About Paul Knepper

Paul Knepper used to cover the Knicks for Bleacher Report. His first book, The Knicks of the Nineties: Ewing, Oakley, Starks and the Brawlers That Almost Won It All was published in September 2020.

Paul Knepper used to cover the Knicks for Bleacher Report. His first book, The Knicks of the Nineties: Ewing, Oakley, Starks and the Brawlers That Almost Won It All was published in September 2020. You can reach Paul at paulknepper@gmail.com and follow him on Twitter @paulieknep.

Paul's website

NBN Episodes hosted by Paul:

Rich Cohen, "When the Game Was War: The NBA's Greatest Season" (Random House, 2023)

January 13, 2024

When the Game Was War

Rich Cohen
Hosted by Paul Knepper

Four historic teams. Four legendary players. One unforgettable season. The 1980s were a transformative decade for the NBA. Since its founding in 1946…

Jeffrey S. Gurock, "Marty Glickman: The Life of an American Jewish Sports Legend" (NYU Press, 2023)

December 9, 2023

Marty Glickman

Jeffrey S. Gurock
Hosted by Paul Knepper

For close to half a century after World War II, Marty Glickman was the voice of New York sports. His distinctive style of broadcasting, on television …

Nick Baumgardner and Mark Snyder, "Mountaintop: The Inside Story of Michigan's 1997 National Title Climb" (Printopya, 2023)

October 6, 2023

Mountaintop

Nick Baumgardner and Mark Snyder
Hosted by Paul Knepper
Listen:

When the 1997 college football season began, the once-mighty Michigan Wolverines were dismissed nationally as a relic of a bygone era. Michigan had po…

Lincoln A. Mitchell, "The One Hundred Most Important Players in Baseball History" (Artemesia Publishing, 2023)

September 18, 2023

The One Hundred Most Important Players in Baseball History

Lincoln A. Mitchell
Hosted by Paul Knepper
Listen:

Baseball lore and history is filled with many valuable players, and not all of them are the Hall of Famers you know. In The One Hundred Most Importan…

Earl Cureton and Jake Uitti, "Earl the Twirl: My Life in Basketball" (McFarland, 2023)

August 16, 2023

Earl the Twirl

Earl Cureton and Jake Uitti
Hosted by Paul Knepper
Listen:

Today I talked to Earl Careton about his new book (co-authored with Jake Uitti), Earl the Twirl: My Life in Basketball (McFarland, 2023) Earl "The Tw…

Lee Lowenfish, "Baseball's Endangered Species: Inside the Craft of Scouting by Those Who Lived It" (U Nebraska Press, 2023)

June 11, 2023

Baseball's Endangered Species

Lee Lowenfish
Hosted by Paul Knepper
Listen:

Scouting has been called pro baseball’s personalized way of renewing itself from year to year and a pathway to the game’s past. It takes a very speci…

Paul R. Semendinger, "Roy White: From Compton to the Bronx" (Artemesia, 2023)

April 26, 2023

Roy White

Paul R. Semendinger
Hosted by Paul Knepper

Roy White played on the New York Yankees from 1965 through the 1979 season. Roy grew up on the tough streets of Compton and created a successful all-s…

Theresa Runstedtler, "Black Ball: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Spencer Haywood, and the Generation That Saved the Soul of the NBA" (Bold Type Books, 2023)

March 11, 2023

Black Ball

Theresa Runstedtler
Hosted by Paul Knepper

Against a backdrop of ongoing resistance to racial desegregation and strident calls for Black Power, the NBA in the 1970s embodied the nation’s imagin…

Kevin Bryant, "Spies on the Sidelines: The High-Stakes World of NFL Espionage" (Rowman & Littlefield, 2022)

February 22, 2023

Spies on the Sidelines

Kevin Bryant
Hosted by Paul Knepper

Kevin Bryant's Spies on the Sidelines: The High-Stakes World of NFL Espionage (Rowman & Littlefield, 2022) is first book to fully explore the extraord…

Mike Westhoff, "Figure It Out: My Thirty-Two-Year Journey While Revolutionizing Pro Football's Special Teams" (Mascot Books, 2022)

February 11, 2023

Figure It Out

Mike Westhoff
Hosted by Paul Knepper

Simply put, Mike Westhoff is the greatest special teams coach in National Football League history. Sharp-witted, creative, and intensely focused, West…

Thomas Beller, "Lost in the Game: A Book about Basketball" (Duke UP, 2022)

December 11, 2022

Lost in the Game

Thomas Beller
Hosted by Paul Knepper

For players, coaches, writers, and fans, basketball is a science and an art, a religious sacrament, a source of entertainment, and a way of interactin…

