00:00If you played with MLK today, would you dunk on five?
00:02Yes, that was brilliant.
00:04And all of them said yes.
00:05And I was surprised, going like, really?
00:07Yeah.
00:08Except for CJ, CJ said, I'm not dunking,
00:10but I'd cross him up and hit a three in his face.
00:11Right.
00:12No respect.
00:13Yeah, there's no decorum on the corner.
00:14Right.
00:18This project came about because Afshina and I and Jesse,
00:21we've actually worked for years with the athlete Tommy Smith,
00:24who in 1968 did the salute of the Olympic Games.
00:27And one of the things we do is help him start his foundation.
00:30And every year, there's a foundation gala.
00:32And a couple of years back, Ambassador Andrew Young was the honoree.
00:35And he got on stage and he says, he says, Tommy,
00:38did I ever tell you the time that Dr. King and I used to play
00:40basketball to connect with kids in the movement?
00:42And so I'm the Asian guy in the back of the house.
00:45And I dropped my fork and I was like, what did I just hear?
00:48And so I literally navigated the tables
00:51and ambushed Ambassador Young before he got into his car,
00:54told him I had never heard that before.
00:55And I would love to have the opportunity
00:58to tell that story on film.
01:01And he said, I love basketball.
01:03I love Dr. King.
01:04I love Tommy.
01:05Of course, let's do it.
01:06It's a weird line of work because there's
01:07like a status attached to it.
01:09And also recognize it's probably one of the only lines of work
01:11where you meet people at a party and they, what do you do?
01:14And you say you're an actor.
01:16And they're kind of, no.
01:19Or like, what are you in?
01:20And you give them your resume suddenly.
01:22You're now auditioning for their validation and you name a project.
01:25And they're like, nah, I haven't seen that.
01:28It's like, it's not a yes or no question.
01:29I'm telling you what I do for a living.
01:31So that can happen.
01:33We started with knowing that we had this really great story
01:35of Martin Luther King Jr. playing basketball that we thought
01:38that not many people heard.
01:40And everyone knew and a lot of people know that President Obama
01:45enjoyed basketball and played basketball.
01:47Hearing from Mike Struttmanis and Reggie Love, more of the details
01:50and some of the behind the scenes was really great.
01:52But through the process, we actually did interview a few other NBA
01:55players, aside from Jerry West, some current NBA players.
01:59And really, when it came down to honing into the medium
02:03of documentary short, it sort of became the film that you can see now.
02:08But I think there were a lot of discoveries along the way.
02:12And a myriad of stories about how basketball has been used historically
02:16as connective tissue in movement making and community building.
02:19Would you say?
02:20Yeah, absolutely.
02:21I mean, to Glenn's point, we interviewed everyone
02:24from CJ McCollum, who's the MBPA executive director,
02:27all folks that I worked with.
02:28I worked at the NBA for six and a half years,
02:30leading player development, and I lived in the bubble.
02:32And during that time in the bubble, I helped to, oh yeah.
02:35During COVID.
02:36During COVID.
02:37Yeah, no, it was during COVID.
02:38Literally, all they fed you was Mickey Mouse cookies.
02:40It was like the worst, but just take that off.
02:42What the hell is a Mickey Mouse cookie?
02:43It's horrible.
02:43You lived in Disney, and they gave you-
02:45Wait, you said a cookie in the shape of Mickey Mouse?
02:46Yeah, and hot dogs.
02:47That's what they were feeding us.
02:48When you're in that type of environment with a bunch of NBA
02:51players who do not want to live in a bubble and be sequestered
02:54after watching George Floyd get murdered, it felt wrong.
02:58So they were in there saying, we're basically in a cage.
03:00You're basically in jail.
03:02You're not allowed to leave, and if you leave,
03:03you don't get a paycheck.
03:04So having that experience and living amongst that experience,
03:08the only thing I could do is, well, let me figure out
03:10how to motivate them.
03:11And the only thing you can motivate them to do is, let's vote.
03:13Let's change the laws.
03:14Like, what can we do to make a difference
03:15as our own individual people?
03:17And I remember getting, you know, standing in the hallway,
03:20and guys would go to practice, and I'd be like,
03:21please register to vote.
03:22This is the way we make a difference.
