Life in the G
Minor League Basketball and the Relentless Pursuit of the NBA
by Alex Squadron
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Pub Date Oct 01 2023 | Archive Date Sep 30 2023
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Description
Life in the G League is far from glamorous. Players make enormous sacrifices and work unimaginable hours in the hope that someone in the NBA will give them a chance. To this day, very few fans—even the most passionate followers of the NBA—know much about the G League. In the fall of 2021, the Birmingham Squadron granted author Alex Squadron complete access to the team to capture the experience of playing in the league.
That year, with hundreds of NBA players sidelined by the highly contagious Omicron variant of COVID-19, the G League saw a record number of call-ups. Sports Illustrated labeled it “the year of the NBA replacement player.” Many of those players stayed in the NBA, earning life-changing contracts and taking on significant roles for their new teams. In addition to recounting the organization’s inaugural season, Squadron’s access to the Birmingham Squadron enabled him to document the incredible journeys of G League players and to tell the larger story of life in the G. This is the inspiring tale of an unforgettable season and the emotional roller coaster for everyone involved in the chase for an NBA dream.
Advance Praise
“Life in the G is an oft-gritty, oft-surprising, always engrossing love letter not simply to basketball but to those scratching and clawing to make the League. Alex Squadron has written his dream book, and the passion drips from every page. Bravo.”—Jeff Pearlman, New York Times best-selling author of The Last Folk Hero: The Life and Myth of Bo Jackson
“A fascinating and well-reported look at the ups and downs of life in the G League and the everyday struggles of players reaching for their dream. Highly recommended!”—Paul Fichtenbaum, chief content officer of The Athletic
“Finally, a book that captures the struggle, the yearning, the grind of pursuing an NBA dream. It might take luck to make the big leagues, but there’s nothing lucky about Alex Squadron’s soulful, deeply reported book. He has taken us to the gym, to the heartbreak, and, to the very core of what it means to dream.”—Mirin Fader, New York Times best-selling author of Giannis: The Improbable Rise of an NBA MVP
“Squadron provides a necessary deep dive beneath the glitz and glam of major professional sports to reveal the pure human pursuit of happiness and dream chasing that underscores the modern NBA.”—Jake Fischer, author of Built to Lose: How the NBA’s Tanking Era Changed the League Forever
“Unlike the oft-romanticized world of Minor League Baseball, the professional basketball played below the NBA in this country is under-covered and totally misunderstood. With deft reporting and a humane approach that makes you care about the characters, Alex Squadron’s Life in the G brings you inside the NBA G League and teaches what it really takes for many NBA players to make it to the ‘Association.’”—Ben Osborne, author of The Brooklyn Cyclones: Hardball Dreams and the New Coney Island
Available Editions
| EDITION | Other Format |
| ISBN | 9781496235855 |
| PRICE | $34.95 (USD) |
| PAGES | 272 |
Links
Available on NetGalley
Featured Reviews
Reviewer 571094
A book about the first year of the Birmingham G League team? I'll read that! It was really good. The author was a fly on the wall for Birmingham's first season. He focussed on several players and the coaches as they played through the season. I learned about the team, the G League and about guys who were so close and yet so far away from their dreams. I was really rooting for all of them to make it to the NBA.
Lance S, Reviewer
Having read several books on players or teams in baseball’s minor leagues, I expected this book to be about the same with the same format and the same stories. That wasn’t the case with this excellent book by Alex Squadron about the 2021-22 season of the Birmingham Squadron of the NBA’s minor league, currently known as the “G” League thanks to its partnership with Gatorade.
While there are certainly some aspects of this book that are like any other book on minor leagues, such as the less-than-desirable travel conditions (although here, there are always flights, but commercial not private charters like the NBA) and the stories of drive, determination and at times hopelessness, this one reads quite differently. For one, there is plenty of humor. That starts at the introduction when Squadron adamantly denies picking this particular team only because its name is the same as his own. From there, it was a fast-paced and fun read as the reader will learn about the history of the G League, some of the players and coaches who became successful at their craft in the NBA and some of the ways that players can be called up to the league.
One very interesting observation about the qualities that NBA teams look for in these players is that it is rarely the leading scorers or flashy players that get the call. Many times the NBA coaches and scouts are looking for players that are either totally into the team concept of basketball or are willing to do the dirty work such as defending the opponent’s best shooter or fight inside for rebounds or even court position. Of the players profiled in the book, the one who achieved the most NBA success, Malcom Hill, that was his ticket to getting a contract with the Chicago Bulls.
Hill’s story, just like those of the other three Squadron players profiled - Jared Harper, Joe Young, and Zylan Cheatham – make for great reading, as does Alex Squadron’s description of the Birmingham Squadron’s games and practices. It’s a fun ride through the season that will bring the reader much closer to the life of a minor league basketball player.
I wish to thank University of Nebraska Press for providing a copy of the book. The opinions expressed in this review are strictly my own.
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