Unfortunately though, Foul Lines is not. The book is filled with everything you'd expect-flamboyant ball players, a sexy female beat writer, a young genius in the front office and all the stereotypical controversy that is reported daily on Sportscenter.

The story follows the Los Angeles "Lasers" of the National Basketball Federation (obviously, the real NBA wouldn't license its name, teams or actual players to be named in a work of "fiction"-more on that later). The reader is thrust into the world of professional basketball with lavish parties, groupies, drama and secondary games.

The plot itself is predictable and a major letdown so I won't waste time with a summary. But as a fan of sports and particularly basketball, the book contains cliché after cliché and it's hard to tell whether it's just bad creative writing by the authors or a calculated effort to dumb down the content to make the material more attainable for a wider, non-sports fan audience.

The only possible fun for the reader during the book is trying to figure out which parts of the story is reality, taken from the authors' experience in real life covering professional teams. While the book is advertised as fiction, part of the sales pitch is obviously, 'hey we write for SI and are privy to all the behind-the-scenes actions most don't know about so we wrote a book, called it fiction and now can't be held accountable for any repercussions of exposing everyone.' The problem with that is, with today's media, everything is reported and nothing is shocking anymore. Illegitimate children? Drag racing club? Sex with the head cheerleader? So what and who cares?

The book is a quick read and doesn't require any prior knowledge of basketball. In fact, I'd probably only recommend Foul Lines to a person who knew nothing about sports and therefore would find some sort of entertainment in the aforementioned cliché riddled narrative.