Irish basketball book for people interested in basketball

Burgerman55

http://www.tribune.ie/article/2009/nov/01/stories-of-the-stars-who-lit-up-leeside/

heard a review on this - sounds really interesting with some real entertaining stories
great times, pity greed fooked up what could have been a mini-NBA league
could have been the most competitive, talent-packed and entertaining league outside of the US

Da GOAT

what greed??

Burgerman55

read the book goat and come back to me
greed was the reason the irish basketball model was changed - e.g. the two-americans rule being modified only for the blazers to realise they now had an inferior product that most people lost interest in
as i said, ireland had the structures, facilities, players, sponsorship etc in place to provide a real NBA microcosm in the emerald isle
who knows - college teams would prob have invested in further developing irish infrastructure/links with the likes of UL, UCD etc
it was fooked up, clear and simple

Biff11

The author along with Kelvin Troy spoke about the book on Newstalks Off The Ball on monday night. Sounds like an interesting read.

In fairness the standard of American in the 80's compared to now was far superior. Whether the 2 to 1 rule changed the league or the fact that these players could get better contracts elsewhere did is open for debate!

Burgerman55

just finished reading it
well worth a look
great photos too
how we messed up our mini-NBA league

ascanbe

Just saw the author with Gerald Kennedy, formerly of Neptune, on Setanta sports earlier.
Really looking forward to getting this.
Think there is a chance, in the current climate, to get the league back close to where it was before.
Will never be able to bring in the same calibre of Americans again, though, if you could build some crowd support you could still get good quality imports; whether from America or from any of the numerous other countries where basketball is now a huge sport.

Pat the Patriot

Got hanging from the rafters for christmas and its a fantastic read.....I remember heading to matches in the mid to late 80's and being fascinated by the speed and athleticism on show from all the players on the court (Irish and American).....

kdaly100

Belated response to this topic. Yesterday attended National Cup semi finals in Neptune to a capacity crowd. Literally hanging from the rafters. The atmosphere was completely electric and full of passion.

There is no reason that the game cannot reach those heights again with local and US players and to answer the question posed by the earlier person the standard of American players has not gotten worse it is the money you pay.

In the period of the Hanging from the Rafters book (which I read end to end) the players were both well paid and treated like kings in their respective teams.

I am involved with a Cork club (Fr Mathews) which has over 200+ juveniles playing the sport and growing every year .

What the sport needs is support - there were more at the game yesterday than Cork City can muster some weekends (know the actual event National Cup semis was a top day for sport) but product served up was excellent which is the critical item.

What the sport needs is publicity. National newspapers give it very little page space. Plus you don't get wet in a muddy field.