Jeff Van Gundy. Brad Stevens. Frank Vogel. Mike Budenholzer. Tom Thibodeau. Sam Presti. Leon Rose. Before you knew his name, before he drafted your favorite player, before he guided your team to a championship, he had a playing career of his own at an NCAA Division III college. He didn't play for fortune - the NBA was out of reach, and his school didn't even give athletic scholarships. He didn't play for fame - his games weren't televised, and the stands were rarely full. Whatever the motivation, he simply couldn't give up the game of basketball. And that didn't change after graduation, when it was time to pick a career path. For the first time in league history, NBA coaches and general managers are just as likely to have played Division III basketball as they are to have played in the NBA. While the number of former D3 players working in the NBA is higher than ever, small college alums have served in leadership positions since the league's founding. They shaped the NBA into what it is today, playing integral roles in the Lakers' initial success in Los Angeles, the inception of several expansion franchises, the creation of the popular All-Star Weekend dunk contest, the globalization of the league, and more. Their improbable and inspiring journeys tell a bigger story - the history of small college athletics, the evolution of coaching and management in the NBA, and the hiring practices in the most competitive fields. Their alma maters were small, but their impact on the game, and the implications of their success, loom large.

On October 12, 1994, Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg, and David Geffen-three of Hollywood's biggest players-announced they would form a new studio to produce feature films, television series, and pop music recordings. It didn't have a name, though Katzenberg's reference to his partners as the "Dream Team" eventually led to the company being dubbed DreamWorks. What the three men were attempting hadn't been done in more than sixty years: create a movie studio that could compete with the already existing major players. In The Dream Team , Daniel Kimmel tells the behind-the-scenes story of DreamWorks' rise-and the end of the dream eleven years later, when most of the company was sold off or shut down. Its plan for 1,087 acres of studio facilities that would include residences and retail operations came to naught. Its animation division was split off and went public. Its principals had already begun to go their own ways. Mr. Kimmel explores DreamWorks' successes: best-picture Oscars for American Beauty and Gladiator ; a near miss (but box office success) for Saving Private Ryan ; a smash animated hit Shrek winning the first Oscar ever for best animated feature and pointing the industry toward computer animation. But he also investigates why an enterprise with such promise failed to reach the heights. Was it the company's diffuse management style, or had the industry changed and consolidated so greatly that it was now impossible for new players to break into the ranks? Mr. Kimmel offers intriguing answers, showing how, more often than not, the guys tilting at windmills usually end up on the ground.