The basketball talent that came out of Pittsburgh didn’t have the same staying power.

As the steel mills closed, the city’s population dwindled, and by the mid-1980s the flow of student prospects slowed to a trickle. There were fewer places for city kids to play, but also fewer places for suburban players to test themselves — as they had done since the days of Cumberland Posey.

And then there’s the allure of the Steelers.

In Ohio, said Dambrot, LeBron James’ first high school coach, the best athletes will play basketball first and then football. In western Pennsylvania, football comes first and often second. He has three players on his team from the Pittsburgh area, none of whom are on scholarship. The University of Pittsburgh has two local contributors, also walk-ons, on the roster.

Late Tuesday afternoon, Jaydan Brown, 17, had come to the Ammon Community Recreation Center, home of the Hill District’s 56-year-old Ozanam Basketball Program. Upstairs, students, some in ties and sport coats, tutored elementary school children with math and helped build model helicopters. Meals were served and balls bounced on the basketball court.

Darrelle Porter now heads the program.

Porter is a towering figure with a friendly demeanor and greets everyone by name. He was recruited to Pitt by Calipari, then a young assistant, and was getting ready to play in a game when he missed one of college basketball’s most enduring highlights: Jerome Lane’s crushing dunk in 1988.

Porter, who later coached at Duquesne, shares aspirational and cautionary stories with the youngsters, often pointing to the banners hanging above the field. These include those of local legends Maurice Lucas, Sam Clancy, DeJuan Blair, Kenny Durrett and Clay, as well as his own.

There’s room, he says, for a few more.

“Basketball is overlooked here,” said Brown, a junior at Central Catholic High, who believes that won’t stop him from adding a new line to the city’s basketball story.