Ben Affleck’s Air joins the new wave of basketball movies for veteran fans

On top of Ben Affleck’s sneaker procedure Air, The bigwigs from Nike’s basketball division are seated around a conference room table, discussing the merits of the players in the 1984 NBA draft. They have a budget of $250,000 to split between three prospects, which means they inevitably being outbid by giants Converse and Adidas for the right to sponsor the draft’s top picks. So look further down the draft committee: Fifth pick, Charles Barkley, is mired in “clubhouse troubles” and “nobody’s going to want to see him on TV”; 16th pick, John Stockton, played his college ball in Gonzaga, and “no one knows where that is”; Melvin Turpin, drafted sixth, seems like the safest bet — he appears to have “great vision,” though Sonny Vaccaro (Matt Damon) notes he averages just one assist per game. In 2023, of course, we know that Barkley and Stockton are Hall of Famers, Gonzaga is an eternal powerhouse, and Turpin has never done much in the league.

The kind of nods to insiders hidden all over the place Air by rookie screenwriter Alex Convery, are nothing new. At least since 1980, when Kareem Abdul-Jabbar complained about dragging Walton and Laimbeer across the court for 48 minutes Airplane!, knowing references to a savvy basketball audience have been embedded in films touching on the sport. But a new generation of basketball movies reflects a new generation of basketball fans who are as familiar with labor contracts, overseas scouting, sports betting and shoe stores as they are with the product on the court. In a world where every move of an NBA GM spawns a hundred podcast episodes, Hollywood has adapted, delivering a barrage of films that delve deep into aspects of the game that seemed unimaginable in the days of hoosiers.

In fits and starts, this revolution has happened before in sports movies. Bennett Millers money ball managed to film the seemingly non-filmable story of a renegade GM and a Yale economist using Sabermetrics to find underrated baseball players. Ivan Reitmans draft day

dropped viewers in the Cleveland Browns’ war room during the NFL draft. Self Jerry Maguire, in his own ’90s dramedy vein, saw former journalist Cameron Crowe unearth some of the esotericism of sports agencies. It’s natural for fans of these sports to see themselves in these supporting characters – think of the overwhelming popularity of fantasy football and baseball, both of which dwarf audiences for NBA fantasy leagues. But basketball culture is primarily driven by black youth culture, and the inevitable tension between the game and the business interests around it is being explored in depth on the big screen right now.

Soaring Bird makes this tension his main obsession. Steven Soderbergh’s 2019 drama is set during an NBA lockout that has left the league’s owners and players at an impasse over their new collective bargaining agreement. The film follows the maneuvers of super agent Ray Burke (an excellent André Holland) as he negotiates with seemingly everyone in the basketball universe with goals that are never clear to anyone but himself. It’s a dense, cerebral film that throws its audience with the sharks and makes them swim, but it’s devastatingly insightful about the symbiosis of basketball and commerce.

Working from a screenplay by Tarell Alvin McCraney, the playwright behind the inspirational story moonlight, Soderbergh’s harsh iPhone cinematography crams viewers into offices, boardrooms, living rooms, bars, restaurants, gyms, saunas, and anywhere else basketball business gets done. Now more than ever, fans are interested in understanding how the NBA sausage is made, and Soderbergh doesn’t skip any of the awkward spots.

“They invented a game about a game,” says Spence (Bill Duke), a veteran basketball coach and community member in the South Bronx. Spence is the kind of guy who’s been in a tracksuit for 40 years and still thinks three-pointers and slam dunks are gimmicks; Anyone who’s been in the game long enough knows a Spence or two. By setting the thesis of Soaring Bird In his mouth, McCraney and Soderbergh seem to draw a contrast between old-school hoopers and money-obsessed newbies.

However, it is not that simple. The lockout also ruins Spence’s money, making it difficult to get professionals to his charity events and illegal for him to promote them. It quickly becomes clear that lockout is everyone’s problem, and the players-first streetball revolution the film teases halfway through its run never materializes. (Like Kevin Durant’s viral Rucker Park pickup game during the last real-life lockout, Soaring BirdThe culminating off-screen one-on-one match is a one-time event.)

The lockout ends because it has to end because the game over game is just feeding too many mouths. It’s a bittersweet but authentic ending, and life has already mimicked the art: Earlier this month, owners and players agreed in principle on a new CBA that prevents another lockout for at least seven years.

