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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Business of Basketball Will Never Be the Same, August 6, 2005
In "The Jump", Ian O'Connor takes the case of Sebastian Telfair (a talented if undersized NYC point guard) to document the wholesale marketing of basketball as merely an outlet for businessmen and agents to exploit the very stars they need. Telfair himself is an intense but likable young athelete who comes across as more than just the sum of his shoe company endorsements and shady high school coach's dealings. And O'Connor masterfully describes the various elements that make basketball what it is today, on the high-school level.
Sebastian (or "Bassy") Telfair is the product of an inner-city enviroment that promises little to many of his peers. Nonetheless, he is blessed with an unnatural ability to command the ball and also interact with his teammates in an unselfish style that seperates him from the ball-hogging "gangstas" that dominate the NBA. In Telfair, O'Connor finds a unique case study for his look at the way money can corrupt even the best atheletes. Telfair is smarter than most, able to avoid the pitfalls of financial entanglements while still a "amateur" status. But he has his own problems off the court.
Telfair's father Otis, a Vietnam vet, was a nonentity during his son's formative years due to a prison conviction. His older brother Sylvester, also in and out of trouble with the law, figured prominently in concerns over Sebastian's ability to land with a team in the 2004 draft. And the neighborhood he grew up in on Coney Island is one of the worst in the country.
Through it all, Telfair has his talent and his backers to keep him from becoming another statistic. As documented in "The Jump", Telfair is the local celebrity, and he is able to navigate through the tension of inner-city life because he has the chance to make it out.
Telfair is surrounded by all sorts of hangers-on who want to ride him to glory: Ziggy Scaginano(sic), the former coach who first pinpointed Sebastian for greatness; Tiny Morton, Bassy's high school coach who falls under investigation for his participation in various tournaments for cash; Sonny Vaccaro, the former Adiddas and ReeBok chief who first courts Telfair then trys to undermine him allegedly; Stephon Marbury, Telfair's famous (and in the Telfair household, infamous) cousin; Rick Pitino, the college coach who banked on Telfair attending school instead; and a host of executives from NBA teams and sneaker companies, all with their eyes on the prize that is the Next Big Thing. And in their eyes, that Next Big Thing is a point guard named Sebastian Telfair.
It would be fair to say that I'm not a huge basketball fan; I enjoy the game, but know little about it. In "The Jump", I think it's fair to say even a non-NBA fan would find something worthy to read. Whether it's Telfair's own struggles to transcend his enviroment without losing his soul, or the various goings-on that conspire to make his jump to the pros all that more difficult, O'Connor never loses sight of the narrative flow that makes this compelling story even more interesting.
Modern sports has become a big-time business, and in "The Jump" Ian O'Connor documents how one player manages to keep his head above the water of endorsements, shady friends and agents, and the pressures of a typical high-school athelete magnified under the national spotlight. Sebastian Telfair may turn out to be the Next Big Thing, or the Next Big Flop. But you won't forget him when you finish the long and winding road to his jump.
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14 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
One of the best sports books I have ever read, February 10, 2005
... it is an amazing portrayal of the life of a young basketball star in America. The Georgia Tech allegation is just one small part of a story that captures the enormous pressures that are heaped on young athletic talent in America today.
While interesting, the buzz centering around Georgia Tech is such a minor part of the book. George Burdell should order his own copy of The Jump on Amazon and read about the sneaker companies' influence on young athletes, overtures by agents that could impact a players amateur standing, and the amazing story of Telfair himself--an exceptionally talented young player with remarkable poise and charisma who, through hard work, perseverance and amazing talent, overcame the hardship and violence of life in the projects to achieve his dream of playing for the NBA. The real story of the book is captured in this quote from Telfair, "I mean, every player is taking something out there. Everybody. . . . Kids out there are starving. We're starving. We'ver got nothing, nad people are making all this money off of us. Maybe I want to buy my mother something for Christmas. She told me, 'They make all this money. They sell all these pictures of you, and nobody gives anything to our family.' When I was younger, I used to have to borrow sneakers to play ball, but nobody cares. Nobody knows what's going on in our household. They just make their money and move on.'"
For the record, O'Connor writes that Telfair never confirmed that he was referring to GA Tech when he told the story about the booster offering money. Telfair's brother and best friend identified the school as Tech. O'Connor writes, "Of course, someone could have made a $250,000 offer--and an empty one at that--without having any connection to Georgia Tech or its basketball program. Whether the alleged offer to Telfair was real or a hoax, this much was clear: [Telfair] was forever in position to reject business propositions that could have landed him in trouble. The crux of the Tech story is that Telfair was a kid facing enormous pressure and temptations.
Buy this book and read this book. It is one of the best sports books I've ever read.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
This is Big Time Sports, March 1, 2005
The news reports give the brief versions of a promising high school student who skipps college to play with the pros. But here are the day to day details of a young man all of a sudden being put into play almost as a commodity.
When amazing amounts of money are involved, amazing things happen. The colleges that would like to have the player hopefully lead them to championships, the agents, the shoe companies seeking yet another name to hang on their wall all begin to work their own special interests.
To a young man from the projects, this has to be bewildering. Whose advice to follow? What is the best solution? What about college? What about the millions of dollars being offered? At 5' 11", is he too small, or is he good enough to make up for the small size?
This is the day by day, decision by decision, event by event story of one young man as he starts his NBA career. It's a story very few will experience first hand, and it's almost unbelievable.
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