Duke University Press, which is reissuing Big Game, Small World: A Basketball Adventure, has posted the new preface to the 20th anniversary edition free online in advance of publication in October 2022.
“Like so many housebound people during the early days of the pandemic, I was grateful for the ESPN/Netflix series The Last Dance,” said author Alexander Wolff, who reflected on the two decades to pass since Big Game, Small World appeared in 2002. “Those episodes transported me back to mid-1998, and the aftermath of the Chicago Bulls’ sixth NBA title and Michael Jordan’s retirement—precisely when I embarked on the travel chronicled in Big Game. So The Last Dance helped frame the new preface.”
Click here to learn, among other things, the stirring story of Aussie star Patty Mills; the vagabonding origins of the toast of Toronto, Nick Nurse; the rich promise of African basketball (which enticed Barack Obama to invest in the new Basketball Africa League); and how the idiosyncrasies of indigenous culture gave rise to the Peel-Switch Defense with the Angolan national team.
You’ll also find a convenient button to preorder Big Game, Small World, which was named a New York Times Notable Book.