Soul of the Game: Images & Voices of Street Basketball

--Pee Wee Kirkland, NYC streetball legend

Nowhere does basketball reach such mythical heights as in the urban playground. It's there-in places like New York's Rucker Park and Soul in the Hole, the Venice Beach boardwalk, Detroit's St. Cecilia's gym and the Hank Gathers youth center in Philly-where hoops transform into a religion, and a single act of superb skill can live for decades.

SOUL OF THE GAME photographer John Huet captures the players, courts and attitude of streetball, that bruising contest of style and skill. In these pages, legends like Ray Lew, Arkansas Red and Earl "the Goat" Manigualt-whom Kareem Abdul Jabbar has called the greatest player never to have played in the NBA-finally get their due. And raps, hip-hop poetry and interviews with athletes from the street tell the game's story in its own rhythms and cadences.

SOUL OF THE GAME depicts street basketball as it has never been seen before, in all its intensity, grit, and beauty.