Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory
Basketball as a symbol for life may be a little teeny tiny bit clichéd in the world of young adult literature, and Lockdown goes out of its way to make fun of it. Here's an exchange between Reese and Play:
"Remember they did the same thing before Christmas?" Play asked. "We're supposed to be smiling and stuff when we play."
"Yeah, first they divide us up into two teams and run the game," I said, remembering the Christmas program. "They video the game and then the whole group thing is about how basketball is supposed to be about life."
"What they call it again?" Play was eating an apple. "A semaphore or something like that."
"A metaphor," I said. "Remember Miss Dodson asked us to show how basketball was like life, and that kind of girly dude said that the ball was round and life was round, and she asked him what that meant and he said he didn't know but he had noticed all balls were round." (15.2-15.6)
Lockdown doesn't go in for cheesy metaphors. Life isn't like basketball. Life is hard—it's pretty much the opposite of a game.