Season 1: Episode 1: Pilot

Since this is the first episode ever to air, they focus on introducing the characters.  It begins by showing how Nathan and Lucas are both playing basketball.  Nathan in the school varsity game and Lucas at the basketball court with his friends at a park.  They both win their games.  Nathan is found to be a trouble maker by stealing the school bus for a joy ride.  While Nathan is driving the bus his girlfriend Peyton is on her way home and almost runs into Lucas who is walking home from his basketball game.  At the same time, Nathan almost runs into a train.  After the train is gone, there is a police officer parked on the other side with their lights on.  Most of the basketball team gets reprimanded and kicked off of the team for the rest of the season.  Nathan, somehow, was saved.

I absolutely LOVE Coach Whitey's quote: "The inmates will not run the asylum."

Lucas' Uncle Keith goes and talks to Coach Whitey about him having Lucas play on the varsity team.  They go for a little drive to the park and watch Lucas playing with his buddies.  Coach Whitey then talks to him at school and Lucas turns down the offer. 

Skills doesn't want to be his excuse, harsh but true.  It makes sense to me, but it sure must be tough to get involved with something you love and have to deal with someone you despise at the same time. 

When Lucas gets home there is a package for him at the door.  It is his own basketball jersey.  His mom walks past him while he is wearing it and tells him to take it off.  They then talk outside on their step.  His mom Karen says that maybe he should play on the team and then she tells him: "You're a good kid Luke, but sometimes I feel like you're sitting out your life on account of me and I don't want that for you.  My past is not your future, okay?"

Dan is such an egotistical asshole.  I started to despise him the first episode when he said that to Nathan.  How could a father be so cruel to one child but not the other?  It makes no sense...

Nathan goes to the park, known as the rivercourt, and challenges Lucas to a one-on-one basketball battle.

Dan is nervous because Nathan said that if he lost, he would quit the team. 

Who wins???  Watch the last clip and find out!!!

At the end of the episode, Lucas is reading a book and says this: "There is a tide in the affairs of men.  Which, taken at the flood leads on to fortune.  But omitted and the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries.  On such a full sea are we now afloat and we must take the current when it serves or lose the ventures before us." 

- XOXO K.C.