A historic look at the fabled 1983–84 Boston Celtics and an unforgettable season.
Ronald Reagan declares the Soviet Union an Evil Empire. The Apple Macintosh personal computer makes its debut. Michael Jackson’s Thriller album dominates the pop charts. And Larry Bird and the Boston Celtics capture the NBA championship over Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and the Los Angeles Lakers. It was 1984, and for the NBA and the nation, the year was full of milestone moments. In Dynasty Restored: How Larry Bird and the 1984 Boston Celtics Conquered the NBA and Changed Basketball, Thomas J. Whalen explores this fascinating and dramatic season. The NBA had been struggling, seen as a minor sports league and suffering from poor attendance, lagging television ratings, and embarrassing drug scandals. The Celtics were beset by locker room turmoil, disruptive coaching, ownership changes, and underperforming stars. But Whalen reveals how that all changed when Bird and his fellow “Big Three” frontcourt teammates Kevin McHale and Robert Parish, along with newcomer Dennis Johnson, banded together to lift the venerable franchise to its fifteenth world championship and helped to transform the league into a global entertainment brand. Dynasty Restored offers insight into the personal barriers Larry Bird had to overcome to achieve NBA stardom, discusses the personal tensions that existed on the team between Bird and McHale, and gives a probing analysis of the unique pressures Black Celtics players faced in a post-Boston Busing Crisis environment. And it shows how this singular season turbocharged the Celtics and the professional game to unprecedented heights.
Thomas J. Whalen is the author of many sports books and is associate professor of social science at Boston University. Whalen’s work has appeared in the New York Times, ABCNews.com, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, and the AP. He has also appeared on several national broadcast outlets including CNN, NPR and Reuters TV. Whalen's books include Dynasty’s End: Bill Russell and the 1968-69 World Champion Boston Celtics, Spirit of ’67: The Cardiac Kids, El Birdos, and the World Series That Captivated American, and Kooks and Degenerates on Ice: Bobby Orr, the Big Bad Bruins, and the Stanley Cup Championship That Transformed Hockey.

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