03:24And so, you know, taking that experience and the work
03:26that we did in the bubble and afterwards with some other work,
03:31it was really, really not lost on us that we needed to interview
03:33those guys to talk about that experience.
03:35So to Glenn's point, we have so much footage of Michelle Roberts
03:38and just many, many others talking about what that meant
03:40to be part of that movement because we saw what happened
03:42with the country.
03:43The players decided to take a stand,
03:45and then the whole country followed suit.
03:47So to not include that is tough.
03:49And so to have someone, you know, a director like Glenn
03:51who's so amazing and can see the vision of what needs
03:53to be in a film like this to ensure that it's right on time
03:56for what we need right now, who could have imagined
03:59that we're airing during MLK's birthday week, you know?
04:02What I do appreciate is that many of the men have given credit
04:05to the women of the movement.
04:06So they went to the WNBA players and asked them how they were able
04:09to take a stand and be strategic during those times.
04:12And so they're getting the guidance from the women.
04:13We all know that they are the ones that led the way.
04:15We also know that women don't get the level of publicity
04:18that the male athletes do.
04:19Obviously, that's changing a bit, and I, for one,
04:22am very excited to see that in all these different ways.
04:24But we know that they have been at the forefront of this
04:27for many, many years.
04:29It was also, you know, Glenn made a choice in the film
04:33outside of the documentary subjects.
04:35We open the film with a young boy walking in,
04:37and it ends that baton being passed to a young girl.
04:41So outside of the subject of the documentary world,
04:44there's a bit of symbolism there.
04:45Yeah, absolutely.
04:46I play, I coach my daughter's team, so I play with her,
04:50and I play somewhat, somewhat regularly with friends
04:55and never run.
04:56When I met President Obama in the Oval Office,
04:58I was sitting in the lobby, and his voice, I heard him,
05:04he was coming to get us, and his voice started to get louder.
05:07And when your voice, when a voice of President Obama
05:09gets louder, it's usually because I'm walking away
05:11from the TV or closer to the TV.
05:12Yeah, yeah, yeah.
05:13But to have the voice get louder, I'm like,
05:15he's coming.
05:15It's happening.
05:16It's happening to him, you know, oh, it was that moment.
05:18When I met Obama, too, I literally got weak in the knees,
05:21which was like a weird thing.
05:22I didn't know that was a real thing.
05:24Holy shit, I'm getting weak in the knees.
05:27So with Obama, same thing.
05:28I remember, I worked for him, but I remember he walked
05:30down the hallway when I did an event with him
05:32and Jay-Z and Beyonce, and he came down the hallway,
05:35and he was like, hey, and I know he's not talking to me.
05:37I know he's talking to, like, Beyonce.
05:39And he was like, no, I'm talking to you.
05:41And I was like, and he just said, you know, thank you.
05:44Like, I really appreciate it.
05:45I knew this was an event that you did.
05:46And he just wanted to, like, let me know that he knew
05:48it was something that I put together.
05:50And at that moment, having Jay and Bea look at me
05:53and be like, you go, girl.
05:55I was like, I'm now like, the trifecta.
05:57And there's a photo.
05:58I have a photo of it of her, like, leading in.
06:00And being like, you're like, and he's painting.
06:02Yeah, exactly.
06:03I was like, wow.
06:04So yeah, but he does have that effect.
06:06We were on stage.
06:07We hung out a few times.
06:10Yeah, no, he's, you know, he's one of those people
06:13where you're just like, oh, that's what charisma is.
06:15So it's a word that's thrown around a lot.
06:17But yeah, I've had the pleasure of meeting him
06:20and Michelle, equally impressive, of course.
06:24Could anyone here beat him in basketball, you think?
06:27I could take him, probably.
06:28I think just age.
06:32Yeah.
06:33So what was surprising for me, the number of NBA players
06:37that we interviewed, and one of the questions Glenn was asking
06:40them was, would you, if you played with MLK today,
06:42would you dunk on him?
06:44Yes.
06:44That was hilarious.
06:45And all of them said yes.
06:47And I was surprised, because I'm like, really?
06:49Yeah.
06:49Except for CJ, CJ said, I'm not dunking,
06:51but I crossed him up and hit a three in his face.
06:53Right.
06:54No respect.
06:54Yeah, there's no decorum on the court.
06:56Right.
06:56There's no prisoners.
06:57Here, there, there.
06:58There, there,
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