Review — The Sixth Man
I’m not the biggest NBA fan. In fact I would gladly put myself into the ‘casual’ fan category. That being said even I know who Andre Iguodala is and how well rounded his game is. Igoudala’s book ‘The Sixth Man’ is a lot like his game, high level and complete.
Iguodala touches on a lot of things but one of the biggest takeaways for me was the physicality of the NBA. To hear the routine to get ready for a game day in and day in out was really eye opening. The discipline that goes into keeping yourself ready to play at the highest level — to put it bluntly- it’s a lot and we should all have a lot more appreciation for what athletes like him do to go out there and perform every night. Add on father time and it’s impressive for anyone to play as many years as Iguodala has at the highest level.
Another recurring point is the platform that he and other athletes have. A platform that has been criticized with the old ‘shut up and dribble’ push back. The fact is he has a platform and he does use it whether you like what he has to say or not and that platform will always be through the lens of a black man in America.
What biographies and sports biographies in particularly do well is bring those anecdotes from their career into the light. Two of those gems were when Iguodala was in his first pick up game at Arizona and Luke Walton torched him when Iguodala was thinking “slow white guy”. The other is what Steve Kerr would always say to him when he entered the game off the bench (“Find the flow”). There are countless others that I’ll leave to the reader as some are just great.
Iguodala has had a great basketball career. While I always enjoyed watching him play, I have a better appreciation for what it took now more than ever. I’m very interested to see what the next phase of his life brings.
Link to book
