Ever since fingers hooked chain-link fences at the Rucker and New Yorkers from miles around climbed on-top of rooftops. Just to catch a glimpse of the great Dr. J making a house visit to the playground that Pee Wee Kirkland built. Street hoops have been an integral part of basketball culture.
Hotter than the concrete it beats down on during scorching summers.
Now as the rock turns, Netflix’s ‘UNTOLD’ documentary is back to tell the up and down the blacktop, rags-to-riches story of ‘The Rise and Fall of AND1’. The crew that took the streets to the mainstream and the rest of the watching world. From New York to Tokyo…and beyond. Even into the video game world.
This undeniable documentary series across all sports returns after shedding new light on 2004’s ‘Malice at the Palace‘. All before getting real controversial with ‘Operation Flagrant Foul’. Looking at the unforgettable scandal of former NBA referee Tim Donaghy, who bet on games he officiated. Produced with the man himself.
From the basements, to at a time almost scaling higher than Nike and Mike’s Air Jordan. AND1 was a bucket…and then some. If you get our point.
Adversity came early, after a commercial of Stephon Marbury breaking ankles on an NYC Subway turned into a controversial moment with Starbury breaking his own ankle on his opening NBA night. Adding insult to injury, in his debuting pair of AND1 kicks, he ended up publicly proclaiming he was going to throw in the trash.
Now, just how do you overcome that? Well, how about with Vince Carter jumping over all of that like Frédéric Weis? As Air Canada soared in his legendary year 2000 Slam Dunk Contest. With the iconic AND1 Tai Chi’s on his feet…for free.
The brand named after a make and a charity stripe gimmie foul sponsored the big name, jersey selling, legendary likes of Latrell Sprewell and Kevin Garnett. But it was AND1’s own players who were the big ticket. From the pages of SLAM magazine, to stamps in a passport for their world tour. Trotting the globe like Harlem, with the planet spinning on the axis of their fingertips like a Spalding.
AND1 was the new Main Event like the names of their players. Becoming more famous than a Globetrotter and almost in the same rafters as NBA names. You may know the NBA’s Rafer Alston, but how about Skip 2 My Lou? The Professor? Hot Sauce, who was the answer to an underground Iverson like following? He even had his own movie.
Lines weaved around the block like Sauce drizzling down the lane, with the ball whipped through his baggy t-shirt. All for these rock stars who even had groupies. Banging to the march of a hip-hop beat on the video mixtapes they dispensed from the streets to every household across, not just America. Going viral before social media and an instant overnight celebrity. One where everyone’s 15 minutes of fame has turned into that many seconds, or less.
Buzzer beaters were now jaw dropping plays that sometimes even pulled down draws on a shake and bake to the hoop that left “defenders” more than embarrassed. Call game. AND1’s players took everyone’s lunch money, but were they paid properly? That’s the big question and the fall of this documentary.
Just listen to Shane the Dribbling Machine call it “poverty pimping” with his wise, worn words. The talent of AND1 and their likeness was even playable on XBOX consoles, but did these guys get played? Remind you of the NCAA? Either way, all the players deserved their due and still do. Respect paid too. Just like we with this documentary did for the late Troy ‘Escalade’ Johnson and Tyron ‘Alimoe’ Evans, AKA ‘The Black Widow’. Again, we see their faces here, but where’s the love?
Let’s give it up for the company’s co-creator’s Seth Berger, Jay Coen Gilbert, and Tom Austin too. Never talking trash as they put their brand on t-shirts that became instantly iconic (good luck finding them at a thrift). They put in the work. But it was the players on the rose that grew from concrete, grassroots level that took their fame to The Garden.
AND1 as a company may now be sold, but this game needs to be told. Not defunct like the VHS that used to play it. Be kind and rewind to this hoop dream nostalgia. The players are legends, like their names that will live in infamy more than their government ones.
Check ball and don’t let these guys merely live from cheque to cheque.
The UNTOLD series is making moves to be as serious as an ESPN 30 For 30. But this one is their most mind-blowing yet. You won’t believe your eyes.
Get all that other weak stuff out of here.
