Except for basketball, Nathan and Lucas Scott have nothing in common, but their mutual father will forever connect their lives in ways they could never imagine. Their father, Dan Scott, chose to abandon Lucas and raise Nathan in his image – a life of luxury and Tree Hill High Ravens basketball. Lucas, on the other hand, was raised by his single mother, Karen, and shares Nathan’s love for hoops, but keeps his game to the river court park. However, when the Tree Hill High coach, Whitey Durham, is in need of another player, Lucas and Nathan’s lives are forever entwined as the brothers face off on the court where Lucas battles for a spot on the team.
This series follows the eventful lives of some high-school kids in Tree Hill, a small but not too quiet town in North Carolina, where the greatest source of pride is the high school basketball team, the Ravens, since living memory coached by old Whitey Durham. Its greatest talent ever was Dan Scott, who now runs a successful car dealership. The present talents are his two sons, Nathan Scott, a beautiful and popular athlete, the absolute star, who was molded and stifled by his proud dad, ambitious Dan Scott, who pushes him harder then even the coach approves of, but rather neglected by his spoiled, impulsive mother Deb, an alcoholic, and Lucas, abandoned at birth with his devoted mother, hard-working cafe-owner Karen Roe, who grew up with Dan’s older but poor brother Keith as substitute father as a social reject, only playing hoops on a public yard in the park with street-kids, his passion being reading; when an incident forces the coach to replace suspended players, Lucas soon proves …