Mr. Basketball George Mikan, the Minneapolis Lakers, and the Birth of the Nba

"Before Shaq and Kareem, before Wilt and Russell, there was George Mikan, a six-foot-ten, 240-pound center, who forever changed the way basketball was played. A three-time All-American at DePaul and a six-time professional champion, first with the Chicago Gears of the National Basketball League, and later with the Minneapolis Lakers of the National Basketball Association, Mikan became such an unstoppable force - and a national sensation - that, when his Lakers played the New York Knickerbockers in 1949, the marquee outside Madison Square Garden read simply, GEORGE MIKAN VS. KNICKS." "In Mr. Basketball, author Michael Schumacher chronicles the life and career of professional basketball's first marketable superstar - from his awkward first year at DePaul through his Hall of Fame career as one of the fifty greatest players in the history of the league, and, later, his tenure as president of the American Basketball Association, where he instituted the three-point field goal and other innovations that remain part of the game today. Drawing on extensive interviews - with former teammates, opponents, coaches, friends, and rivals - Schumacher delivers, for the first time, a nuanced portrait of one of the most unheralded athletes of our time, as well as a look at the birth of the National Basketball Association."--BOOK JACKET.Schumacher, Michael is the author of 'Mr. Basketball George Mikan, the Minneapolis Lakers, and the Birth of the Nba', published 2007 under ISBN 9781596912137 and ISBN 1596912138.