When the Game Was War

Praise

“Rich Cohen brings new life to these athletes and their legendary rivalries, both on and off the court, over the course of the 1987–88 NBA season. Now new fans can plug into a world where rivalries really mattered, bodies were flying around, and the arenas for these memorable games—all gone now—were themselves characters in drama.”—Bob Ryan, sports columnist emeritus, The Boston Globe

“Rich Cohen writes about basketball the way an artful astronomer would author a book about the cosmos. The stars—the Birds, Magics, Michaels, and Isiahs—are aligned in insightful, colorful, and dramatic order, while other NBA players, and meaningful games, of the era are fitted into their proper orbits. It’s not necessary to be a basketball fan to relish this book: It’s simply good stuff, beautifully composed.”—Ira Berkow, Pulitzer Prize winner and former New York Times sports columnist

“A rollicking ride through the 1987–88 season and a compelling case for why it was the greatest season in NBA history . . . Magic, Michael, Larry, Isiah, and friends—they’re all here and in their primes, and their clashes are brought to life in this richly reported book. No basketball fan should be without it.”—Seth Davis, senior writer, The Athletic, and author of the New York Times bestseller Wooden: A Coach’s Life

“I was highly skeptical of Rich Cohen’s premise that the 1987–88 season was the greatest ever. But now, like a chastened sinner, I repent. That season was a carnival of wondrous hoops and competition. But most of all, it is Cohen’s warm and easy writing combined with his deep research and personal recollections that move the premise on to fruition.”—Rick Telander, senior sports columnist, Chicago Sun-Times, and author of Heaven Is a Playground

“The ‘incredible pool of talent’ on display in the NBA’s 1987–1988 season makes it the league’s best to date, according to this exhilarating account. . . . Cohen excels at wringing the human drama out of the sport, as when he portrays the ascendant Bulls’ rivalry with the powerhouse Pistons as a ‘schoolyard quest’ to ‘stand up to a bully,’ or draws pathos from 40-year-old Kareem Abdul-Jabbar stoically facing down the end of his basketball career. . . . The empathetic portraits humanize the legendary players, and the play-by-play game recreations thrill. . . . This love letter to the NBA’s golden age is an instant classic.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“In a smooth-flowing narrative, given ballast from numerous interviews with principal players and coaches, Cohen reanimates those teams and their era with such color, and the games with such suspense, that readers should be forgiven for getting caught up in the games, even as they know the outcomes. A nice addition to the strong sports shelf.”—Booklist