Basketball is one of the fastest growing sports in New Zealand’

NZ Institute of Sport

Sports memoir with a big market

Engaging story of how a kid from Wellington became NZ’s first international pro basketball player

Includes Saker’s US trip to look at NBA life of NZ’s latest and greatest ever basketball star, Steven Adams

Author’s book How to Drink a Glass of Wine is an Awa Press lifetime best-seller

In this candid and beautifully written memoir, John Saker tells of his lifetime love affair with one of the world’s most popular sports, how it changed his life, and the head-spinning moments when this ‘minor’ sport became the talk of New Zealand.
From his early teens, when throwing hoops was a way of dealing with family tragedy, through his scholarship to a US university, career in France as New Zealand’s first professional basketball player, and selection to the Tall Blacks, Saker canvasses both highs and lows of a sport where players such as Steven Adams today command multimillion dollar salaries.