The Breaks of the Game is a 1981 sports book written by Pulitzer Prize winning reporter David Halberstam about the Portland Trail Blazers' 1979–1980 season.

Aside from a recap of the Blazers' season, the book attempts to give a detailed history of the NBA, the 1976–77 Portland Trail Blazers championship team, the injuries faced by departed star Bill Walton, and the life of Kermit Washington after his two-month suspension for punching Rudy Tomjanovich.

Apart from the central discussion of the 1979–80 Blazers season, Breaks provides a history of the NBA, discusses the 1977 Portland Trail Blazers NBA championship squad, the life of departed star Bill Walton, and the struggles of Kermit Washington after his 1977 suspension.

Late season Continental League pickup Billy Ray Bates struggle from illiterate small town player who bounced around the fringes of the NBA for several years to playoff starter is also chronicled.

Portions also discuss the growing pains the NBA experienced expanding from a game that was rarely featured on television in the 1960s to one that had a lucrative network contract by 1979.

The television money and increased fan support brought with it with the advent of lucrative "no-cut contracts" for the players.

Woven into the narrative are biographical passages for Ramsay, Walton, and Washington (among others) and the misfortunes they each suffered in recent seasons.

The story of each players' and coaches' lives act as the track upon which Halberstam advances his themes of racism in America, class-ism, white privilege, and labor rights and disputes.

Throughout the entire book, the overarching narrative is of personal and professional redemption, of the importance of peeling back the layers of some of the more vulnerable people in contemporary society, and to marvel at what can be found beneath.

"[9] Journalist, podcast host, and New York Times best-selling author Bill Simmons has repeatedly praised the book.

Through college and grad school, as I was slowly deciding on a career, I read it every year to remind myself how to write – how to save words, how to construct a sentence, how to tell someone's life story without relying on quotes, how to make anecdotes come alive.

When the paperback suffered a tragic beach accident from an unexpected wave, I bought a third copy at the used books store on Newbury Street for $5.95.