Our next guest is Martin Manley, whose new book Basketball Heaven.

I was on TBS as an analyst, but was really there for no other reason than to hawk the book.

Let's start with the idea of efficiency.

In 1989, Martin Manley appeared on Inside the NBA at All-Star Weekend to talk about his new book, Basketball Heaven.

Eleven years before his national TV debut, it would have seemed impossible for Martin's life to lead there.

Martin turned 25 in 1978.

And like a lot of 25-year-olds, he was something of an unformed mess. No longer a kid,

barely an adult, he was living in a sleepy Kansas suburb, feeling adrift, spending countless

hours driving aimlessly. In his Toyota pickup truck, Martin had the gentle musical stylings

of a single artist keeping him company.

Being an obsessive person, James Taylor is about the only artist I listened to with any regularity.

It wasn't that I didn't like other songs and other artists, but they weren't James Taylor.

James Taylor famously saying, you've got a friend.

But in Martin, he had an obsessed fan.

I knew every note and every word of every song.

Nobody was as obsessive as I was about listening to the same thing over and over and over,

100, 200 times.

Sweet baby, James, that is a lot of James Taylor.

Martin also had other obsessions beyond the tender tracks of J.T.

It probably wasn't until I was in my mid-20s that I started drinking soda.

Sometimes shortly after that, it became the only thing I drank.

No milk, no juices, no tea, no coffee, no beer, no water, no nothing.

...