Ray Scott, "The NBA in Black and White: The Memoir of a Trailblazing NBA Player and Coach" (Seven Stories Press, 2022)

November 24, 2022

The NBA in Black and White

Ray Scott with Charley Rosen
Hosted by Paul Knepper

“There’s a basic insecurity with Black guys my size,” Scott writes. “We can’t hide and everybody turns to stare when we walk down the street. … Whites…

Muggsy Bogues and Jake Uitti, "Muggsy: My Life from a Kid in the Projects to the Godfather of Small Ball" (Triumph, 2022)

November 10, 2022

Muggsy

Muggsy Bogues and Jake Uitti
Hosted by Paul Knepper

Growing up, Muggsy Bogues was always told he should do something else, anything besides basketball. He never acknowledged his many doubters except to …

Randall Balmer, "Passion Plays: How Religion Shaped Sports in North America" (UNC Press, 2022)

October 20, 2022

Passion Plays

Randall Balmer
Hosted by Paul Knepper

Randall Balmer was a late convert to sports talk radio, but he quickly became addicted, just like millions of other devoted American sports fans. As a…

Paul Russell Semendinger, "The Least Among Them: 29 Players, Their Brief Moments in the Big Leagues, and a Unique History of the New York Yankees" (Artemesia, 2021)

September 16, 2022

The Least Among Them

Paul Russell Semendinger
Hosted by Paul Knepper

The Least Among Them: 29 Players, Their Brief Moments in the Big Leagues, and a Unique History of the New York Yankees (Artemesia, 2021) is a most spe…

Carlos Acevedo, "The Duke: The Life and Lies of Tommy Morrison" (Hamilcar, 2022)

May 30, 2022

The Duke

Carlos Acevedo
Hosted by Paul Knepper

In the early 1990s, Tommy Morrison, a young roughneck from Jay, Oklahoma, burst onto the boxing scene to become one of the most controversial fighters…

Thomas Aiello, "Hoops: A Cultural History of Basketball in America" (Rowman and Littlefield, 2021)

April 27, 2022

Hoops

Thomas Aiello
Hosted by Paul Knepper

From its early days as a sport to build “muscular Christianity” among young men flooding nineteenth-century cities to its position today as a global s…

Dan Grunfeld, "By the Grace of the Game: The Holocaust, a Basketball Legacy, and an Unprecedented American Dream" (Triumph Books, 2022)

March 21, 2022

By the Grace of the Game

Dan Grunfeld
Hosted by Paul Knepper

When Lily and Alex entered a packed gymnasium in Queens, New York in 1972, they barely recognized their son. The boy who escaped to America with them,…

Christopher Clarey, "The Master: The Brilliant Career of Roger Federer" (Twelve, 2021)

February 18, 2022

The Master

Christopher Clarey
Hosted by Paul Knepper

There have been other biographies of Roger Federer, but never one with this kind of access to the man himself, his support team, and the most prominen…

Dave Zirin, "The Kaepernick Effect: Taking a Knee, Changing the World" (New Press, 2021)

December 8, 2021

The Kaepernick Effect

Dave Zirin
Hosted by Paul Knepper

In 2016, amid an epidemic of police shootings of African Americans, the celebrated NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick began a series of quiet protests o…

Ben Guest, "Zen and the Art of Coaching Basketball: A Namibian Odyssey" (2021)

November 5, 2021

Zen and the Art of Coaching Basketball

Ben Guest
Hosted by Paul Knepper

Today I talked to Ben Guest about his new book Zen and the Art of Coaching Basketball: A Namibian Odyssey (2021).Pressure plays, buzzer-beaters, and m…

Carl Rommel, "Egypt’s Football Revolution: Emotion, Masculinity, and Uneasy Politics" (U Texas Press, 2021)

October 27, 2021

Egypt’s Football Revolution

Carl Rommel
Hosted by Paul Knepper

Both a symbol of the Mubarak government’s power and a component in its construction of national identity, football served as fertile ground for Egypti…

Don Stradley, "The War: Hagler-Hearns and Three Rounds for the Ages" (Hamilcar Publications, 2021)

October 25, 2021

The War

Don Stradley
Hosted by Paul Knepper

The battle between Marvelous Marvin Hagler and Thomas Hearns is remembered as one of the greatest fights of all time. But in the months before the two…

Luke Epplin, "Our Team: The Epic Story of Four Men and the World Series That Changed Baseball" (Flatiron Books, 2021)

September 16, 2021

Our Team

Luke Epplin
Hosted by Paul Knepper

In July 1947, not even three months after Jackie Robinson debuted on the Brooklyn Dodgers, snapping the color line that had segregated Major League Ba…