Hoops is a book about a seventeen year old kid named Lonnie Jackson that lives in Harlem New York. He always been a pretty good basketball player, but when he met Cal, he really got good. He first met Cal on a basketball court. Lonnie decided one night to go to the court and play ball, and there was a drunk guy laying on the court saying, “Your shoes is too big” and it made Lonnie mad and he thaught that the drunk guy was nothing. The next day, Lonnie found out that there was going to be a tournament and he wanted to play. So he went to the practice and that drunk guy walked in, and Lonnie flipped, and didn't want to play for him because he is a drunk. He played for him and Lonnie and Cal became pretty good friends.

Cal ended telling Lonnie everything that has happened in his life. Cal was a proffesional basketball player at one time, and messed up with the wrong people and he sold his game to some guys. Then once his baby died, he really went off the deep end, he started drinking a lot and wouldn't even look at his wife. Once the league found out about the people that he was getting in with, they kicked him out, and he couldn't play again.

Their team ended up being pretty good. They went into the tournament being one of the best teams.

After a game, Cal got into a fight with a couple of guys. He beat on him until the cops came and pulled Cal off the other guy. Cal ends up going to jail and Lonnie and Cal's ex wife are looking for him. When Cal's ex finds out about Cal, she called Lonnie and they got the money together to get him out of Jail.

Lonnie starts getting pretty serious with his best friends sister. Towards the end of the book, she is trying to get him to say I love you, but he doesn't want to. In the last chapter, she takes money from her boss Tyrone to help bail Cal out of jail, and he finds out, and drugs her and she Ods, and had to go to the hospital.

The same day that that had happened, they had to play in the championship game, but the guy who runs the tournament, said that Lonnie couldn't play because he got kicked out of a game.