Basketball For Dummies Paperback – Illustrated, October 11, 2011

Awesome book to read throughout. Great information and tools to understand the game and help improve your knowledge and skills of basketball 🏀

This book cleared up details about the game that I was always wondering about! It is written in language that is comprehensible and all terms are clearly explained in the glossary at the back of the book. I recommend it for anyone who wants a better understanding of the game. It will lead to more enjoyment while watching games.

I read the 2nd edition of this book, and while some of the "culture" and "current player" sections were dated, the book itself is great. Digger Phelps fills the pages with practical information - from describing a court and the ball, to some of the intracies of the 1-3-1 zone and an example 5 day practice schedule.As a "Dummies" book, there isn't a ton of depth here, but that's to be expected. I do wish that there was a little less on the history and culture of the game, and more on the practical X & O aspects. Phelps, however, does do a fairly good job of giving the novice to the game enough to get started, and the history and culture pieces certainly provide valuable appreciation for the game itself.Although nearly 400 pages, it is a relatively easy and fast read. A few more illustrations would be helpful - and some of the photos that accompany the book with the 1-5 players in jerseys were particularly helpful. All in all a good read.

this is a great read for anyone who loves the game of basketball. If you don’t learn something, you should be coaching at a very very high-level.

Prompt service; arrived much earlier than delivery date provided by company. The book was exactly as described (no marks nor damaged pages).

This book is Basketball *For Dummies*. It's supposed to be an introduction to the game. It says right on the front, "Learn: the rules and regulations of the game."But it's terribly organized, with huge gaps in knowledge. For example, Chapter 3 "The Rules"... makes NO mention of dribbling, except to say it wasn't in the original rules of basketball (p. 31). That's a pretty big omission, don't you think, for a "dummy" trying to learn about basketball for the first time? It talks about the names of various lines, time-outs, etc., but it doesn't actually describe how the game is *played* at all. Then Chapter 4 jumps to "Statistics" (way too early for a beginner, we haven't even learned how to play the game yet!).But even worse, there are just so many sentences that make no sense for a beginner. Chapter 5, introducing areas to shoot from, says "Elbow is a term for the two spots on the floor that mark the intersection of the foul line extended and the lane line." (p77). What?! What is the foul line? What is the foul line extended? What is the lane line? Are there 2? The court diagram on page 32 lists *none* of those, and neither does the text. I thought this was supposed to be for dummies... I am still totally clueless what this mythical spot called an "elbow" is.Chapter 6 on Offense talks about the positions... but just has short separate sections on each one. There's no diagram, no introduction of how they work together. A beginner is left with no insight here.The author talks about "the screen" on p94, saying "a screen frees up a dribbler or an intended receiver. To set a screen, an offensive player without the ball uses her body as a shield to ward off a defender who tries to follow an offensive player." But it doesn't even explain... is a "screen" a move, or a position, or something else? What is "setting" a screen, are there other things you can do with a screen? What does it *look* like -- there's no photo, illustration, description, or *anything*. I'm sure this is all totally obvious to someone who already understands, but for someone who's never heard of a "screen" in their life, this is totally unhelpful. This is supposed to be a book *for dummies*, but by this point in the book, any dummy like myself is going to be totally lost.Then you realize, the book is pretty terrible at explaining basketball at all. It's really a confused mish-mash -- some parts are only needed for complete beginners, some parts assume you have lots of background knowledge, some parts seem purely for coaches, and then it's full of rather pointless side anecdotes, most of which just aren't interesting or entertaining, honestly. But all these parts are totally mixed up in the same chapters.So I don't know who this book is supposed to be for. But it's not a good introduction "for dummies", that's for sure.

This surprisingly well written guide to Basketball is all you need if you want to learn the game, learn to appreciate watching the game, or have a desire to coach at the highschool level. An excellent review of the rules and strategy of Basketball, with useful hints about what to watch for in a typical game.The dummy series continues to surprise me with how well written the books are and how complete they are, and this one is no exception.

Great book for us moms (and some dads too) who need help figuring out exactly what's going on out on the court. Now I don't have to ask the dad sitting next to me "what does that call mean"? all the time! Very informative and easy to use!

great book.

Great book with lots of helpful hints!

I wanted to understand the game better and learn the rules. The book is really easy to read and understand, it is a real pleasure. So much so that I have been shooting hoops with my son. Highly recommended!

I purchased this for my daughter who has recently started playing basketball and it was very good for giving her the basic information for getting started with rules and drills she was very pleased to get it

This product came damaged. The front cover was ripped and the the first few pages.