Ebook: Can't Knock the Hustle: Inside Brooklyn's Season of Hope: How Basketball Helped Us Survive Power, Politics, and a Global Pandemic

An award-winning sports journalist's courtside account of the Brooklyn Nets' year-long saga at the epicenter of culture and coronavirus—Moneyball meets Boom Town for an era of influence, chronicling the rise of basketball as a force for progress in society.

At the dawn of a new decade, a startup grew in Brooklyn: social influencers and political activists, media moguls and tech entrepreneurs, fashion designers and mental-wellness gurus, rappers . . . all of whom just so happened to play professional basketball. The 2019-20 Nets were the team of tomorrow—a player-first franchise, in a star-first city, at a nation-first moment—and anything was possible. As soon as the mega-stars Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving arrived, the Nets were destined to become a dynasty for the ages.

Then came the wildest year in modern NBA—and world—history.

Can't Knock the Hustle is the definitive chronicle of the season when basketball's status as a force for progress in society was put to the ultimate test, and Matt Sullivan had a courtside seat: Deal-making with Kyrie and Jay-Z. Rehabbing with KD at the Nets' world-class health facility. International intrigue between LeBron James and the Chinese government. The final days of Kobe Bryant, front-row at Barclays Center in Brooklyn. The first days of Covid-19, when the Nets found themselves at the epicenter of a virus—and integral to a comeback of the very culture they had come to define.

Hundreds of interviews—with NBA Hall-of-Famers, All-Stars, coaches, owners and power-brokers from across the globe—provide a lasting portrait of an unforgettable time, as sports brought people back together again, like never before.