"An insightful portrait of one of the all-time great NBA teams." -- Booklist
"Malinowski describes the on-court action with humorous flair while also capturing the sophistication required to properly run a professional sports team." -- Publishers Weekly
Moneyball meets The City Game in this compelling look at how the world champion Golden State Warriors embraced savvy business practices, next-generation science, and Silicon Valley's technocentric culture to not only produce the most talented basketball team ever assembled but revolutionize the modern NBA.
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Betaball is the definitive, inside account of how the Warriors -- under the leadership of venture capitalist Joe Lacob and Hollywood producer Peter Guber -- quickly became one of the most remarkable success stories ever witnessed in sports or business. In just five years, the duo turned a declining franchise with no immediate hope into the NBA's dominant force, facilitated the rise of All-Star point guard Stephen Curry, produced the best single-season record in league history, and won two championships over a three-year span.
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Lacob and Guber (along with their executives, coaches, and players) did so by urging employees to speak out; encouraging cross-collaboration; investing in bold, new technologies; and never resisting the urge to innovate, no matter how successful they became. In the tech industry, the term for this development stage -- when your product isn't quite fully baked, so you're always in flux and open to change yet focused on the end-goal -- is "beta."
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By operating in "beta," the Warriors morphed into a model organization for American professional sports, instituting the best workplace principles found inside the world's most successful corporations and instilling a top-down organizational ethos that allowed all of their employees to thrive, from the front office to the free-throw line.
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With in-depth access and meticulous reporting on and off the court, acclaimed journalist Erik Malinowski recounts a gripping tale of worlds colliding, a team's reinvention, ordinary people being pushed to extraordinary heights, and the Golden State Warriors' unending quest to remain the best.
