Almost every day growing up around 19th and Carpenter Streets, Dion Waiters and his friends would spend hours playing hoops in Southwest Center City and Point Breeze: The Marian Anderson Rec Center on 17th Street. The Christian Street Y. The Chew Playground on Washington Avenue, a citywide proving ground.
Slideshow Dion Waiters' life of hoops and tragedy: 'The streets don't love you back'
"If you were a basketball player, you knew you had to go to 19th and Washington," said Malik Tappe, who in the early 2000s played against Waiters, now a key reserve for the NBA's Oklahoma City Thunder.