Another prescient basketball movie of 2019 was Unpolished gems, Josh and Benny Safdie’s chilling look at the underworld of sports betting. Adam Sandler plays Howard Ratner, a jeweler and problem gambler who always thinks his next bet will hit the jackpot. (Spoilers: he does until he doesn’t anymore.) The Safdies and Sandler bring Howard to life in part by blurring his very real passion for basketball with his judgment-clouding addiction to betting. His aggressive bets are frightening, but for the most part they are rooted in a deep understanding of the game. Meeting Kevin Garnett is exciting to Howard for more reasons than the opportunity to make money with him.

Unpolished gems takes place in 2012, when sports betting was largely illegal in the United States. It’s impossible to watch an NBA show these days without being bombarded with sports betting ads. Howard’s vocabulary of prop bets, over/unders and parlays was played inside, even shabbily, in 2019. Now it’s commonplace. This has already started to seep into the game in ugly ways. After a March game in Orlando A fan addressed Wizards All-Star Bradley Beal outside the arena and yelled, “You shagged me for $1,300, you bastard!” Beal rightly retaliated, saying, “I don’t give a shit about any of your bets or parlays, bro. That’s not why I play the game.” We live in Howard Ratner’s world now.

Sandler’s basketball fan base extends far beyond his own Unpolished gems character, and he let it fuel his passion project 2022, Hurry. With his dozens of high-profile cameos and deep basketball vocabulary, Hurry is the biggest love letter to the NBA in this wave of movies, but it still offers some harsh criticism of the league’s machinery.

The film follows Sandy Sugerman, an international scout for the Philadelphia 76ers, whose life is an endless cycle of low-level games in dimly lit gyms, fast-food dinners in five-star hotels, and business-class flights to who knows where is. Sugerman is benched early in the film, but is sent back to the field for one last job when beloved team owner Rex Merrick (Robert Duvall) dies, leaving his failure Vince (Ben Foster) in charge. (As an aside, Foster plays the best prick owner in each of these films, easily outperforming an unbearably scruffy Kyle MacLachlan Soaring Bird

.)

The rest of Hurry is catnip for hobby artists. Sugerman spots Bo Cruz (real-life NBA player Juancho Hernangómez), a streetball hustler in work boots, while on a mission in Europe. He practically smuggles Cruz back to Philly when the Sixers’ front office indicates they are not interested. “There are 450 players in the NBA and 100 are just waiting to be called up,” Sugerman tells Cruz. “My job is to know everyone else.” With recruitment news, mock drafts and televised international and development league games mainstreamed, many fans now feel like they have the same job.

But being a prospect (or a scout tasked with finding them) is hard work, and most of it Hurry is about the unglamorous routine of looking inside from the outside. Cruz participates in combines, showcases, scrimmages, pre-draft workouts and endless hours of some of the most grueling workouts filmed outside of the Rocky Franchise. Hurry is a smash and certainly a far less subversive film than Soaring Bird or Unpolished gemsbut it’s a constant reminder to fans that an NBA job is just that — a job.

The latest in this wave of postmodern basketball movies doesn’t depict life in the NBA at all, but it defines it nonetheless. Air‘s Sonny Vaccaro is making rounds on the same amateur basketball circuit as Stanley Sugerman, but he’s not trying to sign prospects for an NBA roster. He wants them to wear his shoes. Sneakerhead culture and basketball culture are deeply and inextricably intertwined, however Air shows a time before signature shoes even existed, and invites the audience to witness her birth.

Director Ben Affleck delivers an account of the making of Nike’s Air Jordan line that’s breezy but follows the ins and outs of contract negotiations blow by blow. As with the other films, most of the action takes place away from the basketball court, in conference rooms and corner offices. Michael Jordan himself is a minor player whose face never appears on screen, a controversial decision that sometimes feels contradictory Air‘s player empowerment narrative.

Affleck defended his decision by saying Jordan is “too tall” for a film that’s really more about merchandising and work, and in truth, he’s probably right. A story about the machinery that surrounds the sport – the game at the top of the game – cannot be told through its most transcendent stars. In the social media era, fans have unprecedented access to LeBron James, Steph Curry and, yes, even Michael Jordan. But they also know more than ever about basketball stars Ray Burkes, Stanley Sugermans and Sonny Vaccaros. Today we can see their stories on film as well, and that brings into focus a richer, more nuanced vision of the world of basketball.