We Are Family

Tamika doesn’t appear until Chapter 4, indicating that her character isn’t as important as Jayden. Yet, without Tamika, the Hoop Group season wouldn’t have occurred. One of Tamika’s greatest strengths is her leadership skills. After her father stops coaching Hoop Group, Tamika takes over. She convinces Principal Kim to serve as the adult chaperone, and using persistence, she manages to get the disparate young athletes to play as a team. Coach Beck acknowledges Tamika’s primary role when he tells a nurse, “The real star is my daughter. She’s the reason they won today” (287). This quote indicates that Tamika isn’t only more important than Jayden but also more crucial than Kendrick King.

Though the term never explicitly appears in the story, Tamika embodies the general principles of feminism. She’s an empowered, determined girl who pushes back against sexist norms. Coach Beck tries to dissuade her from playing professional basketball, and his lack of support motivates her. The narrator explains, “[I]t made her want to make the WNBA better for other girls like her, not avoid it completely” (207). Yet Tamika isn’t immune to frustration. After only Dex and Anthony show up for tryouts, she despairs. Feeling guilty about her hospitalized father, she temporarily quits the team. As with Jayden, Tamika finds her way back to basketball and appears on track to achieve her dreams.

Unlike the other four members of Hoop Group, Anthony doesn’t like basketball or sports. His disdain for athletics is ironic, with the twist being that he has the body of an exceptional athlete. The narrator says that men tell Anthony that “he could be the next Bill Russell or, better yet, Refrigerator Perry. But Anthony doesn’t want to be the next Bill Russell or Refrigerator Perry. Truth be told, he doesn’t even know who they are” (45). Anthony doesn’t want to become a basketball legend (Russell) or a popular football player (Perry). His heroes are writers, including the poets Langston Hughes, Gwendolyn Brooks, and Derek Walcott. While basketball preoccupies Tamika, Dex, Jayden, and Chris, creative writing class takes over Anthony’s life. Similar to how Jayden practices constantly, Anthony can write obsessively.

A love of literature indicates that Anthony’s strengths include mindfulness and introspection. He has complex feelings, and writing is an outlet for his emotions. At the same time, his compulsive writing links to Anthony’s main flaw—a lack of self-control. In sixth grade, he bullied a boy, and his bellicosity continues when he almost fights Dex. Anthony’s anger is due to his volatile home life. While none of the young characters have privileged lives, Anthony is the only young person who’s abused. Speaking about Anthony’s father, the narrator writes, “Now that the drinking has started back up again, so, too, have the outbursts. And now that Anthony’s mother has lost all independence and ability to fight back, most of those outbursts are directed toward Anthony” (117). Anthony must learn not to perpetuate his father’s violent hostility. Through writing and Tamika—his compassionate romantic interest—Anthony gains a sense of self-control.

Chris begins the story as an antagonist. His inflated sense of his basketball skills makes him arrogant and confrontational. He almost starts a fight with Jayden after she outperforms him, and he nearly starts a fight with Anthony after he points out Chris’s basketball shortcomings. For the first part of the story, Chris is insecure. He can’t face the truth that he’s not as good as he thinks he is, and the narrative implies that Chris will follow in the footsteps of his unethical father. However, Chris demonstrates conscientiousness when he leaves the exploitative Ballers and firmly commits to Hoop Group. Chris is sincerely invested in basketball, and he doesn’t want to be a scammer like Cam.

Chris’s transformation becomes clear when he admits to Hoop Group that he doesn’t have a close relationship with Kendrick. In other words, instead of lying and distorting his relationship with his uncle, Chris tells the truth. This honesty pushes Chris to email Kendrick, who, in turn, shows up for the final game and commits to funding Hoop Group. Thus, Chris’s character plays a pivotal role in Hoop Group’s longevity.

As with Jayden, Dex is raised by a single mother. Yet Jayden has a grandmother to help out, while Dex doesn’t have another responsible adult family member in his life, forcing him to become strong and independent. He makes it home by himself and prepares himself dinner. To keep himself company, he watches old Cleveland Cavaliers games on YouTube, reinforcing his characterization as a knowledgeable student of basketball.

