The Blueprint: LeBron James, Cleveland's Deliverance, and the Making of the Modern NBA

(Hardback)

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Description

The inside, Moneyball-esque story of 2016 Cleveland Cavaliers and the team's hero, LeBron James, telling the four-year story of how the Cavs lost their star player, but immediately put together both a plan and team that would bring the city a long-awaited NBA Championship.

Reviews

Praise for The Blueprint

[An]energetic, detailed slice of basketball history...Lloyds intoxicatingly thorough reporting allows readers to grasp the difficulty in assembling a teameven one featuring a legend.Publishers Weekly

[A] brilliant book, one that takes the reader back through the many momentous moments over the past several seasons in Cavaliers history...Lloyd masterfully tells a truly compelling story of the fall, and subsequent rise, of the Cavaliers.Tim Bontemps, The Washington Post

In the tradition of Michael Lewis Moneyball (2003), journalist Lloyd traces how the Cleveland Cavaliers, after re-signing LeBron James, captured the NBA championship in 201516.Booklist

I couldnt put down The Blueprint...this book will interest anyone whose team has had a long championship drought.Library Journal

Avery personal account of the return of LeBron James to Cleveland in 2014 and of the Cavaliers' NBA championship in 2016... [Lloyd] tells several interlocking stories: James' decision to leave the team, the four intervening years when the Cavs' front office began plotting to get him back, the arrival of key players (especially Kyrie Irving, Kevin Love, and J.R. Smith)... and, of course, that championship that erased decades of frustration for Cleveland sports fans.Kirkus Reviews

This is a book about basketball, but also about hope and loss and redemption and what happens when the impossible somehow becomes real. Page after page, Lloyd expertly pulls back the curtain on all the private moments that coalesced to give Cleveland something more than a miracle: its first major championship in more than half a century.Rachel Nichols, ESPN

In 2011, Jason Lloyd told me LeBron was coming back to Cleveland. 2011! That's how deeply ingrained he is with this franchise, this athlete and this story, a modern epic he was hard-wired to tell.Lee Jenkins, Sports Illustrated

Author Bio

Jason Lloyd is a lifelong resident of Northeast Ohio. He has covered the World Series, the NCAA Tournament, the BCS National Championship Game and the NBA Finals, and he has won several state and national awards for his work covering the Ohio State Buckeyes and the Cleveland Cavaliers. He has also worked for ESPN.com, Lindy's Sports Annuals, Cleveland Magazine, and CBSSports.com. He and his wife, Alessia, live in Avon Lake with their three children.