Review of "Pro Basketball Factbook 1972-1973," edited by Jack Orr

 Review of

Pro Basketball Factbook 1972-1973, edited by Jack Orr

Five out of five stars

An interesting look back to an earlier time

 Modern followers of sports are not aware of how pro basketball has changed since the early seventies. Pro basketball was not very popular at that time, arenas were rarely full and franchises moved rather frequently. The team now known as the Sacramento Kings was the Cincinnati Royals until 1972, when they relocated to being the Kansas City-Omaha Kings. Unable to survive financially there as well, the team moved again to their present location of Sacramento.

 The game has also changed with the arrival of showtime stars with a great deal of entertainment value and speed. When it was first introduced, the three-point shot made little difference, but now it is an integral part of nearly every team’s offense.

 This book is nothing more than statistics about the players. There are some very key points regarding many of the stars of the time. I paid particular attention to Wilt Chamberlain and Karem Abdul-Jabbar. Wilt Chamberlain’s field goal percentage in the 71-72 season was 0.649 while Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s was 0.574. Two other powerful centers of that year, Willis Reed and Wes Unseld had field goal percentages of 0.438 and 0.498 respectively.

 There are other interesting nuggets that can be extracted from this book. I had a great deal of fun searching for other items of interest.