The First Slam Dunk

When I began work on my book Magic in the Air: The Myth, the Mystery, and the Soul of the Slam Dunk, I made certain assumptions about where I would have to go so I could research the topic properly. The book was to be an anecdotal, narrative history of basketball, of American popular culture, of civil rights and racial reckoning, of the rise of the Black athlete and the game’s growth into a multi-billion-dollar industry. So … cities. I figured I would spend a lot of time in cities. And gyms. And arenas. And playgrounds. Basketball is primarily an urban sport, after all. I figured I would go where the players are and where the legends had been.