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In 1998, basketball’s biggest fan, Spike Lee, embarked to capture his favorite sport on film. To pull off the most daunting task of his career, he had to follow the title of his third feature film and “Do the Right Thing.”

Twenty-five years later, “He Got Game” still stands out like a flawless championship run (think San Antonio Spurs in 2007). Lee’s film follows the ascension of the best high school basketball player in the country, five years before Lebron James became a nationwide phenom, and intertwines his narrative with a broken father-son relationship. Parts of it are shot like a documentary, other sections like a classic ‘90s family drama. Overall, Lee’s “shooter’s touch” puts this in the pantheon of sports films and the narrative itself still rings true in today’s Name, Image and Likeness world.

“He Got Game” opens with a montage of kids playing basketball around the country, set to the tune of Aaron Copland’s “John Henry.” Lee allows cinematographer Malik Hassan Sayeed to showcase the beauty of the sport through slow motion shots of different player’s dribbles, dunks or 3-point attempts. Every court, basket and ball looks different, but Sayeed captures the musicality behind each movement within the white lines.

After the opening credits come to a close, the audience is transported through a methodical aerial shot of Coney Island, where Jesus Shuttlesworth, played by Ray Allen, is heaving up shots from the left wing. Then, a hard cut takes us more than 300 miles west to Attica Correctional Facility, where Denzel Washington’s Jake Shuttlesworth is throwing up attempts from the right elbow. Both Shuttlesworths, father and son, hit nothing but net.

The driving conflict of the film is quickly revealed. Jake is in prison for murdering his wife and can reduce his sentence if he’s able to convince his son to attend the fictional “Big State” college. In simpler terms pertaining to today’s world, Jake is awarded a get-out-of-jail-free card if he’s able to get Jesus to sign an NIL deal with “Big State.”

But let’s talk more about how Allen ended up portraying Jesus. Lee originally slated Kobe Bryant for the role but in classic “mamba mentality” fashion, Bryant wanted to spend his 1997 summer training after a disappointing loss to the Utah Jazz in the playoffs. Kevin Garnett didn’t want to audition. Allen Iverson and Tracy McGrady did, but Lee felt they weren’t right for the part. So Allen became the obvious choice and 25 years later, it still feels like the right one.

Allen had just finished his rookie season before filming, still years away from winning a championship with the Boston Celtics and later hitting arguably the greatest shot of all time. As an actor, he sells the fact that he’s an 18-year-old picking which college to attend mostly because he went through the process himself just a few years earlier.

It’s hard for professional athletes to act. The most successful performances of all time are probably Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in “Airplane” and Michael Jordan in “Space Jam.” But they’re playing themselves. The only aspect about Allen which resembles his actual life is his jump shot. Otherwise, he embodies the innocence, confusion and arrogance of a high school phenom to perfection.

Jesus is properly introduced through a pick-up basketball game with the orchestral score making its return. Then, the audience meets the rest of Abraham Lincoln High School’s starting five via Sunday-Night-Football-esque introductions, including former Syracuse star John Wallace.

The “assembling the team” montage is crucial to any sports film, but Lee’s documentary twist, introducing the players like they’re on a television broadcast, foreshadows a part later in the film when Jesus is featured on SportsCenter.

The mini-doc on Jesus only lasts for about four minutes, but Lee flexes his filmmaking chops throughout it. He perfectly summarizes the magnitude of hype around the nation’s best high school basketball player. He used his connections at the time to pack in as many basketball personas as possible, including Jim Boeheim and Michael Jordan.

Still, being the best means dealing with constant pressure, a tension which Lee properly displays by increasing the pace of the film as it goes on. In the first meeting between father and son, Jake is shown behind the fence of the basketball court, repeating what everyone around him has been telling him, that this is “the most important decision of his life.”

Pressure is shown in another way through flashbacks from when Jake trained Jesus. Lee dives into the common relationship between a father trying to make their son be as good as them in their favorite sport. The audience is shown both sides of that narrative, the compliments keeping Jesus’ drive alive and later how the badgering forced a young Jesus to say he wanted to quit basketball.

All of this culminates in a one-on-one game between Jake and Jesus near the end of the film. Jake holds a letter of intent to “Big State” like a golden ticket, betting that if he beats Jesus, his son would attend “Big State.” Jake knows he’s going to lose but he gives Jesus the chance to get his revenge. He reminds Jesus after the game to get the “anger out of his heart,” and he does, choosing “Big State.”

It’s not rare for the emotional climax of a sports film to take place on the court or field. But the difference with “He Got Game” is that the majority of the movie takes place off the basketball court, making it similar to movies like “Jerry Maguire.” The stakes are higher too since the game quite literally decided the length of a prison sentence.

There are parts of this film that feel unnecessary, mainly the romance between Jake and prostitute Dakota Burns, played by Milla Jovovich. But overall, Lee foreshadowed the atmosphere of basketball today, how 17-year-olds can turn into nationwide celebrities. At one point in the film, Jesus is handed $10,000 by his head coach to give him an insight into where he’s going. Today, it’s common to see $1 million promised to a player for just attending a college.

“He Got Game” will always be universal in this way. Jesus made the right choice but the film’s ultimate purpose is to show how temptations could get the best of a young player.

Published on April 26, 2023 at 10:12 pm

Contact Anish: asvasude@syr.edu | @anish_vasu