Mike Lupica's Travel Team

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Travel Team Breakdown Travel Team by Mike Lupica is an inspirational novel about present day sports lives in the eyes of preteens. As a “New York Times Number One Best Seller,” this story is a realistic fiction novel, using real sports athletes and NBA teams. This story is about a small point guard named Danny Walker. Although he is the only son of the professional “hometown hero,” Richie Walker, the four-eight twelve-year-old is cut from his school’s travel team due to his size. Attempting to be a factor in his child’s life, Richie Walker creates a new travel team, the Middletown Warriors, to plat all the rejected players that tried out for the main team. Throughout the season, the boys (and girl) learn discipline and legendary work tactics …show more content…

Although Danny is only four-eight, he overcomes great odds by leading a team who rejected him for being small. Since Mike Lupica made the protagonist a short elementary height, it creates a dramatic effect when his father asks him to coach, and then beats his old travel team. Danny Walker was used as a symbol to represent a great basketball mind behind a small middle schooler. The dedication and work ethic Danny has for basketball before and after he coaches the Warriors prove John Wooden’s quote, as he succeeds in being an on-court coach and star …show more content…

I would recommend this book to all basketball players, especially all small point guards or players that were cut from a team because of their body and not their knowledge or skill because I believe that it would help readers develop a love for basketball and inspire players to work harder with a better ethic to achieve everyone else’s goals while exceeding your own. I loved the part where Danny needed to step up and be the coach and the jokes from Will Stoddard about his coaching. I didn’t like how Danny thought about giving up in the beginning because he was cut from a team he once played with for two seasons. Travel Team is overall an awe inspiring novel about a young guard with a love for the game and the skill set to make it big and his drive and will to succeed that kept me on track to find out what Danny would do

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