Boys Among Men — Review

this post was originally published on my Goodreads account.

An interesting look into the lives of the people who decided to go straight to the NBA from college, Abrams’s book points out some interesting commonalities, and makes a fairly persuasive argument that going straight to the league from high school has helped more players than it has hurt. The variety of stories Abrams gets from his sources is impressive, and the amount of reporting needed to get those stories is difficult to consider. There’s the usual problem of the people who make themselves most available coming to dominate the narrative, and there’s nothing Abrams can do but make us aware of those figures’ biases, which he does. I feel like all the common ground Abrams discovers among the players who jumped straight to the league from high school–poverty, single-parent households, confidence bordering on arrogance–all point to some interesting ways Abrams could have expanded the story, but he was probably wise to set boundaries on this thing. If you’re interested in basketball and want to see an excellent example of sports journalism, look no further.