Luka Doncic's Documentary Shorts About Slovenia And Their FIBA World Cup Journey Already Looks Awesome
Takashi Aoyama. Getty Images.One thing about me is I'm a huge basketball documentary guy. Always have been always will be. It really doesn't matter who the player is, if you put out a doc, I'm in on that thing so fast it'll make your head spin. Shit if you search "basketball documentary" on this fine site you'll see what I mean. Boogie, Ron Artest, KG, Jamal Crawford, MJ, KD, Steph etc, all of their docs over the last 2-3 years have been awesome. In today's media world it's basically a law that if you're a pro athlete you have to be in the process/put out some sort of documentary and I for one couldn't love it more. Give me all the behind-the-scenes stuff, give me all the nostalgia, I don't even really mind that usually, it's just a 90 minute PR vessel.
Which is why I was very excited when I saw that Luka was going to do something a little unique during this FIBA World Cup that kicks off tomorrow
Hell yeah. One of the best players in the world giving us instant access during the Slovenia FIBA run, all coming in short clips because in 2023 our attention spans are shit? Sign me up. So far Luka has put out the first 5 "episodes" so let's have ourselves a look
Well, that was pretty freaking awesome. At first, I was into the short clip idea, but after watching all 7 of those videos now I just want it to be one feature film. I guess that's the point right? It kept me coming back for more. If we're being honest, huge miss by Team USA to not do something similar for their run considering they're expected to win the whole thing. Maybe they're filming their own doc and we just don't know about it yet, because I feel like Anthony Edwards was born for something like this.
Watching those clips you really get a good sense of just how important the FIBA World Cup and international competition is for these guys. You don't hear any USA players talk about how rocking that jersey is the greatest moment of their basketball lives. It isn't even the best group of talent we as a country can offer. But to the rest of the world? It's their everything.
Oh, and if you're curious how Luka has looked heading into the official start of the World Cup, I'd say he's ready
Slovenia will enter the tournament at +2000 to win the whole thing, which is the 8th best odds. They begin in Group F (Cape Verge, Georgia, and Venezuela) which I imagine they win easily. This is going to be a bit of a summer of redemption for them because if you remember, Slovenia lost to Poland in the 2nd round of EuroBasket last summer and didn't even qualify for the last FIBA World Cup back in 2019. Given Luka is a human cheat code, you expect them to make some waves this time around.
That's partly why I'm so interested in watching these documentary shorts. We're either going to get the awesome drama of a deep run, or the awesome drama of an early exit. If there's one thing the NBA/basketball needs it's their own version of Hard Knocks, so maybe this could be a way to make that happen during the actual NBA season. I'd watch every single team's doc if they did something like this throughout the season. Especially if they put them out in real time.
With that said, we finally get some "real" basketball back in our lives starting tomorrow and I cannot wait. No more fake tune up games. Finally some games with real stakes. It's been far too long.