LAST CHANCE U – BASKETBALL: For The Fans of A Beautiful Game

Going into the new spin-off series from my favorite Netflix show, I knew there was going to be a marked difference in the way I personally related to the material. While Last Chance U offered plenty of drama and captivating storylines to each of its four seasons, the spin-off show Last Chance U – Basketball offers something a little more…. basketball, my favorite sport. I grew up playing basketball since I was five years old, and it’s the only sport I truly get from top to bottom. That meant that in addition to the focus on the kids’ stories and the coach’s quirks, which have become the “reality TV” segment of the show and probably the most rote/repetitive elements, the actual dynamics and sequences of the games was going to add a new dimension of depth in understanding.

Smooth and Unpredictable, Like Jazz

Last Chance U – Basketball features the most exciting, well-shot, and edited game sequences of the series – especially the series finale, which is arguably the Last Chance U’s most well-directed episode. The camerawork along the rigid dimensions of the court highlight the tense elements of each game. There are no helmets this time, meaning we can clearly discern the facial expressions of the team’s and opponent’s players clearly, adding to the drama. The flow of the game is highlighted both by hip-hop music, but for maybe the first time also by R&B and Jazz. Coach David Thorpe, a long-time development coach and former ESPN employee always compared basketball to jazz because of the way the game’s near-constant flow, movement, and real-time decision-making imitated the way great jazz musicians like Miles Davis and John Coltrane would improvise in the middle of pre-determined sets.

Watching sequences from this season really highlights the ways that basketball differentiates itself from football in its more involved and improvisational nature. While most of the show’s game sequences are heavily edited for narrative – sometimes when the score pops up it’s a huge surprise at how small or wide the margin is – you can always tell when the team structure and plans are either falling apart or coming together. The dynamics of the team, as has been indicated by previous installments of the series, rely on the coach.

The head coach, John Mosely, is the season’s central axel in the trials and tribulations of the team. He is a devout Christian man who grew up in the rougher neighborhoods of Los Angeles, near East LA where the series takes place, and following his brief professional basketball career came to coach and mentor young players in a philosophy that combines teaching the game and teaching about faith, though the latter, especially in the public school setting, is made more philosophical than religious. Mosely is the strangest coach character yet for the show, due to the personality quirks of his demanding physical energy, his personal decision to not use curse words, and his rather schmaltzy attitude which gets players to roll their eyes.

The East LA Huskies roster features one-time Division I hopefuls who bounced back to junior college for different reasons and the three who the show concentrates on the most are Joe Hampton, K.J. Allen, and Deshaun Highler. Hampton played at the prestigious Oak Hill Academy, a venerable future NBA prospects factory that produced Carmelo Anthony, Jerry Stackhouse, Kevin Durant, and more recently, Hampton’s own high school teammate Dwayne Bacon. K.J. Allen, the other big man on the team, is the least dramatic element of the show mainly due to his Anthony Davis-like demeanor, quiet, unassuming, and supremely talented – the kind of player who just goes out and balls and is unfazed by the nonsense. Highler may be the more relatable character to audiences of the show, one who has to work harder than others due to his smaller size and build and has more realistic expectations about where he is going to end up (the NBA is basically out of the question for him).

An Unexpected Curtain-Closer

Each of these players, and the coaching battle with competing philosophies of pre-determination (Mosely frequently states “win or lose, it’s God’s plan”) and individual elemental choices determining the outcome of a game. It’s an interesting conundrum. The season’s major thesis is the war between unplanned events and personal choice. It delves into the personal decisions of the players which lead them to certain situations while also considering things beyond human control. Joe Hampton was a major recruit to Penn State and has suffered a terrible injury in his first year which led to him spiraling into depression after being forced to go back home. His involvement with drugs and small misdemeanors lead to Hampton’s story being a tragedy seeking a redemption arc. He is the kind of player Last Chance U was practically made for. Someone who was supposed to be a STAR. It’s hard to parse his journey without considering the battle between situational and personal conundrums defining life. It’s both a matter of who one is and where one is. K.J. Allen is the personality opposite of Joe Hampton. The story doesn’t spend too much time on him because we don’t really have to worry about him.

An old adage is “Man plans while God laughs” and the penultimate moment of the season which defines this as the thesis is the team’s state championship tournament being canceled due to the onset of COVID-19. Students, both high school and college, were among the most affected by the virus, having their education, social lives, and goals upended. It was a shock for the show as well and the disappointing outcome of the canceled tournament brought the show to a standstill in its final episode. Shots of an empty campus quickly turned into a ghost town in the flash of an eye, and a cut to the inside of the locker men’s basketball locker room where everyone is gathered reminiscing and also contemplating an entire journey together coming to a crashing halt was affecting in its juxtaposition.

Conclusion

Like many seasons of Last Chance U, this season brought drama and mixed social messaging alongside the lives of its student-athletes hoping to achieve their goals, but what was added here was a much more collective and philosophical approach to the series. There were existential questions being asked about circumstance and adjusting to pressure within the game and changing conditions in bench-roles, recruitment opportunities, and player rotations. It was a good thesis for the show to rest itself on because the entire season came along with the impending shadow of COVID-19 in the back of everyone’s mind. It was a sober reminder that while there are bigger things than basketball, the lessons of the game can translate and help cope with the harshness of reality.

What do you think? Should Last Chance U cover any other college sports? Let us know in the comments below!

The first season of Last Chance U – Basketball is currently streaming on Netflix.

Watch Last Chance U – Basketball