A drunk stranger at the basketball court taunts Lonnie and challenges him to drive the man off the court.

Cal Jones is introduced as the team's potential coach and defeats Lonnie in a one-on-one game, locking in his role.

Cal brings popular basketball player Sweet Man to practice, exciting the skeptical team and earning Lonnie's tentative buy-in.

Cal fails to show up with the team's uniforms, forcing them to play in street clothes and lose.

Cal returns with the uniforms; Lonnie draws a pistol, Paul intervenes, and the gun goes off wounding Lonnie's hand.

The team plays their first Tournament of Champions game sloppily and loses, prompting Cal to lecture them sharply.

Cal confesses to Lonnie that he lost his basketball career by deliberately shaving points for gamblers.

Lonnie and Mary-Ann sneak into Tyrone's club late at night, discover stolen checks among the envelopes, and take the money.

Lonnie and Cal visit Mr. O'Donnel's office, where the wealthy white sponsor uses body language and tone to assert dominance over them.

The team arrives at their practice facility to find it vandalized and Ox's parakeet killed.

Coaching in Cal's absence, Lonnie earns two technical fouls and is ejected, and the team loses the televised game.

After being bailed out of jail, Cal's father arrives; Cal goes on an angry tirade and quits coaching.

Lonnie overhears Cal place a bet on his own team to lose, just before the championship game.

Lonnie enters the championship in the second half and scores a buzzer-beating shot to win the tournament for his team.

Tyrone and Juno Rashid attack Cal after the championship victory, stabbing him in a fatal assault.

Pool 1 follows the main beats of Hoops, from Cal Jones's first appearance as a mysterious challenger at a Harlem basketball court to his role as the team's unlikely coach in a high-stakes tournament. Lonnie Jackson's tense but evolving relationship with Cal drives the story forward, while the discovery of Tyrone's criminal activity raises the stakes well beyond basketball. The tournament brings confrontations with white authority figures like Mr. O'Donnel, who seek to control outcomes and diminish Black players and coaches. Cal's intricate plan during the championship puts Lonnie on the court at the crucial moment, and Lonnie wins the tournament with a buzzer-beating shot. Cal's victory over the corrupt forces surrounding the game ultimately costs him his life when Tyrone attacks him immediately after.

The core journey from Cal's arrival to his fatal sacrifice.

Lonnie seizes an opportunity to steal a case of Scotch from an open liquor truck and hides it under his bed at the Grant.

Lonnie visits Paul and Mary-Ann and learns that Mary-Ann has recently taken a job at an after-hours club.

Lonnie returns to the Grant to find his boss Harrison has already discovered and taken the stolen case of Scotch.

The team pools money together to pay for uniforms as they prepare to enter the Tournament of Champions.

Cal takes Lonnie for burgers with Sweet Man, where Lonnie opens up about his basketball goals and what he wants for his game.

Mary-Ann calls Lonnie, worried about an envelope at work that has her brother Paul's name written on it.

Cal keeps Lonnie after practice at the new gym to coach him individually on how to use his offensive talent.

Lonnie spots Paul with a group of new friends and unexplained money, raising suspicions about what Paul has been doing.

Aggie performs a song during Lonnie and Cal's visit, putting her remarkable talent on full display despite her unfulfilled career.

After a pickup game at the park, Lonnie privately reflects that his basketball skills have noticeably improved.

After a game, a newspaper photographer tries to photograph the team, but Cal refuses and sends the man away.

Lonnie's team defeats a majority-white squad featuring a star named Sweet Jesus, but the bruising win brings the team back to earth.

Lonnie and Mary-Ann cash stolen checks and use the money to pay Cal's bail and get him released from jail.

Paul carries an unconscious Mary-Ann into the gym; Tyrone has injected her with drugs as retaliation against Lonnie.

Lonnie shoots baskets in front of neighborhood kids on the playground; when he misses, a child mocks his game.

Pool 2 captures the secondary events that give texture to Lonnie's daily life in Harlem and the details surrounding the tournament. From petty theft and a lost stash of Scotch to the gradual uncovering of Paul's stolen-check scheme and Tyrone's criminal grip, these events reveal the pressures bearing down on Lonnie and everyone he cares about. Cal's individual coaching sessions and his protectiveness toward the team show a deeper commitment to Lonnie's growth than Lonnie initially wants to admit. As Tyrone's retaliation escalates to injecting Mary-Ann with drugs, the criminal subplot crashes directly into the tournament's climax. The novel closes not on pure triumph but on a quiet playground moment, where a child's taunt reminds Lonnie that his journey as a player and a person is far from finished.

The supporting events that fill in Lonnie's world and relationships.

Lonnie opens the story reflecting on how everything in his life shifted after his father walked out on the family.

Cal visits Lonnie's room at the Grant and challenges him directly about his commitment to the team and the tournament.

Lonnie cries himself to sleep for the first time since his father left, after bottoming out over the confiscated Scotch.

After the team's first tournament loss, Cal delivers a sharp speech about young Black men choosing defeat over victory.

Cal warns Lonnie that basketball scouts offering college opportunities are almost certainly trying to exploit and deceive him.

Lonnie finds Mary-Ann with a bruised, swollen face after both Tyrone and Paul struck her during the same confrontation.

Paul confesses to Lonnie that Tyrone intercepted the stolen-check operation and now holds a debt over Paul's head.

Lonnie gets drunk and has a vivid dream about performing basketball before a vast, indifferent all-white audience of scouts.

Cal tells Lonnie the tragic story of his son Jeffrey, who died in a house fire while Cal was away searching for work.

Mary-Ann asks Lonnie directly if he wants to get married; Lonnie feels suffocated by the pressure and leaves without answering.

Mary-Ann identifies the mysterious figure who warned O'Donnel about Cal's troublemaking past as a man named Juno Rashid.

Lonnie tells Mary-Ann he loves her for the first time, accepting her challenge that real commitment is what makes things different.

Lonnie tracks down a drunk Cal and persuades him to return and help put a plan in motion for the championship game.

Once on the court in the second half of the championship, Lonnie feels completely in control of the game for the first time.

After Cal's funeral, Lonnie and Mary-Ann walk together and Lonnie declares his determination to make his own way no matter what he faces.

Pool 3 focuses on the emotional turning points and key revelations that define Lonnie's internal journey through Hoops. Beginning with Lonnie's raw grief over his absent father and ending with his renewed resolve after Cal's death, these events trace his growth from a young man who bottles everything up into one who can face the future with openness. Key confessions, like Cal's warning about exploitation and Paul's admission about Tyrone's criminal hold, deepen Lonnie's understanding of the world around him. His first declaration of love to Mary-Ann and his earlier refusal to answer her marriage question mark opposite ends of his emotional courage, showing the push and pull of vulnerability at work. By the time Lonnie steps onto the championship court and finally feels the full flow of the game, his transformation from isolated and angry teenager to a young man capable of real connection and purpose is unmistakably complete.