The Wizard of Odds How Jack Molinas Almost Destroyed the Game of Basketball

by Rosen, Charley

• ISBN13: 9781583222683
• ISBN10: 1583222685
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2001-12-04
• Publisher: Seven Stories Press

Summary

Among the most talented & brainiest to ever play the game of basketball, Jack Molinas is also credited, by some, with having single-handedly corrupted it. In The Wizard of Odds, renowned & bestselling basketball writer Charley Rosen brings us the long-awaited life of Molinas, one of the greatest basketball players of his era, & one of its most daring cheaters. Drawing on numerous, previously unavailable first-person accounts, including Jack Molinas's own journal, & trial transcripts, Rosen presents the saga of a man who perhaps better than anyone around him understood the weaknesses of the system of organized basketball--so much so that he convinced himself that he could manipulate that system to his advantage with total impunity. From Molinas's sparkling academic career & his days as a NBA All-Star, to his criminal convictions for fixing games & his involvement with the Mafia, culminating in his gruesome murder, The Wizard of Odds is a dark testament to the terrible human power of self-destructiveness.

Author Biography

A native of the Bronx and longtime pal of basketball guru Phil Jackson, CHARLEY ROSEN led the league in technical fouls during each of his six years as a coach in the now-defunct Continental Basketball Association. Since then he has become the world’s foremost writer of fiction and nonfiction on the subject of basketball, chronicling the drama that takes place both on and off the court. His many novels include The House of Moses All-Stars, a New York Times Notable Book, and Sammy Wong: All-American. His non-fiction works include The Scandals of ’51: How the Gamblers Almost Killed College Basketball and More than a Game, with Phil Jackson. Rosen is an analyst for hoopshype.com and a devotee of the Triangle Offense. He lives in Accord, NY.