In this light-hearted, informative overview of pro basketball in the 1970s, Criblez, professor of history at Southeast Missouri State Univ., focuses on the showmanship of Pistol Pete Maravich and the ABA-NBA merger, which brought flashy talent such as Julius Erving and George Gervin to the pro scene. Criblez explains how sagging TV ratings and the increased use of cocaine endangered the league. There’s a reason why future NBA commissioner David Stern, who oversaw the NBA’s golden era of the 1980s and ’90s, called the late ’70s the league’s 'dark days.' But Criblez finds plenty of sunshine. He unearths surprising, humanizing facts that have been lost in the NBA’s now-slick facade. The struggling Indiana Pacers held a telethon in 1977 to stay solvent; the NBA held a televised dunk contest in 1976 and revived the idea in 1984.... [T]he abundance of bon mots will satiate basketball fans of all ages.

Publishers Weekly

In this easily readable book, Criblez examines US professional basketball during the 1970s. Organized chronologically, each chapter represents professional basketball in one year of the decade; interspersed are three ‘Time-Out’ sections that focus on a particular person or topic—the strongest of these focuses on the American Basketball Association and its eventual merger with the National Basketball Association (NBA). Criblez argues that the 1970s, although considered the ‘dark days’ of the NBA, were transformative due to the parity in the league, the rising salaries as players gained free agency, and the prevalence of drugs and violence; this created a setting of the stage for the modern NBA.

Summing Up: Recommended…. Lower-division undergraduates and general readers.

Choice Reviews

[A]n entertaining book that adds to the nascent body of scholarship on the history of professional basketball…. In all, Tall Tales and Short Shorts is an entertaining and engaging read.

Sport in American History

The book’s greatest strength is how it distills each year into a highly readable summary. As a professional historian, Criblez is meticulous about mining for sources — at times it feels like he unearthed everything ever written about the NBA in the ‘70s. This attention to detail helps the reader feel confident that no major event was overlooked…. As I read, I often found myself making notes to look up the footnoted sources to find more details on particular topics, exposing me to many resources I would have never encountered otherwise. Overall, the book is one of the most comprehensive resources available for fans or history buffs looking for information about the NBA in the 1970s.

Blazer's Edge

[A] very entertaining and fun read for any basketball fan who watched the game in that decade. [The] fantastic teams and players [mentioned] may not get the same love as Larry Bird, Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan did for 'saving' the game in the 1980’s – but this book gives that decade some much-deserved recognition for providing the first step to that revival.

The Guy Who Reviews Sports Books

In Tall Tales and Short Shorts, Adam Criblez expertly shows how the most maligned decade in NBA history—the 1970s—was actually one of the most important. Through exhaustive research and with a keen eye for detail, Criblez entertains and educates with the stories of Dr. J, Pistol Pete, Kareem, and the other legends of the decade who not only dominated in the 1970s, but set the stage for everything that followed in the NBA.

Shawn Fury, author of Rise and Fire: The Origins, Science, and Evolution of the Jump Shot-and How It Transformed Basketball Forever