Everybody remembers their first time watching basketball. The satisfaction of swishing a jumper or using creativity to get to the rack. In a new book, former SLAM Editor-in-Chief Ben Osborne explores the impact of the game beyond these core moments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In collaboration with German independent publishing house gestalten, Courtside Candy<\/em> explores how the game has transcended beyond the court\u2014how it\u2019s created new fashion, art and a subculture that brings all hoop fans together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe photos are spectacular. It\u2019s basically a coffee table book that anyone who appreciates basketball culture will love,\u201d Osborne says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are five sections in the book. An introduction about basketball\u2019s impact beyond the court and a personal tribute to Stephon Marbury, a player whom Osborne believes embodies the book\u2019s message. Displays of basketball fashion trends, the game\u2019s global reach, artistic interpretations and the variety of courts found worldwide fill the pages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nearly 40 artists, photographers and fashion designers are featured, with each page draped in a myriad of colorful images and short essays that tell the unique backstories of each work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019m not sure a book has been presented in this manner that kind of tries to touch all the different things that basketball has influenced,\u201d Osborne says. \u201cI think it\u2019s really like a love letter to the game.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Courtside Candy<\/em> is out July 1.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Photos courtesy of Wenpeng Lu, Walter Looss Jr., Maddy Talias, An Rong Xu and Jorge Espinoza.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cBasketball has always been a form of artistic expression.\u201d It\u2019s a fitting representation of the game and the opening line of the new book Courtside Candy. Everybody remembers their first time watching basketball. The satisfaction of swishing a jumper or using creativity to get to the rack. In a new book, former SLAM Editor-in-Chief Ben […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":543,"featured_media":831139,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[65393],"tags":[63920,65415,65411],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-831140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-slam-256","tag-basketball","tag-courtside-candy","tag-slam-256"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/831140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/543"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=831140"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/831140\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":831220,"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/831140\/revisions\/831220"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/831139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=831140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=831140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=831140"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=831140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/p.009-Photo-Walter-Iooss-Jr.-Courtside-Candy-gestalten-2025-scaled.jpg\")
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