“More Than A Game,” a fascinating documentary about the lives of five young basketball players from Akron, Ohio — including emerging superstar LeBron James — contains surely the kind of ending Hollywood would have written for “Hoop Dreams.”

That award-laden, 1994 film which also chronicled aspiring sporting talent through the prism of poverty, race and heartbreak, seared a couple Black Chicago teenagers,
William Gates and Arthur Agee, into the public consciousness.

Ultimately, their destinies would not lie in the NBA, but the captivating manner of those journeys enthralled the viewing public.

Fast forward three years and a successful corporate executive, Dru Joyce II begins to live out his vicarious dreams of professional football coaching through agreeing to mentor his son’s traveling youth basketball team — The Shooting Stars — in his spare time.

The core of the squad centers around four neighbor kids: Dru Joyce III is an undersized point guard with a big heart; Willie McGhee has left his troubled home in Chicago to live with his brother in Akron; Sian Cotton is trying to emerge from the shadow of his local-legend father; and a skinny kid named LeBron James is just desperate for stability after moving with his struggling mother more than 10 times.

Under coach Dru’s spiritual and protective guidance, the “Fab Four” start to crisscross the Midwest, blowing out regional power-houses and zooming up the national rankings.
Meanwhile, in echoes of “Hoop Dreams,” which started out as a half-hour documentary for public television, L.A. film student and Akron native Kristopher Belman got wind of their success and decided to chronicle their season.

One practice turned into another, then another and a couple of weeks eventually became seven years as their story transmogrifies from a sporting journey into a deep bond of friendship and family that developed on and off the court.

It’s a spirit summed up in the opening voice-over by Coach Dru: “Basketball is a vehicle … to get you from Point A to Point B. Use basketball. Don’t let it use you.”

Belman, who wrote and directed the film, does a masterful job interweaving the central stories as he almost stumbles on one of the greatest, early highlight reels you’ll ever see in sports.

James making through-the-legs, 360, ten-feet-from-the-basket dunks that even college pros couldn’t nail, let alone an underfed 11 year-old in borrowed sneakers.

Thus, in 1999, they find themselves in Florida for the Amateur Athletic Union (11 and under) National Championship, where they would narrowly lose in the final.

In the aftermath of the Florida run, the boys join the Fighting Irish at private, mostly white St. Vincent-St Mary’, eschewing the local majority-black campus at Buchtel.

The decision won few friends in the community and more criticism was to come when Coach Dru, who had accepted a position at Buchtel, quickly joins SVSM to hook up with tough head coach Keith Dambrot.

The team quickly silenced the naysayers, as St. Vincent’s freshmen march to a 27-0 record and reach the state championship.

Ironically, despite the amazing footage of James, it’s Joyce III who provides the most memorable court-side action, coming on in the semi-final to barely disguised laughter and hitting a remarkable seven straight three’s to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

With two straight championships under his belt, Dambrot bails for University of Akron, Romeo Travis, a talented but hot-headed cog turns them into the “Fab Five” and new SVSM coach Dru is left to deal with the electrifying James phenomenon of televised games, a Sports Illustrated cover and the Hummer controversy.

Hmmm … whatever happened to that James kid?