By Jerry L. Walls, Gregory Bassham
ISBN-10: 0813191866
ISBN-13: 9780813191867
What can the movie Hoosiers train us in regards to the which means of existence? How can historic japanese knowledge traditions, akin to Taoism and Zen Buddhism, increase our jump-shots? What can the "Zen Master" (Phil Jackson) and the "Big Aristotle" (Shaquille O'Neal) educate us approximately sustained excellence and good fortune? Is women's basketball "better" basketball? How, ethically, may still one take care of a strategic cheater in pickup basketball? With NBA and NCAA staff rosters always altering, what does it suggest to play for the "same team"? What can training legends Dean Smith, Rick Pitino, Pat Summitt, and Mike Krzyzewski train us approximately personality, success, and pageant? What makes basketball this kind of attractive video game to observe and play?
Basketball is now the most well-liked group activity within the usa; every year, greater than 50 million american citizens attend collage and professional basketball video games. while Dr. James Naismith, the inventor of basketball, first nailed peach baskets on the contrary ends of a Springfield, Massachusetts, health club in 1891, he had little inspiration of the way completely the sport could form American -- and foreign -- tradition. Hoops superstars corresponding to Michael Jordan, LeBron James, and Yao Ming at the moment are immediately well-known celebrities all around the planet. So what can a bunch of philosophers upload to the certainty of basketball? it's a particularly uncomplicated online game, yet as Kant and Dennis Rodman loved to claim, appearances will be deceiving. trainer Phil Jackson actively makes use of philosophy to enhance participant functionality and to encourage and encourage his workforce and his fellow coaches, either off and on the court docket. Jackson has built-in philosophy into his training and his own existence so completely that it is usually tricky to tell apart his position as a basketball trainer from his position as a philosophical advisor and mentor to his gamers.
In Basketball and Philosophy, a Dream crew of twenty-six basketball lovers, such a lot of whom additionally occur to be philosophers, proves that basketball is the considering person's activity. they appear at what occurs while the Tao meets the hardwood as they discover the teamwork, endurance, selflessness, and balanced and harmonious motion that make up the artwork of enjoying basketball.