The basketball diaries

The book isn’t specifically about basketball in Pittsburgh. Hundreds of pages and dozens of chapters are devoted to some of the most decorated figures in the sport’s history who had no connections to Western Pennsylvania.

In a book that’s personal to some extent — it is a memoir, after all — Mr. O’Brien, who became the first Pittsburgh native inducted into the U.S. Basketball Writers Hall of Fame, deftly connects the sport he loves with the city he loves.

What results from it is an enjoyable and insightful read. For a basketball fan, particularly one who appreciates the nuances of the sport and its history, it’s an immersive experience, even if it may not be that way for those who don’t have a passion for the game.

A vast majority of the 53 chapters focus on a particular figure, helping tell the story of not only that person (usually a player or coach) and the author’s experience with them, but also the era in which they lived and often helped define. In each of the stories, Mr. O’Brien illustrates that person’s eccentricities and flaws, the kind only acquired by decades spent wandering arenas, traversing locker rooms and sitting in cars, with Mr. O’Brien riding shotgun and his subject at the wheel.

There’s Julius Erving, with whom Mr. O’Brien developed a close relationship, a man whose afro, acrobatic game and nickname (Dr. J) embodied all that was cool and cutting edge about the upstart league in which he played, the American Basketball Association (ABA), before he took his talents to the NBA.

There’s Michael Jordan, widely regarded as the best to ever play, an athlete Mr. O’Brien got to know early in his career, before a warm personality (”If you met Michael Jordan, you would like him,” Mr. O’Brien writes) gave way to the unapproachability that has long been his public persona.

For Mr. O’Brien — a McMurray resident who was the founding editor of Street and Smith’s Basketball and a writer for several publications, such as The Sporting News, New York Post and The Pittsburgh Press — this reconstruction of basketball history wouldn’t be complete without his hometown.

The book begins with Simmie Hill, a star of Midland High School’s legendary 1965 state championship team and a former ABA player. He was the kind of character who counted Jimi Hendrix and Marvin Gaye among his acquaintances and once robbed a local liquor store, as the author notes, not because he was in need of money, but “just for the helluva it.”

It ends with a chapter on Suzie McConnell, a member of what’s arguably the royal family of basketball in Pittsburgh today, although the book was printed before she was fired as the University of Pittsburgh’s head women’s basketball coach in April.

In between are tales of some of the quintessential figures in Western Pennsylvania basketball history, a sampling of names that spans generations — John Calipari, the University of Kentucky coach and Moon native; Chuck Cooper, a Westinghouse graduate and former Duquesne University star who was the first African-American player to be drafted by an NBA team; Connie Hawkins, a star in the ABA with the Pittsburgh Pipers who has long been hailed as “Dr. J before Dr. J”; and Pete Maravich, a human highlight reel of a player whose extraordinary skill set was molded in Aliquippa.

With the information and insight Mr. O’Brien provides, he’s not merely a sports writer, but a sports historian, a key and important distinction that adds to the richness of what he recounts.

The book is not without its flaws. It is at its best when it sticks to basketball, although some of its tales of figures around the game, particularly longtime Pittsburgh press box denizen Radio Rich, are entertaining.

There’s repetition of full names and explanations of people who were mentioned a few chapters earlier, but it does little to take away from the reader’s experience.

It’s a collection of stories that serves as a time capsule, one that’s informative without being dense. As a memoir, it is meant in some way to be about himself, but through his career and the exploits it brought, one learns about so much more.