cleveland Cavaliers for the Miami Heat; Kobe Bryant early on emulated Michael Jordan, but because of accusations of sexual assault, instead followed the "controversial path of Jordan's adversary Isiah Thomas"; and Dallas Mavericks' Dirk Nowitzki was the underdog who became a star. Thomsen's ability to get personal, especially with unlikely sources, will hook readers, as when he captures the stoic Larry Bird gushing over LeBron James's otherworldly skills, proclaiming him "the one guy I could watch play basketball all day long." By thoughtfully plumbing the NBA's biggest names, Thomsen offers a fascinating, thorough look at pro basketball's continuing evolution to becoming the "sport of the American Dream." (Apr.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"The Soul of Basketball: The Epic Showdown Between LeBron, Kobe, Doc, and Dirk That Saved the NBA." Publishers Weekly, 12 Feb. 2018, p. 71+. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A528615540/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=cef119b0. Accessed 29 June 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A528615540
The Soul of Basketball: The Epic Showdown Between Lebron, Kobe, Doc, and Dirk That Saved the NBA. By: Wilkes, Chris, Library Journal, 03630277, 3/15/2018, Vol. 143, Issue 5
Thomsen, Ian. The Soul of Basketball: The Epic Showdown Between Lebron, Kobe, Doc, and Dirk That Saved the NBA. Houghton Harcourt. Apr. 2018. 352p. index. ISBN 9780547746517. $27; ebk. ISBN 9780547746890. SPORTS
Sports Illustrated writer Thomsen chronicles a year in the NBA, from the Los Angeles Lakers’ 2010 championship to the triumph of the Dallas Mavericks in 2011. At the core of the narrative is Lebron James’s decision to leave the Cleveland Cavaliers for the Miami Heat. Thomsen paints a highly critical portrait of James, who comes across as naive and entitled compared to other basketball superstars. Conversely, Dirk Nowitzki is presented as humble and struggling to integrate into NBA culture as one of the league’s first international players. The motivations of James and other players of his generation are contrasted with veterans such as Kobe Bryant, Paul Pierce, and Kevin Garnett. Thomsen briefly addresses the NBA’s business side, including the impact that free agency, the collective bargaining agreement, and the 2011 lockout have had on players and teams. The discussion on officiating, including an interview with former referee Joey Crawford, is the most original content. VERDICT By covering multiple teams, coaches, and players, this work sometimes suffers from a lack of a cohesive narrative. Recommended primarily for die-hard fans of the NBA or the Dallas Mavericks.
Sunday, February 25, 2018
Review of "The Soul of Basketball"
The synopsis of this excellent book says that the 2010-11 season is one that could be considered a season that saved the NBA. I thought that was a bit strange - after all, it was the season where LeBron James jumped from his hometown to take his talents to South Beach. How in the world could this have been the one to "save" the league? Well, the book makes an excellent case of just that point. It is one of the best basketball books that I have read. Here is my review of "The Soul of Basketball."
Title/Author:
“The Soul of Basketball: The Epic Showdown Between LeBron, Kobe, Doc and Dirk that Saved the NBA” by Ian Thomson
Tags:
Basketball, professional, Heat, Mavericks, Celtics, Lakers
Publish date:
April 17, 2018
Length:
352 pages
Rating:
5 of 5 stars (Outstanding)
Review:
The 2010-11 basketball season turned out to be one that was very pivotal for the sport and the league. Why this season was such an important one is explained by author Ian Thomson in this excellent book about not just LeBron James and the Heat, but also about other key player and teams.
It started during the summer when the game’s biggest star, LeBron James, announced “The Decision” to leave the Cleveland Cavaliers for the Miami Heat and in doing so, became a villain in the eyes of many fans, not just those in Cleveland. From there, the season was a topsy-turvy affair for the top teams. Not just for the Heat, who now had three stars (they also signed free agent Chris Bosh to go with their star guard Dwayne Wade), but also for the Boston Celtics, the Los Angeles Lakers and the Dallas Mavericks.
Thomson takes the reader inside these teams and one key person for each team. For the Celtics, that is their coach Doc Rivers, who led the team to the championship in 2008 and lost a heartbreaking seven game series to the Lakers in the 2010 Finals. This has weighed heavy on Rivers’ mind and he wants to make sure this does not deter from his team’s goals. The Celtics had good success against the Heat during the 2010-11 season and they meet in the playoffs. Through the stories of not only Rivers, but also Paul Pierce and Rajan Rondo, the reader will experience the ups and downs of the season up to their elimination by the Heat in the playoffs.
Speaking of Miami, the Heat’s adventures are covered with the same extensive detail about their key personnel. The reader will learn about James’s inner turmoil about becoming the player everyone loved to hate. He realized that announcing his joining the Heat in the manner that he did was not popular, that the rally held soon afterward in which he, Wade and Bosh predicted multiple championships added fuel to that fire, and that he was realizing that he was not the only cog that made Miami a good team.
