William Gates and Arthur Agee are fourteen when Chicago talent scouts recruit them out of their West Side and Cabrini Green neighborhoods to St. Joseph's, a mostly white suburban high school that produced NBA star Isiah Thomas. Steve James follows both boys and their families for five years, from tryouts through senior year, as basketball becomes the family's one visible route out of poverty. Gates blows out his knee more than once and plays through the pain because a scholarship depends on it. Agee's father cycles through drug addiction and jail while his mother works nursing shifts and studies for her own certification at night, and the film sits in their living room for the hardest conversations rather than cutting away. Tuition shortfalls, a coach who loses interest once an injury shows up, and state tournament games where a missed shot has real financial consequences all get the same patient camera. Both boys eventually make it to college ball, but the film's real subject is what the sport costs the people around them long before either reaches a pro tryout.