Because a significant part of the plot focuses on Isaac’s love of basketball and Marco’s quest to make the school basketball team, the game plays a central role in the story. Cisneros uses basketball to convey lessons about more than just a single sport, however; the game of basketball functions as a symbol of the many challenges that people face in life, including the novel’s protagonists.

When Marco first decides to try out for the team, he believes that learning basketball will be easy. However, he finds that academic ability does not necessarily translate to a different skill set like learning to play ball. Marco works very hard to get better at basketball, despite not having much natural athletic talent, supporting the story’s thematic exploration of The Importance of Resilience and Perseverance. The game is more complex than it looks, and ultimately Marco makes more progress when his best friend, Isaac, becomes his teacher. This underscores the importance of The Role of Friendship in Overcoming Challenges.

Isaac’s dedication to the sport characterizes him as hardworking and more capable than he realizes. Although he reductively claims that basketball is all he is good at, as he broadens out his goals to include academics, it is clear that he can also be hardworking and capable in other areas of his life.