num_pages: 255
description: Today the NBA is a vast global franchisea billion-dollar industry seen by millions of fans in the United States and abroad. But it wasnt always this successful. Before primetime ESPN coverage lucrative branding deals like Air Jordans and $40 million annual player salaries there was the NBA of the 1970s and 1980swhen basketball was still an up-and-coming sport featuring old school beat reporters and players who wore Converse All-Stars.Enter Dan Shaughnessy then the beat reporter for TheBoston Globe who covered the Boston Celtics every day from 1982 to 1986. It was a time when reporters travelled with professional teamsflying the same commercial airlines riding the same buses and staying in the same hotels. Shaughnessy knew the athletes as real people losing free throw bets to Larry Bird being gifted cheap cigars by the iconic coach Red Auerbach and having his one-year-old daughter Sarah passed from player to player on a flight from Logan to Detroit Metro.Drawing on unprecedented access and personal experiences that would not be possible for any reporter today Shaughnessy takes us inside the legendary Larry Bird-led Celtics teams capturing the camaraderie as they dominated the NBA. Fans can witness the cockiness of Larry Bird (who once walked into an All-Star Weekend locker room announced that he was going to win the three-point contest and did); the ageless athleticism of Robert Parish; the shooting skills of Kevin McHale; the fierce self-sacrificing play of Bill Walton; and the playful humor of players like Danny Ainge Cedric Cornbread Maxwell and M.L. Carr.
language: English
title: Wish It Lasted Forever: Life with the Larry Bird Celtics
publisher: Scribner