The movie follows the childhood neighbors as they move from competitors on the court to confidants and companions off of it.

With New Line Cinema, Prince-Bythewood was able to explore the lives of her protagonists, Monica Wright (Sanaa Lathan) and Quincy McCall (Omar Epps), on her terms. He worked with New Line Cinema on 'Bamboozled,' also released in 2000.) Editor's Picks (Lee signed on to Prince-Bythewood's project as a producer. One in particular blew away Sam Kitt, then the head of Spike Lee's production company - 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks - and subsequently wound up in the hands of New Line Cinema. She was invited to the directors lab, where she cast multiple readings. Her script somehow reached the heads of the Sundance Institute. 'Studios gave feedback that the film was 'too soft,' that we needed where a character is chasing her husband with a knife.'

'Every day, my agent would say, 'Another one turned it down,'' Prince-Bythewood remembers. She quit her job, wrote the script and began shopping it around. But she longed to tell a semi-autobiographical story about a female baller. Prince-Bythewood, a former UCLA track runner who played basketball in high school, was working as a TV writer in the mid-1990s. And its writer-director, Gina Prince-Bythewood, speaks on what initially inspired her to 'make a movie about a black girl who wants to be the first in the NBA.'

Twenty years after 'Love & Basketball' hit theaters, the cast and crew share behind-the-scenes stories of how the New Line Cinema production went from dream to reality.

Monica why i love you so much what year