In the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, the United States men’s basketball team brought home gold. In past Olympiads, this would not have been a surprise, but with the world catching up to Americans in basketball, it was no small order. Court of Gold, a new six-part documentary on Netflix, offers behind-the-scenes access on the top contenders’ push toward Olympic glory.
Opening Shot: We see the unmistakable Paris skyline at dusk, with on-screen text: “For nearly a century at the Olympic Games, the men’s basketball tournament has been a showcase for American dominance. Entering 2024, the United States had won seven of the last eight gold medals.” Cut then to a montage of this run of greatness, from the Dream Team to LeBron and KD, but then shots of the NBA’s many non-American stars of today. “Many of the best players in the world today were born outside the United States, including the NBA’s last six MVP award winners.” As American star Dwyane Wade notes: “the game is not just an American no more.”
The Gist: Much of the first episode is dedicated to the Avengers-like assembling of the 2024 edition of the USA men’s team–a powerhouse full of superstars like LeBron James, Steph Curry and Kevin Durant, but one that also has to keep an eye toward future Olympics as those aging stars cycle out. Coach Steve Kerr centers heavily, along with on-screen interviews with many of the star players and commentary from figures around the basketball world. We’re also introduced to the Americans’ main rivals for gold, because this story isn’t just an American one anymore.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Different sport, but there’s a lot of similarity here to Netflix’s recent Simone Biles Rising–a full-access-granted, slickly-produced documentary miniseries focusing on an American great fighting to retain their crown. There’s also We Beat The Dream Team, a new documentary on HBO about the first team of NBA superstars to win Olympic gold back in 1992.
Our Take: Making a compelling sports documentary is an unusual challenge–the star power of athletes doesn’t always carry over into making something people will want to watch. Take Tom Brady: Man in the Arena–the ten-part documentary assembled to try and replicate the magic of The Last Dance for arguably the greatest NFL quarterback of all time mostly fell flat.
In that sense, the challenge faced by the filmmakers behind Court of Gold runs parallel to that of their primary subject, the US Men’s Olympic basketball team. The star power is staggering–some of the most recognizable and marketable athletes in the world–and the access they were granted in making this six-part documentary is wide-ranging. On the surface, success should be a given, but it’s not that easy. We’ve seen so much of these players over the years that simply offering up More LeBron or More Curry isn’t going to be enough–especially when viewers will (presumably) already know by the time they watch this that the USA men won gold in Paris. (Crap. Spoiler alert?)
That said–much like Steve Kerr’s squad did this past summer–Court of Gold rises to the challenge, and it does so by not focusing on the star power of the team, but on the challenges of harnessing that power.
One of the most interesting scenes in the first episode is a moment in practice–a conversation between Kerr and Minnesota Timberwolves star Anthony Edwards. This is the then-22-year-old Edwards’ first go-around with the Olympic team, and despite his meteoric rise to NBA stardom, he’s a rookie again on this squad.
“You have such a gift,” Kerr says to Edwards. “Look at you. You’re a tailback, you’re running people over, right?” The praise quickly pivots to constructive criticism. “When is that gonna translate to rebounding? When is that gonna translate to, find a body, and BOOM!”
Edwards accepts the note, laughing that “my coach be getting on my ass about the same shit.”
Kerr talks about the leaps Edwards has taken so far, and the next steps for him going from All-Star to basketball great, and takes a moment to marvel at his first chance to see how hard the now-40-year-old LeBron James still works in practice. “I’m like, ‘oh my god’,” Kerr notes, a fun moment from a coach who already faced James in four NBA Finals. It’s an interesting look, and a reminder that while all these guys are familiar to us, they need to get familiar with each other in order to win gold.
“We’ve got 12 Hall of Famers in here,” Kerr says later, addressing the team as a whole. “But this is going to take some time, right?”
There’s some nice history lessons here–USA Basketball’s arc from a humbling defeat in Seoul in 1988 through the Dream Team in Barcelona and on to a re-humbling in Athens in 2004, up to this present moment with the world closing in–a threat illustrated by a loss in the 2023 FIBA World Cup. This is where the series pivots–it’s not just about the Americans. We also get looks at some of the biggest threats–Serbia, Canada, France–because the stars aren’t all on the same team anymore.
Sex and Skin: None.
Parting Shot: Excitement builds through the opening ceremonies, and some fun gamesmanship. French star Evan Fournier expresses gratitude that the top American stars are playing, noting that he doesn’t want a French victory to be sullied by any claims that the US hadn’t brought their best. Countering that is Kevin Durant–one of the NBA’s truly great haters–who notes that “they can’t talk like that, like ‘y’all better bring y’all best team’, okay, y’all better bring y’all best team, too. You’ve seen what the results can be. We got evidence. So sure, that sounds good, but we’ll see.”
Sleeper Star: It seems unfair to describe a member of the Basketball Hall of Fame as a “sleeper” star, but things are relative here. Grant Hill–now managing director of USA Basketball, and star/producer of the aforementioned We Beat The Dream Team–describes his philosophy in constructing this roster out of the country’s wealth of superstars. “For this roster, I looked at it kind of as three buckets. You have the seasoned guys, guys whose legacies are cemented.” (LeBron James and Steph Curry are shown here.) “Then you have maybe some guys who are in their prime.” (We see Joel Embiid, Anthony Davis and Jayson Tatum on this line.) “And then you have some younger guys.” (Anthony Edwards.) “And you wanted representation from all three buckets. Let’s get them on a group text, where they can now start bonding, coming together, forming those relationships.”
Most Pilot-y Line: The strangeness of the assignment for USA basketball is summed up by head coach Steve Kerr: “All my coaching friends, they laugh and they just say, coaching USA basketball is the most thankless job in sports. You’re just supposed to win, and if you do, who cares? If you lose, you’re a failure.”
Our Call: STREAM IT. You might already know how this story ends, but if you’re a basketball fan, Court of Gold is going to give you a fresh thrill seeing how it was written.
Scott Hines, publisher of the widely-beloved Action Cookbook Newsletter, is an architect, blogger and proficient internet user based in Louisville, Kentucky.