Dex’s extensive basketball IQ translates to his appearance. The authors give him glasses, implying that he’s an archetypal “dork” or “nerd.” The suggested label isn’t a negative, as Dex knows that he doesn’t have the skills to become a professional player. Similar to Jayden, Dex has specific goals and a way to achieve them. The narrator explains,

He doesn’t want to go to Willow Brook to play sports. He wants to take the kinds of classes and participate in the types of extracurricular activities that will secure his own spot at Stanford, or some other elite college. He then plans to become a wealth manager for high-earning athletes. This’ll put him as close to the NBA action as he could ever hope to get, and Dex is totally okay with that (133).

Dex wants to help manage NBA careers, linking him to LeBron James’s friends Rich Paul and Maverick Carter, who don’t play in the NBA but help him and other players use their wealth.

Roddy played basketball in Hoop Group with Kendrick King. Roddy planned to become an NBA player and use some of his wealth to build decent housing for the Lorain community. However, not wanting to emulate his father, Roddy gave up his dreams to help his girlfriend raise their daughter. Roddy doesn’t want Jayden to make a similar mistake.

Roddy becomes Jayden’s mentor and father figure. He teaches Jayden about the importance of persistence, and, more critically, he uses his lived experience to teach Jayden about the complexities of sacrifice. Roddy tells Jayden, “I didn’t consider that the best way to be there for [my daughter] was to become the best version of myself” (201). Yet Jayden continues to choose work over basketball. Only after Roddy pushes Jayden to participate in the Classic does Jayden firmly recommit to basketball. Nevertheless, Roddy plays a key role by stopping Jayden’s misguided sacrifice.

Kendrick is the NBA star whom the Hoop Group members tend to idolize. Jayden’s mother buys him Kendrick King shoes, and Chris lies about having a close relationship with him. For most of the story, Kendrick remains an immaterial idol. In the penultimate chapter, Kendrick appears for the time, taking on the role of hero. Not only does he coach Hoop Group and promise to fund them, but he plans to open a series of afterschool programs, and he wants to hire Jayden’s mother to oversee them. Kendrick is generous and philanthropic, and he’s also conscientious. He realizes that his and Cam’s strained relationship shouldn’t negatively impact his relationship with his nephew. He wants Chris to feel like he can talk to him about anything, not just basketball.

Coach Beck founded Hoop Group and coached Kendrick King, giving the coach an acclaimed reputation. Since Coach Beck has Parkinson’s disease, he’s unable to coach Hoop Group, creating the central conflict. Coach Beck’s narrow ideas about women in basketball add further tension, making him seem sexist and turning him into Tamika’s antagonist. However, Coach Beck’s economic calculations about WNBA players are not wrong, and he’s not opposed to all women athletes. The narrator says, “[Tamika’s] dad was busy trying to push her into tennis, a sport where women like Serena [Williams] make more than a lot of the men” (207). Nevertheless, Coach Beck doesn’t support his daughter, making him an unsympathetic character for most of the story. A life-threatening fall transforms him, and he becomes Tamika’s ally, referring to her as the “true star” of Hoop Group.

Grams is Jayden’s grandmother and the mother of his mother. She’s a mentor, and she looks after Jayden while his mother works as a lawyer’s assistant. The story makes Grams out to be a disciplinarian, and the narrator jokingly suggests that she’d “smite” Jayden if he were late to school, but since Jayden is already well-behaved, Grams doesn’t need to be strict with him. Mostly, she’s a supportive presence. As with Roddy, she tries to push him to stick with basketball and not surrender his dreams for his job at Slice.

While Roddy teaches Jayden about persistence and sacrifice, Grams instructs Jayden about hope. Using her potential job at the library, Grams shows Jayden that what matters is maintaining the potential to reach a goal: As long as a person feels like the achievement is in their grasp, their life has meaning.

Cam is an antagonist and a nefarious character. He’s Kendrick’s older brother, and he served jail time after roping Kendrick into a nonspecific scheme selling inauthentic sports jerseys. Due to the scam, Kendrick doesn’t speak to Cam or Chris, but by the end, he realizes that he should speak to Chris. Unlike Chris and Coach Beck, Cam never changes. The Ballers reinforce his exploitative personality.

The authors give Cam some depth, attributing his lack of ethics to feeling overshadowed by Kendrick. The narrator explains, “Chris knows that his dad has never recovered from those slights. It’s obvious in the way he’s spent his whole life trying to prove himself” (68-69).