We’ve already talked about how there are countless court associated movies and television shows across all content platforms. And that Netflix could have its own basketball channel like Disney Plus do for Marvel and Star Wars. Right now, the streaming service could go month-by-month with ESPN or TNT’s schedule.
It won’t be long before they’re broadcasting live games, like they’ve already done with the ‘Beyoncé Bowl’ of the NFL, as football tries to best the NBA’s Christmas Day spectacle.
Until then, we will just have to settle for the best basketball documentary since ‘The Last Dance,’ the one that started all of this game-changing activity.
With their first Olympic syndicate since their ’30 for 30′ rivalling ‘The Redeem Team’ documentary, Netflix gives us ‘Court of Gold’, hot on the heels of their ‘Starting 5’, taking us even more behind the scenes.
Their last doc gave us a deeper look at the lives of LeBron James, Jayson Tatum, Anthony Edwards, Domantas Sabonis, and Jimmy Butler. And we need a second season about as much as this famous five don’t need a sixth man.
This series delves into the camps of Team USA, your very own Canadian side, Serbia, and host nation France. Sure, Paris 2024 may have remained in the five-ring circus’s rearview the moment a skydiving Tom Cruise took off in a helicopter and passed the flag-bearing torch to Los Angeles, awaiting 2028, but who cares? This documentary series makes the Olympic Games that much richer, just as ‘Starting 5’ offers more depth to last season.
Here in Japan, there is an Olympic Museum right next to the National Stadium whose seats were never filled for Tokyo 2020, due to COVID-19. The exhibits still give you greater detail about the tradition and history, though. Just like, this documentary delves deeper into not just what happens on the basketball floor, but the wider world and field of other Olympic events.
Remember that Ant-Man moment that went viral when he challenged a table tennis players to a game? That’s all here, as is Kevin Durant and company watching Simone Biles make history again.
Yet even more powerful than Serbia’s reaction to Durant rewriting the history books himself, bucket for bucket, is seeing Kevin get emotional when he talks about the beauty of basketball.
Anyone who talks such nonsense about him after seeing that clearly doesn’t get it.
His former Warrior and Olympian teammate Stephen Curry knows what’s at stake. Saying that, the Gold Medal Game is like a Game Seven mixed with March Madness. That’s why Steph stepped up to put the kids to bed. All the way downtown until his “night, night” celebration cleared the competition like smoke from a Red Auerbach cigar.
This six-part documentary, directed by Jake Rogal, comes from President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama’s Higher Ground production company. The man himself also makes an inspiring visit to Team USA, just like the best Olympic broadcaster there is… Snoop Dogg.
France’s power, passion, and desire to make a different kind of history at home, along with Serbia’s no-nonsense success and rich basketball history, are all clear to see with every epic episode that’s played out to the highest stakes of drama it doesn’t need to fake.
Yet it’s here in Canada where this show becomes the most compelling, interesting, and inspiring. From Steve Nash giving testimonials about the past (alongside others like former teammate Dirk Nowitzki, fellow retiree Dwyane Wade, and Team USA manager Grant Hill) to the future of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, those men from up north are aiming for even higher ground.
It doesn’t get much sweeter than seeing the real Dillon Brooks at home with his family.
That’s how personal and profound ‘Court of Gold’ gets, taking its own podium as the best in basketball.
