A series of short stories by such authors as Walter Dean Myers, Rita Williams-Garcia, and Joseph Bruchac, interspersed with poems and photographs, provides different perspectives on a game of streetball played one steamy July day at the West 4th Street court in New York City known as The Cage.

"When a young basketball star decides to research his grandfather--and coach--for a school project, he uncovers a decades-old scandal that changes everything he thought he knew about his grandfather"--

Twelve-year-old Sarah is used to being the star on her basketball team, playing with her best friends, but suddenly she finds that her body is changing and she doesn't understand why she can't keep up on the court. Plus she doesn't understand why her mother has gotten so weird about food, binging on candy while forgetting about dinner, and she really doesn't understand why she told Benny, her crush, about her mother. But when Benny offers to teach...

"Udoka Clendon is a first-year university student and a product of basketball systems that have produced professional players. He's been pushed relentlessly by the obsessive mentorship of his older brother, which has been tolerated by his hard-working single mother. For years his brother has taken him to tournaments and pushed him to succeed on the outdoor courts of the west end. Burdened by expectations and self-doubt, Udoka tries to reignite his...

In the summer of 1988, twelve-year-old Chuck Bell is sent to stay with his grandparents, where he discovers jazz and basketball and learns more about his family's past.

Fourteen-year-old twin basketball stars Josh and Jordan wrestle with highs and lows on and off the court as their father ignores his declining health.