Not all of the material about the Heat is about the players, however. The reader will learn a great deal about the inner workings a team will execute when attempting to sign a star player when he or she reads about Pat Riley’s wheeling and dealing to sign James. These passages were very informative and helped the reader understand why James eventually chose Miami – and late in the book, also why James left Miami to head back to Cleveland. These are part of the “self- corrections” that Thomson illustrates as an important part of the NBA culture.
The Los Angeles Lakers were the defending champions during the 2010-11 season, and the determination and drive to succeed exhibited by their superstar, Kobe Bryant, is well documented. However, the best writing about a player who is exhibiting a special talent to win is saved for Dallas Mavericks forward Dirk Nowitzki. What is especially entertaining about Nowitzki’s story is how he worked closely for many years with Holger Geschwindner. Holger worked with Nowitzki on everything from his footwork to his shot selection to his mental game. Like his team, Nowitzki didn’t start the 2010-11 season with a lot of fanfare, but by the time the NBA Finals were done, the Mavericks were the champions, defeating James and the Heat with Nowitzki being the dominant player in the Finals. His reaction to winning was interesting – he lifted both fists up in triumph, then ran into the locker room where he was crying hard while being urged to come back out to the arena to accept the award of being named the MVP of the Finals. It made for great drama.
The book is certainly one of the best basketball books one will find about recent NBA history and one of the best I have had the pleasure to read. The NBA is carving out its own identity, according to Thomson, as the sport of the American Dream as Major League Baseball is drawing criticism for its slow pace and the NFL has issues with the violence of the game and the dangers of concussions. The book is a compelling case for arriving at this conclusion and is one that any NBA fan will want to add to his or her library.
I wish to thank Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for providing a copy of the book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Book Format Read:
E-book (Kindle)
Review: The Soul of Basketball
April 8, 2018 by BJ Fischer, posted in Book Review
There are clearly seasons in the life of a sports fan. You have football season, college basketball, March Madness…and then baseball kicks in along with the NBA and NHL playoffs. (Yes, I am a book nerd and I love sports.)
So, I requested to do a preview of this book, The Soul of Basketball, which I thought would be a good way to get myself in the mood for the NBA playoffs, which also open next week.
I enjoy basketball a lot and have followed the NBA for my entire life. When I was 10 to 12 years old, I followed the Cleveland Cavaliers VERY closely. We didn’t get the games on TV and I spent my evenings listening to Joe Tait (normally when I was supposed to be in bed) call the Cavs during the Miracle at Richfield season. (The Cavs had a Bowling Green (Ohio) connection, both through their owner Nick Mileti and their backup center Nate Thurmond…and their Coach Bill Fitch).
The Soul of Basketball is about the 2010-11 season, which is the first year after The Decision. It is an excellent book and anyone who is interested in the NBA would find it a great read. In fact, it’s a great character study of people responding to the highest level of competitive pressure and would be interesting as a study to anyone interested in that slice of life.
The book is written by Ian Thomsen, who is a writer for Sports Illustrated. SI was known is the highest level of sports magazine writing. What appeared on those pages was of the highest literary quality. My high school teachers encouraged us to read SI when we were learning to write.
This is what I would consider classic SI writing. First, there’s incredible access…long interviews with important people in this story, including Pat Reilly, Doc Rivers, Dirk Nowitzki, LeBron James, Kobe Bryant…the list goes on.
Next, there’s a commitment to telling a story about people, not sports. What the reader leaves with is an essential understanding of the humanity of the people involved. Their upbringing, their fears, their motivations, their biases, their strength. And Thomsen shows us the humanity of players (stars and subs), yes, but also of coaches, referees, owners, scouts…everyone involved in the making of the 2010-11 edition of the annual NBA drama.
There’s also an angle to the book that places all of what is happening in a historical context. The NBA was trying to find its way in the post-Jordan era and LeBron was supposed to be that guy, but he had just botched The Decision. You also have the influx of AAU-influenced players and a lot of questions about how the league is going to succeed. (For more on what the AAU is and what’s wrong with it, check here or here.)
There were a couple parts that really stood out to me. I found the Gregg Popovich sections especially interesting. He’s a guy I admire and I admire how his teams play. Turns out, he built the concept by focusing on foreign players who had not been infected by AAU mentality.
I also really enjoyed the stuff with Kobe Bryant and didn’t expect to. I have often heard people say that a certain team doesn’t “know what it takes to win.” I always kind of scoffed at that, but the way NBA basketball is played, a star player has to be able to shoulder the burden in key moments and the team has to be really tough to win a title, not just good.
Anyway, this is an outstanding book. It is not great sportswriting, it is great writing and will make a great companion for the NBA playoffs, when the league really puts on its best show.
Full disclosure: I received this book from NetGalley for a fair and honest review. (Thanks NetGalley!)