The Jordan Rules - Softcover

Fred Barnes (The McLaughlin Group) The American Spectator A riveting account...what you want in a sports book: the behind-the-scenes stuff, a peek at the private side of the players, their hobbies and politics and religion, the way they get along or don't...It's fair to compare The Jordan Rules with the campaign books that appear after every presidential race....The difference is not only that The Jordan Rules explains more persuasively than most of the campaign chronicles how the winner was decided -- it's that it does so more interestingly and with more understanding of the human heart. Associated Press The Jordan Rules entertains throughout, but the most fun comes from just hanging out with the players. Smith takes us into the locker room, aboard the team plane and team bus, and seats us on the bench during games. Sometimes, books reflecting on a team's success don't reach the personal level with the people who made it happen: The Jordan Rules does. Newsweek Jordan boasts a wicked tongue, and not just when it's hanging out as he dunks....[He] manages to blurt out enough in Smith's book to reveal his own narcissistic, trash-talking, obsessively competitive side. Chicago Sun-Times The Jordan Rules...might be the best sports book since Season on the Brink about Bob Knight. New York Newsday An engaging, sometimes cruelly funny behind-the-scenes look at the Bulls' tantrum-and doubt-filled but finally triumphant journey to the NBA title.

A SUPER TEAM...A SUPERSTAR...A SUPER EGO The most gifted athlete ever to play the game, Michael Jordan rose to heights no basketball player had ever reached before. What drove Michael Jordan? The pursuit of team success...or of his own personal glory? The pursuit of excellence...or of his next multimillion-dollar endorsement? The flight of the man they call Air Jordan had been rocked by controversy. In The Jordan Rules, which chronicles the Chicago Bulls' first championship season, Sam Smith takes the #1 Bull by the horns to reveal the team behind the man...and the man behind the Madison Avenue smile. Here is the inside game, both on and off the court, including: Jordan's power struggles with management, from verbal attacks on the general manager to tantrums against his coach Behind-the-scenes feuds, as Jordan punches a teammate in practice and refuses to pass the ball in the crucial minutes of big games The players who competed with His Airness for Air Time -- Scottie Pippen, Horace Grant, Bill Cartwright -- telling their sides of the story A penetrating look at coach Phil Jackson, the former flower child who blossomed into one of the NBA's top motivators and who finally found a way to coax "Michael and the Jordanaires" to the their first title A provocative eyewitness account, The Jordan Rules delivers all the nonstop excitement, tension, and thrills of a championship season -- and an intense, fascinating portrait of the incomparable Michael Jordan.