The Hustle: One Team and Ten Lives in Black and White chronicles a fascinating social experiment where wealthy white and disadvantaged African-American basketball athletes were brought together to form a successful youth team. This team also provided the black players an opportunity to attend private school, unveiling their journeys years later.

The experiment was conceived by two fathers, one white and one black. They pondered the outcome of mixing white players from an elite Seattle private school, known for alumni like Microsoft's Bill Gates, with black kids from the inner city. Would exposure to privilege offer the black kids better opportunities? Would it open the white kids' eyes to a different side of life?

The 1986 season became the experimental stage. Hip-hop was going mainstream, Larry Bird and Magic Johnson dominated the NBA, and Ronald Reagan was president. In Seattle, this team's season unfolded like a classic sports movie: the diverse group of boys bonded and won the league championship.

But was the experiment truly successful? How did crossing lines of class, race, and wealth affect the lives of these ten boys? Two decades later, Doug Merlino, a former team member, embarked on a journey to reconnect with his teammates. His search ranged from a prison cell to a hedge fund office, street corners to a shack in rural Oregon, a Pentecostal church to brutal murder records.

The result is a complex, gripping, and unsettling story. Set against a backdrop of sweeping social and economic change, The Hustle captures the intricate ways race, money, and opportunity shape our lives. It is a tale both personal and public, exploring how a disparate group of men found—or didn't find—a place in America.