15 Years After Hoop Dreams, More than a Game and LeBron

More than LeBron

On account of my job, I’m lucky enough to spend a good amount of time during the day thinking about and working on sports-related activities. It’s rare you get to carry your passion to the workplace, and I don’t take it for granted. As such, I also get the occasional chance to head to some cool events and meet and/or be exposed to interesting people in the world of sports. Tonight was one of those evenings.

A few hours ago I returned home from a special screening of “More than a Game,” a documentary starring LeBron James and set to open in theaters on October 2nd. How the film and its filmmaker came to be standing on a stage introducing a film and project of which Interscope Records, Nike and Lionsgate are all a part is miraculous in and of itself. The film itself is also pretty solid. Here’s a trailer to give you a taste (embed function of official trailers is disabled, so indulge the 30-second lead-in or skip ahead)

The two-minute clip doesn’t doesn’t do the documentary justice. And as the director noted during the intro, this is not really a film about LeBron James (although it is and it isn’t). It tracks a team (St. Vincent-St. Mary), a city (Akron) and a dream (to win a national championship.) I won’t break down the pros and cons of the whole deal, but it’s definitely worth seeing for those that are fans of the game, the man (LBJ) and stories with happy endings. For someone like me, who also loves any chance to see more “raw” footage of what goes on beyond the court, field or arena and outside the spotlight of the game, it hit on all key criteria.

Most of all, though, this film took me right back to my high school days. Specifically, I couldn’t help but think back to 1994 and my junior year in high school. Me and and a few buddies were outside another “fine arts” theater by my childhood home, anxiously waiting to get in to see a Sundance Film Festival winner called “Hoop Dreams.”

That story tracked two players of lesser-prominence and the pursuit of their dreams to make the leap to the NBA through Chicago high school ball and college. Their stories follow a decidedly different path, but much of the feel and spirit around the documentaries is similar, though “Hoop Dreams” offers far more social commentary and a lot less warm-and-fuzzy.

Despite the differences, both documentaries offer a terrrific look into stories, people and experiences that I rarely have had a chance to see. And while they did so for very different reasons, each scored on the goosebump factor.

An outgoing HT to the still reigning champ of basketball moves in my book…