An exciting and drama-filled basketball series, The Crossover, is airing on Disney+ on April 5 for its viewers this spring.

The show is based on the children’s book that author, Kwame Alexander, published in 2014. The novel won the 2015 Newbery Medal and Coretta Scott King Award Honor. 

The sports drama television series previewed its first episode on March 22 to those who registered for a Q&A zoom meeting with some of the casts from the series. 

The series follows two twin basketball phenoms’ (Josh and Jordan Bell) journeys with growing up, growing apart, and learning to put family first. 

The twins are played by Jaylyn Hall from All American and Zack Wayne from Marlon. 

Hall was super excited to have the opportunity to play the role of Josh Bell in the series. 

“To be honest, it was a really big blessing for me,” said Hall. “I want [to] be on a show where I get to show creativity and my full acting prowess, but also have a cast of young people and people in general that I could relate to and have fun with.” 

O’Neil spoke about what he thought the biggest obstacle was when playing the role of Jordan Bell who is stuck in the middle of a love triangle and trying to fine-tune his basketball skills all at once. 

“I think having a twin comes with trying to figure out who you are outside of your twin,” said O’Neil. “With his girlfriend, it brings him peace. She lets him know that it’s okay to be stressed out and it’s okay to have all of these issues because in her he finds tranquility.” 

When it comes to some basketball roles, most of the time the leading role characters are a young black male who is facing challenges with his family and friends and challenges within himself. 

Having the two main characters of the show be twins is an approach that Disney Channel aired only once with a movie called Double Teamed that was released in 2002. 

Derek Luke played the father of the twin brothers and he said that when he got the script, he did not remember a role where he had to “embody” all of the elements of playing a father and head coach. 

“Part of my life, I was always looking for a mentor,” said Luke. “I get now people coming up to me, asking me to be sort of a mentor. It’s parallel to the career, it sort of switched, getting the submission to play somebody’s father.” 

One component to these stories is that the father figure is usually very dedicated to their sons playing well and staying passionate in the sport that he is coaching. The portrayal is almost unhealthy to a point where it affects his relationship with his child. 

The mother figure is played by Sabrina Revelle, from All American: Homecoming, who believes that her voice in a predominantly male cast is still heard. 

“I’m going to speak up,” said Revelle. “If it wasn’t heard, it heard. It wasn’t going to be heard, I made it heard because I speak up.”

Even though she was working with a cast that was predominantly male, she was still welcomed by the cast, especially as a black woman. She thanked Alexander for considering her, hearing her, and taking care of her while playing her role. 

Lebron James and his team, SpringHill Company, have also been involved in the making of the series as executive producers. Alexander said that James and his team was definitely “instrumental and integral” to what they were able to put together. 

“LeBron has a legacy on and off the court that represents the ideas and the ideals and the values that everything this show is about,” said Alexander. “This was about black excellence.” 

The Crossover will have eight episodes for season one where the show will look at the story of the Bell brothers from their futures selves to talk about the journey to a successful basketball career. 

Viewers should stay tuned for more episodes to see an exciting story that Alexander created.