Golden Days: West's Lakers, Steph's Warriors, and the California Dreamers Who Reinvented Basketball

by Jack McCallum

Overview

The bestselling author of Dream Team tells the interconnected stories of the twenty-first-century Golden State Warriors and the early-1970s Los Angeles Lakers, two extraordinary teams playing in extraordinary times and linked by one extraordinary man: Jerry West.

“Full of juicy anecdotes and wagging fun . . . [Jack] McCallum holds legitimate claim for being the greatest NBA writer of all time.”—The Wall Street Journal

Featuring vintage photos and contemporary shots of NBA greats including Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant, Wilt Chamberlain, Jerry West, Elgin Baylor, Pat Riley, and more.

In Golden Days, acclaimed sports journalist Jack McCallum chronicles two teams—the Golden State Warriors of the 2010s and the L.A. Lakers of the early 1970s—to trace the dynamic history of the National Basketball Association, which for much of the last half-century has marched memorably through the state of California. Tying together the two strands of McCallum’s story is Hall of Famer Jerry West, the ferociously competitive Laker guard who decades later became one of the key architects of the Warriors. With “the Logo” as his guide, McCallum takes us deep into the locker rooms and front offices of these two era-defining teams, leveraging the access and authority he has amassed over his forty-year career to create a picture of the cultural juggernaut that the NBA has become.

Featuring up-close-and-personal portraits of some of the biggest names in basketball history, from Wilt Chamberlain to Steve Kerr to the transcendent duo of Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant, as well as an update on the Warriors’ run of dominance and West’s first season with the L.A. Clippers, Golden Days is a history of not just of a changing sport but a changing America.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780399179099
Publisher:	Random House Publishing Group
Publication date:	10/02/2018
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	368
Sales rank:	1,054,261
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.20(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Jack McCallum is the New York Times bestselling author of Dream Team and Seven Seconds or Less and a longtime member of the staff of Sports Illustrated. While concentrating mostly on basketball—in 2005 he won the Curt Gowdy Media Award from the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame—he has also edited the weekly Scorecard section of the magazine, covered five Olympic games, and written about virtually every sport, including bowling, bicycle racing, squash, and wrestling. McCallum teaches journalism at Muhlenberg College and lives with his wife in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

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“Steph has taken things to a crazy, new place.”
(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "Golden Days"
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Copyright © 2018 Jack McCallum.
Excerpted by permission of Random House Publishing Group.
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Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Prologue West Agonistes xiii

Chapter 1 Uncertain Start to the Revolution 3

Chapter 2 The Terrific Tandem of West and Baylor 8

Chapter 3 Shopping in the Hamptons 27

Chapter 4 1969: A Summer of Discontent 34

Chapter 5 Curry's Unhappy Draft Day 52

Chapter 6 Fame and Glory but No Ring 59

Chapter 7 When Peter Met Joe 69

Chapter 8 Elegant Elgin Exits 81

Chapter 9 The Logo Signs On 90

Chapter 10 And a Celtic (?) Shall Lead Them 103

Chapter 11 Steph Stays, Fans Fret 119

Chapter 12 The Immortal Streak 128

Chapter 13 Kerr: Light Touch, Heavy Influence 158

Chapter 14 A Loss at Last; Wilt Throws a Bash for the Ages 175

Chapter 15 Gaining a Record but Losing a Title 192

Chapter 16 Championship Brings West Only Muted Joy 202

Chapter 17 A Season Not on the Brink Exactly, But … 210

Chapter 18 Cooke Stirs the Wrong Pot 235

Chapter 19 West and the Art of Talent Evaluation 244

Chapter 20 A Championship and a Sad Goodbye 263

Epilogue 283

Acknowledgments 289

Photograph Credits 295

Index 297

Editorial Reviews

[Jack] McCallum holds legitimate claim for being the greatest NBA writer of all time—he wrote for Sports Illustrated for several decades, and his Dream Team is a chronicle of the souls of every basketball player you’ve ever cared about—and this book, typically, is full of juicy anecdotes and wagging fun. . . . The Warriors is a team of big ideas, big achievements and big personalities.”—The Wall Street Journal

“[Jack McCallum is] a great chronicler of the NBA game. . . . The 1971–72 season was an odd one . . . and even more odd is how little has actually been written about that team, compared with some of the other historically great NBA single-season squads. . . . McCallum is great this way, unearthing gems, such as [Jerry] West’s intense dislike for the late Lakers owner Jack Kent Cooke . . . and the behind-the-scenes management role played by the team’s legendary play-by-play radio man, Chick Hearn. . . . Nearing eighty, West still has something to give a team desperate to win on the biggest stage. McCallum shows why that is.”—David Aldridge

“With his classic eye for detail and deadpan wit, Jack McCallum connects two of the greatest teams in sports history through the endlessly fascinating persona of Jerry West. McCallum manages to unearth new details about some of the giants of the game, while shining a light on overlooked figures such as Elgin Baylor, delivering an original, fascinating, and breezy read.”—Zach Lowe, senior writer, ESPN

“I spent some of the 2016–17 season working as a consultant for the Golden State Warriors, but even I didn’t know every detail of how this championship team came together. Golden Days breaks that all down and shows how the Warriors have revolutionized basketball.”—Steve Nash, two-time MVP

“I had the pleasure of playing with, coaching with, and coaching for Jerry West, one of the great influences in the history of the NBA. Jack McCallum’s Golden Days gets at the essence of the man as a player and an executive, while also exploring today’s game through the Golden State Warriors.”—Pat Riley, president, Miami Heat

“Only one writer I know could pull all this together: two iconic champions, two roundball revolutions, and the deadeye legend whose silhouette binds them both. If basketball writing had a logo, it would be the image of Jack McCallum.”—Lee Jenkins, senior writer, Sports Illustrated

From the Publisher

10/15/2017
With this volume, McCallum (Dream Team) compares the 1971 Los Angeles Lakers to the current Golden State Warriors, Hall-of-Famer Jerry West linking the two teams together as a player for the Lakers and a consultant for the Warriors. Both teams are known for their fast, entertaining playing style. The Lakers, led by West and Wilt Chamberlain, won the 1971 NBA Championship, including a record 36-game winning streak. Stephen Curry brought the Warriors to championship wins in 2015 and 2017. But the success of both teams was not predestined. West and the Lakers lost in the finals seven times before their eventual victory. Before Peter Guber and Joe Lacob purchased the struggling Warriors and brought in a Silicon Valley business philosophy, Golden State was seen as an undesirable place to play. Both teams experienced drama even in success, such as the unexpected retirement of Laker Elgin Baylor and the firing of Warriors head coach Mark Jackson. McCallum effectively recounts numerous rivalries, personalities, achievements, and games throughout NBA history. VERDICT The connection between these two franchises from different eras seems tentative. Still, the massive popularity of the Warriors will attract casual and hard-core NBA fans alike.—Chris Wilkes, Tazewell Cty. P.L., VA

Library Journal