Hoops Nation

Book excerpt: Looking for a game? Here's your guided tour of the country's best pickup basketball courts, from the blacktops of Brooklyn to the asphalt of Anchorage to the gyms of Jackson, Mississippi. It's all inside: where the pros play, the most scenic runs in the land, and a ranking of the top five courts. ø Chris Ballard and three other former college players piled into a used Chevy van and traveled thirty-one thousand miles in seven months, playing at over a thousand courts in 166 cities in forty-eight states. This is the story of their roundball road trip and a guide to the places, people, and communities they encountered. ø More than a travel guide, Hoops Nation is "a celebration of the game of basketball as it is played in America." It includes guides to streetball fashion, the lingo of the courts, the etiquette of the pickup world, the tricks of old-guy basketball, and tips for the dunking impaired. Also included are profiles of playground legends and dispatches from the legions of basketball lifers who populate the country's courts. ø This book can tell you where they?re running today, all over America. Who?s got next?