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

Toward the top of Ben Affleck’s sneaker procedural Air, the bigwigs of Nike’s basketball division sit around a conference room table debating the merits of players in the 1984 NBA draft. They have a $250,000 budget to split between three prospects, which means they’ll inevitably be outbid by the giants at Converse and Adidas for the right to sponsor the draft’s top picks. So they look further down the draft board: The fifth pick, Charles Barkley, is mired in “clubhouse issues,” and “nobody is going to want to see him on TV”; the 16th pick, John Stockton, played his college ball at Gonzaga, and “no one even knows where that is”; Melvin Turpin, drafted sixth, seems like the safest bet — he apparently has “great vision,” though Sonny Vaccaro (Matt Damon) notes that he only averages one assist per game. We know in 2023 that Barkley, Stockton, Gonzaga, and Turpin are all Hall of Famers.

Hidden throughout the film are these kinds of nods that only those in the know will catch. Air Alex Convery’s debut screenplays are not new. It’s been at least since 1980 when Kareem Abd-Jabbar complained that Walton and Laimbeer were dragged down the court by Kareem for 48 minutes. Airplane!In films about basketball, there are nods made to the savvy audience that follows this sport. But a new generation of basketball movie has reflected a new generation of basketball fan, one who’s as versed in collective bargaining agreements, overseas scouting, sports gambling, and shoe deals as they are the on-court product. Hollywood adapted to a world in which every NBA general manager’s move is accompanied by a 100 podcast episodes. The result has been a series of films exploring aspects of basketball that were unimaginable back when the NBA was merely a rumor. Hoosiers.

Sports movies have seen this change before. Bennett Miller’s Moneyball Despite the story being unfilmable, the team managed to capture a renegade GM using sabermetrics and a Yale economics professor to discover undervalued baseball player. Ivan Reitman’s Draft Day Dropped viewers in the War Room of the Cleveland Browns at the NFL Draft. The NFL draft was a great opportunity to take viewers into the war room of the Cleveland Browns. Jerry Maguire, in its own ’90s dramedy way, saw one-time journalist Cameron Crowe excavating some of the esoterica of sports agencies. For fans of those sports, it’s natural to see themselves in these auxiliary characters — think of the overwhelming popularity of fantasy football and baseball, both of which dwarf the audience for NBA fantasy leagues. The basketball culture of Black youth is the main driver for the NBA fantasy leagues.

Photo: Peter Andrews/Netflix

High Flying Bird This tension is its main focus. Steven Soderbergh’s 2019 drama is set during an NBA lockout, with 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, toward ends that aren’t always clear to anyone but him. It’s a dense, cerebral movie that throws its audience in with the sharks and asks them to swim, but it’s devastatingly insightful about the symbiosis of basketball and commerce.

Tarell McCraney wrote the story and the script for the film. Moonlight, Soderbergh’s harsh iPhone cinematography stuffs viewers into offices, boardrooms, living rooms, bars, restaurants, gyms, saunas, and anywhere else that the business of basketball is conducted. Fans today are more interested than ever in understanding the way the NBA sausage is made, and Soderbergh doesn’t leave out any of the nasty bits.

“They invented a game on top of a game,” says Spence (Bill Duke), a veteran basketball coach and community fixture in the South Bronx. Spence is the kind of guy who’s been in a sweatsuit for the past 40 years and who still thinks three-pointers and slam dunks are gimmicky; anyone who’s been around the game long enough knows a Spence or two. The thesis is that the main reason why people are so averse to technology. High Flying Bird McCraney, Soderbergh and their mouths seem to draw a comparison between the old-fashioned hoopers of yesteryear and today’s money-obsessed jacks.

It isn’t that simple, though. The lockout is fucking up Spence’s money, too, making it hard to get pros out to his charity events, and illegal for him to advertise them being there. It soon becomes clear that the lockout is everybody’s problem, and the players-first streetball revolution that the movie spends half its run time teasing never materializes. (Like Kevin Durant’s viral Rucker Park pickup game during the last real-life lockout, High Flying Bird’s climactic, off-screen one-on-one game is a one-off.)

It is inevitable that the lockout will end. Too many people are being fed by the games on top of each other. It’s a bittersweet but authentic ending, and life has already imitated art: Earlier this month, owners and players agreed in principle on a new CBA, staving off another lockout for at least seven years.

