The film starts in the city of Vineland, a sprawling community of anthropomorphic animals. A young goat named Will Harris (Luke Cimity) is taken to a game of Roarball by his mother Louise (Jennifer Hudson). Will is excited to watch his favorite team, the Vineland Thorns, playing the game. When he sees his favorite player, superstar black panther Jett Fillmore (Gabrielle Union), Will tells Louise that one day, he is going to be just like Jett.
Ten years later, Will (now voiced by Caleb McLaughlin) lives alone after Louise’s death. He struggles to come up with rent money for his landlord Frank (Wayne Knight). His best friends are a capybara named Daryl (Eduardo Franco) and an aardwolf named Hannah (Sherry Cola). Will works as a busboy at the diner where Louise used to work, taken care of by manager Carol (Ayesha Curry), and he uses his horizontal goat eyes to help him see what others cannot.
The Thorns have had a bad luck streak with no wins. Jett is particularly frustrated since she hasn’t been at the top of her game like she used to. She complains to the Thorns’ boar manager Florence “Flo” Everson (Jenifer Lewis) about making some kind of change to get the Thorns back on top. Flo says she has an idea.
Will is given until the end of the day to come up with rent money. He goes to sell some old sneakers that belonged to Jett to a sneaker-selling vulture named Sneaky (Joe La Puma), but he only gets $250 for it. Will, Hannah, and Daryl find out that hotshot Roarball player Mane Attraction (Aaron Pierre), a horse with a huge ego who plays for the Lava Court Magmas, is challenging people to a game downtown. Will goes to the court and challenges Mane, even betting his money on the game. Mane laughs him off because Will is a “small”, and “smalls can’t ball”, but Will confidently dunks on Mane twice. Then Mane takes off his chains and quickly wipes the floor with Will, taking his money and humiliating him. As a result, Will has to crash with Hannah and Daryl.
The next day, Will goes to the diner, where everyone is stunned to see that Flo is there waiting for him. She saw his game against Mane, and even though he lost, Will has gone viral for the effort he put into it (and for breaking Mane’s ankles). Flo offers Will the chance to join the Thorns in the back half of their season to help them score a win. Will excitedly signs on, with his dreams starting to come true.
Jett learns that Will is the new player, and she is enraged to find out that a “small” is on the team. Will is disappointed to learn that his idol doesn’t want him on the team. He joins Jett for a press conference, where she mocks him in front of the reporters under the guise of defending him. Will later meets Coach Dennis Cooper (Patton Oswalt), a proboscis monkey, before meeting the rest of the team – distracted giraffe Lenny Williamson (Stephen Curry), struggling single rhino dad Archie Everhardt (David Harbour), anxious and phone-addicted ostrich Olivia Burke (Nicola Coughlan), and eccentric Komodo dragon Modo Olachenko (Nick Kroll).
During the first few games of the season, Jett forces Will to get benched, resulting in the Thorns continuing their losing streak. Mane even makes a diss track about Will that goes viral. Will even plays against Jett in a personal game to earn a chance to play, but she beats him. In the middle of another game, Jett has to sit the game out after a technical foul. Will gets put in and utilizes his small size to seize an advantage and help the Thorns win the game.
The Thorns are set to do a promotional video as a team, with Jett made to “pass the torch” to Will, but she refuses to do so, as she wants to be the “GOAT” forever. The rest of the players are scared to speak up to Jett until Will reminds her that they won their last game when she wasn’t even there.
Will later privately talks to Jett after he helps her escape obnoxious fans and reporters. She admits that she has been obsessed with winning ever since one of her last games, “The Furball Game”, which is called that because she feels she choked during that game. Will brings Jett to the diner, where they have a ton of Thorns memorabilia. He also tells Jett about how the community came together for him after Louise passed away. This inspires Jett to go on a live-stream with Mane, who is trash-talking the Thorns. Jett has something good to say about each individual teammate, which lifts their spirits. She also allows Dennis to take full control as coach, helping them start over as a team.
Dennis encourages the team to utilize their quirks into their playing. He tells Lenny to use his height to his advantage, tells Archie to pretend that the other players are like his daughters so that he can properly defend them, tells Olivia to take her focus off her phone and the internet, and tells Modo to do what he does best – being weird and shocking people. The Thorns experience a winning streak and this helps them grow closer as a team.
Right before a semi-final game, Will follows Jett to a meeting with Flo and overhears them discussing how Flo has sold the Thorns to another city, and that none of the current players will remain onboard. Will tries to get Jett to tell the team beforehand, but she thinks it will just break their focus. They start to lose against a team of arctic players on an ice court, forcing Will to tell the team about Flo’s deal. Jett then takes charge of the game and scores points, even stealing one of Will’s scores just to claim the winning point. This causes the team to split up out of disgust.
Will returns home and prepares to give up until Jett finds him on his court and apologizes to him for how she acted, admitting she was afraid of losing her status as the GOAT and that she was obsessed with winning The Claw, a Roarball trophy. Together, Will and Jett round up the rest of the team for their final game.
The Thorns face off against the Magmas on their court. In the middle of the game, Jett protects Will from an attack by Mane, which causes her to injure her leg. A fight breaks out, where Archie charges into Mane out of anger, forcing him to sit the rest of the game out. Jett convinces the others that she can still play the rest of the game. With just 20 seconds left on the clock in the fourth quarter, Dennis gives the team a specific play to go through. The Thorns put their best work in, and Jett’s leg becomes too hurt to continue. Will gets the ball and gets it through the hoop in the last second, allowing the Thorns to claim their victory. Everyone in Vineland cheers for Will and the Thorns, while Mane is humiliated when his hair gets burned off. Flo attempts to congratulate the team on a win, but Archie’s twin daughters (who have violent tendencies) proceed to chase Flo out of the arena.
The Thorns return to Vineland for a victory celebration, with Will giving a heartfelt speech now that Jett has finally acknowledged him as the GOAT. As they are starting to accept that the Thorns will be leaving Vineland, Modo comes out to reveal that he won the rights to the team and is now team manager, meaning they will stay in Vineland. The entire city cheers, and they join the Thorns in doing a victory bleating (“baaaa!”) for Will.[wide]
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