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Betaball
- How Silicon Valley and Science Built One of the Greatest Basketball Teams in History
- Narrated by: George Newbern
- Length: 10 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged Audiobook
- Categories: Sports & Outdoors, Basketball
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What listeners say about Betaball
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Chad
- 13-10-17
If you watch...
If you watch basketball and keep up with the NBA, this can be a tough listen. There was an underwhelming amount of insight into the specifics of how analytics or the Silicon Valley mindset enacting change in the organization. What I was truly excited for though was more on how Steve Kerr created his offense or motivated his team; of which there was also very little.
By far the most maddening is the absolute butchering of well-known NBA player names. Stephen Curry, a huge part of this book, doesn't have his name said correctly once...
2 people found this helpful
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- Chris Hartig
- 05-10-17
Comprehensive account sullied by poor narration
I wish I had just bought a physical copy of the book. The narrator mispronounced the names of some of the most noteworthy players in the league. Very distracting.
2 people found this helpful
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- C. Lau
- 02-01-19
Great story, insights
Marred only by half the names being mispronounced. George Newbern mispronounces the same words differently at times. It’s distracting, but the story is too good to quit.
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- Julia
- 19-12-18
fun story, bad reading
Seems like it should be really important to know how to pronounce everyone's name. The narrator made an embarrassing number of mispronunciations.
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- Chris
- 18-10-18
Laughable Name Pronunciation, Wanted More Analytics
Name pronunciation was laughable.. you’d think if you were reciting a book on basketball you would research a little. I wish the story was more about the technology and analytics aspects but it was 90% a Warrior’s history book. Well written though.
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- Adam Barzel
- 24-06-18
basically a Wikipedia entry
blow by blow history of the Warriors, no storyline, seemingly no access to the inside story. it's incredibly boring, if you have any familiarity with the NBA or the Warriors. I'm struggling to understand the intended audience for the book
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- Kindle Customer
- 08-03-18
like the team: book is fun fast & not too serious
the narrator mispronounced dozens of player names. the book itself is entertaining but it's a bit of a stretch to draw the comparisons to Moneyball. the Warriors drafted well and then based on their recent success were in position to sign Kevin Durant. it's not sabermetrics it's just good team-building like the Celtics the Bulls the Lakers the Spurs and many other NBA power teams.
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- pure the illest
- 25-02-18
Fun read!
Would you consider the audio edition of Betaball to be better than the print version?
N/A
Who was your favorite character and why?
The author.
Have you listened to any of George Newbern’s other performances before? How does this one compare?
No
Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
Loved it.
Any additional comments?
A really fun book to read if you like basketball and/or the Warriors.
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Performance
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- Patrick
- 05-02-18
Big potential for a topic, but disappointing book.
I thought coming in this would be an in depth look at how Golden State used tech and advanced analytics to get an edge but the result seemed to be more a summary of what I could have read in any Bay Area newspaper over the last few years. Too bad.
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- Mate Bahnegyi
- 31-01-18
Pronunciation
Reader is clearly not a basketball fan, players’ names were often mispronounced. Otherwise not bad.