Image: A24

The 2019 Basketball film was another prescient one. Uncut gems, Josh and Benny Safdie’s anxiety-inducing look at the sports gambling underworld. Adam Sandler stars as Howard Ratner – a jeweler, gambler and gambling problem who is always confident that his next wager will be a big one. (Spoiler: It does, until it doesn’t.) Safdies & Sandler give Howard a life of his own by mixing his passion for the game with his addiction to gambling. His aggressive bets are terrifying, but for the most part, they’re rooted in a deep understanding of the game. Howard is excited to meet Kevin Garnett for reasons other than making money.

Uncut Gemstones It is set around 2012 when betting on sports was illegal across the United States. Today, it’s impossible to watch an NBA broadcast without being bombarded by ads for sportsbooks. Howard’s vocabulary of prop bets, over/unders, and parlays played as insiderish, even seedy, back in 2019. Now it’s commonplace. It has started to show up in the sport. After a March game in Orlando, a fan accosted Wizards All-Star Bradley Beal outside of the arena, yelling, “You fucked me out of $1,300, you fuck!” Beal rightly retaliated, saying, “I don’t give a fuck about none of your bets or your parlays, bro. That ain’t why I play the game.” We’re living in Howard Ratner’s world now.

Sandler’s hoops fandom extends far beyond his Uncut gemsCharacter was the fuel that he used to power his 2022 Passion Project. Hustle. It has dozens and dozens cameos of basketball stars, as well as a deep vocabulary. Hustle is the biggest love letter to the NBA in this wave of movies, but it still offers some pointed critiques of the league’s machinery.

Sandy Sugerman plays an international scout working for the Philadelphia 76ers. Sandy’s life is a constant cycle of playing low-level basketball in dimly lit gyms, eating fast food in luxury hotels and flying business class to unknown destinations. Sugerman is promoted to the bench early in the film, but he’s sent back into the field for one final job when beloved team owner Rex Merrick (Robert Duvall) dies and leaves his failson Vince (Ben Foster) in charge. Foster is the most reprehensible owner of all these movies, and he even outdoes Kyle MacLachlan’s unbearably smarmy performance in High Flying Bird.)

Photo: Scott Yamano/Netflix

Continue reading Hustle is catnip for amateur draftniks. Sugerman discovers Bo Cruz (real NBA player Juancho Hernangómez), a streetball hustler in work boots, while on assignment in Spain. He practically smuggles Cruz back to Philly when the Sixers’ front office indicates they’re not interested. “There’s 450 players in the NBA, and 100 just waiting to be called up,” Sugerman tells Cruz. “It’s my job to know everybody else.” With the mainstreaming of recruiting news, mock drafts, and televised international and developmental-league play, a lot of fans now feel as if they have that same job.

Being a prospective (or the scout charged with finding these people) can be hard work. Hustle It’s about what it takes to be on the sidelines. Cruz takes part in combine workouts, showcases and scrimmages. He also participates endlessly hours of training that is unlike anything else on screen. franchise. Hustle It’s a great film, but it isn’t as subversive as High Flying Bird You can also find out more about Uncut gems, but it constantly reminds fans that an NBA job is just that — a job.

The most recent in this wave of postmodern basketball films doesn’t depict life in the NBA at all, but it’s defined by it regardless. Air’s Sonny Vaccaro makes the rounds on the same amateur hoops circuit as Stanley Sugerman, but he isn’t looking to sign prospects to an NBA roster. The goal is to have them wear his shoes. Sneakerhead and basketball cultures are inextricably linked. Air This book depicts the time when signature shoes did not exist. The audience is invited to watch their birth.

Director Ben Affleck delivers an account of the genesis of Nike’s Air Jordan line that’s breezy, but that follows the ins and outs of contract negotiation blow by blow. Most of the movie takes place in corner offices and conference rooms. Michael Jordan is only a minor character who never shows his face on the screen. This controversial decision can feel antithetical at times. Air’s player-empowerment narrative.

Affleck defended his decision by saying Jordan is “too big” for a movie that’s really more about merchandising and labor, and in truth, he’s probably right. A story about the machinery that surrounds the sport — the game on top of the game — can’t be told through its most transcendent stars. Social media has given fans unprecedented access to LeBron, Steph, and yes, Michael Jordan. But they also know more than ever about basketball’s Ray Burkes, Stanley Sugermans, and Sonny Vaccaros. We’re getting to see their stories on film as well these days, and it’s bringing a richer, more nuanced vision of the world of basketball into focus.