The dream is so powerful that basketball is one of the biggest motivators among poor young black men, even though extremely few achieve the dream. Becoming a highly skilled basketball player, even at the playground level, requires enormous effort, far harder and more time-consuming than pursuing academic achievement in school. Nevertheless thousands do it, risking repeated untreated injuries in the process. The tragedy is that nobody is getting the word to these kids that they are involved in a dead-end enterprise. Nobody is successfully explaining that even if they get good enough to become pros, that is still a short ride to nowhere if they don't have other skills acquired through education.
Big money obscures the realities.
Meanwhile, to keep the wolf from the door, the majority of these boys turn to strong-back work. The few who turn to petty crime create the stereotype. Many of them see it as an extension of body building and keeping fit. It runs a series of tournaments that requires participants to attend remedial courses to be eligible to compete. Many manufacturing jobs that depended upon a strong back will be replaced by jobs conducted from a computerized workstation.