This is maybe the fifth book (series) on basketball I’ve read this year, and the only one that is fiction. It’s also the one that grabbed me the closest as I was reading it. Completing the series didn’t feel like a chore or something that I would kick myself for abandoning later on down the line. It was a treat and it left me wanting to hear more from the characters and their lives and world. I think I finally understand the purpose of fan fiction.
I first learned of the series when SAMMUS (a.k.a. Enongo Lumumba-Kasongo) posted a few years ago that her then-boyfriend, now-husband had written a few young adult books on kids who play pick-up basketball on the courts of Oakland, CA, and who may or may not get along when they are off the court. As a kid who grew up reading Matt Christopher sports novels, I was definitely intrigued. One cool thing about the series is that each book focuses on a single character’s perspective. The four title characters (Justin, Janae, Frank, and Toni) each appear in the grand narrative that stretches across the books, but it is not a case of changing narrators each chapter with differing perspectives on the same events. That’s fine as a narrative device, but I really preferred how Alonge kept us focused on the thoughts and feelings of each individual player for an entire book. You get to know them on and off the court and see how each of their lives intersects and informs the others. It’s built for re-reading.
The main reason I dig this series so much is that what I like about basketball is not the statistical analysis in debates about who is the GOAT, or the attempts to outdo God by chopping reality into instant-replay slices to determine possession. The game is unique and wonderful because it’s one of the only team sports you can practice entirely on your own. Add another person and you can get close to the feeling of a full game by running one-on-one. This series depicts those small moments that make basketball beautiful and that have nothing to do with leagues, whistles, and fans, though there is a brief interlude where the characters do participate in organized sports. It doesn’t go well, but that doesn’t mean the group has failed in any sense. It’s just another moment in their lives and doesn’t dull their love for the game in the long run.
Even better is how Justin’s book ends before letting the reader know which team emerged victorious in a pivotal game. It was enough for Justin to get a huge block at a critical moment and to bask in the glory of the few people there to watch, including his teammates. That choice not to Disney up the book with a triumphant win over a heated or hated rival is another aspect of the series that makes it so entertaining to read. It’s not about the wins or losses, but just those little moments that make playing sports special. It gave me space to reconsider meaningful and nearly perfect basketball experiences in my life. They range from seeing Jordan’s first game back at the United Center in 1995 to seeing Northwestern’s Nathan Taphorn pull off a full-court inbounds pass to Dererk Pardon for a layup to defeat Michigan in 2017 to playing two hours of 3-on-3 in the dark after leaving a shitty party on a Friday night in 2002 to driving over an hour to play 2-on-2 with some of those same people in 2015. These moments range in time and place and historical relevance but they inform my perspective on the game regardless. Alonge gets this idea and that's what makes the series so compelling.
I look forward to revisiting Justin, Janae, Frank, Toni, and Mike (he doesn’t even get his own book) in a few months or years, once I’ve forgotten the details of their hoop dreams. I can’t say the same about When the Game Was War or Pipeline to the Pros, which are meticulously reported analyses of aspects of the game I love so much. The smaller stories in those nonfiction pieces sometimes reveal something interesting and magical about basketball, but the way Alonge explodes some of those same moments into fully realized narratives about fictional characters is even more engrossing.
Hanif Abdurraqib’s There’s Always This Year comes the closest to getting at this point. For every LeBron who makes it to the league, there are dozens of other almost-made-it cases whose stories aren’t captured in box scores and highlights, so reports of their greatness don’t travel past the city limits. The whispers down the lane and the rumor mill can provide as much excitement or hype as any meticulously crafted game footage could, and with the power of imagination, can make being there to see or hear about it even more memorable. These books convey the excitement of that feeling and that’s why they’re worth savoring.
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