It is a story about the growth of a senior high school basketball team---Shohoku. Takenori Akagi, the captain of Shohoku, was a great basketball centre. Due to the lack of good co-workers, Akagi couldn't realize the dream of making Shohoku step on the national stage. With the join of Hanamichi Sakuragia, a born athlete (Though he was a beginner, he grew at an unbelievable speed), Kaede Rukawa, the super rookie and the rejoin of Ryota Miyagi, a great backfielder as well as "a serious kid", Hisashi Mitsui, an ex-MVP of junior high school but once missed himself in a wrong way, Shohoku strived against the other strong basketball teams and finally won the tickets to the nantional competition. From an unknown basketball team to a strong one, Shohoku caught people's eyes gradually and became an outstanding basketball team in the Japanese senior high school field.
Slam Dunk centers around Hanamichi Sakuragi, who starts as a delinquent outcast, becoming the leader of a gang. Hanamichi, being very unpopular with girls, has been rejected by them fifty times. Yet, he finds out that Haruko Akagi is the girl of his dreams, and is happy when she's not scared of him like all the other girls he has asked out.