SLAM

The entire social, cultural and actual evolution of basketball can be traced through one shot: the slam dunk. So posits nationally acclaimed sports columnist, Mike Sielski, who will chart the history of that single shot in SLAM.

Drawing on more than 100 interviews and insights from some of the dunk's most electric practitioners, SLAM takes readers behind the scenes for the slam dunk's most glorious and inglorious moments - from 1936 when the first known dunk in an organized game to the movement to outlaw the shot because it was unseemly and out of step with the way the game was supposed to be played to the NCAA's 10 year ban of the dunk in college basketball. Along the way we'll see how the dunk has been an expression of Black culture and a tangible indication during the civil rights era of the threat that Black people were considered to be to the establishment.

SLAM will also delight in unpacking the folklore around the game's greatest rim hangers - Wilt, Kareem, Dr. J, Jordan and countless others - whose high-flying, genre-bending acrobatics revolutionized the game and pushed the sport forward in exciting, futuristic ways. We'll be courtside when Georgeann Wells becomes the first woman to dunk the ball and stake her own claim to that rarefied air. We'll also see how the dunk spilled into pop culture, fashion, style and merged with hip hop to become part of the fabric of modern life.
In the spirit of Tyler Kepner's bestselling K: A History of Baseball in 10 Pitches or Michael Lewis' Moneyball, or even Franklin Foer's How Soccer Explains the World, SLAM is a provocative, insightful and conversation-changing look at how a single shot can be seen as an act of defiance, triumph, vengeance, joy, rage or reclamation, or all those things at once. And it is in that complexity that dunk becomes a prism through which we understand the game of basketball - and the world.

Mike Sielski is the critically acclaimed author of THE RISE: Kobe Bryant and the Pursuit of Immortality, which has been optioned for a feature film and documentary. A longtime columnist at the Philadelphia Inquirer, Sielski is also an established and recognizable presence on national television, radio, and podcasts, including on ESPN, The NFL Network, National Public Radio, "The Woj Pod," "The Right Time with Bomani Jones," and Sports Illustrated's "The Crossover" and "Sports Illustrated Weekly."