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"Ian Thomsen is the perfect writer to show us The Soul of Basketball. While baseball grew old, and the NFL dealt with multiple crises, the NBA has emerged as America's game of the present and future. Riding sidecar with LeBron James, Kobe Bryant and Greg Popovich, Ian was there for all of it and tells us how the NBA became our national pastime. " --Dan Shaughnessy, Boston Globe columnist and bestselling author of Francona The Soul of Basketball is the revealing narrative of the changing guard in the NBA over the past decade, as played out during the pivotal 2010-2011 season, which saw stars fall, new heroes rise, the game stop and somehow find rebirth. It started with The Decision, that infamous moment when uber-star LeBron James made the ill-advised announcement that he was joining Miami to cast aside the single-superstar model of Michael Jordan and play alongside some of the best in the NBA. But it didn't work as planned, and in the process LeBron became the personification of a sport that had lost its way. The Soul of Basketball centers around the stories of LeBron, Kobe Bryant, Doc Rivers, Dirk Nowitzki, and other NBA celebrities that year, each traversing a make-or-break season that would change the league forever. In the tradition of Moneyball and The Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty, veteran NBA writer Ian Thomsen paints a portrait of a game in the throes of change. From Miami to Boston, Los Angeles to Dallas, Cleveland to the NBA offices in downtown Manhattan, this is a fascinating narrative about the business of sports that paves the way for the new guard, such as Steph Curry, to thrive.