#jon weinbach

[watchingmoviesandshit]

The Redeem Team (2022)

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[beamloaddirective]

M002: The Redeem Team

Director: Jon Weinbach Format: Netflix

Would've been nice if I could've made it a bit further into the year before I resorted to a Netflix sports doc but I watched it while riding the exercise bike and it inspired some thoughts, so here we are:

Who do I feel like I know better after this movie? I suppose the entire group of players interviewed (LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony, Dwyane Wade, et al) in one sense had me dispel whatever remnants of the notion that American players don't care about international basketball I still held. I don't think that was a belief I held truthfully, though, but you hear it with any international tournament loss. The other international teams just care more about winning for their country than we ours does. I moreso buy into the team cohesion cliché than the 'the Europeans care more about it than the Americans do' cliché, which is just natural considering that every American player is in the NBA and won't have the chance to play in qualifying windows necessarily while large swathes of the European and South American teams do... But I'm out of my depth here a bit.

I will say I learned to -- and was not without effort and labor -- appreciate something about Mike Krzyzewski from this. I am still a bit sore from his season-long entire-sport-conquering farewell tour in 2022, which culminated in what I consider the best TV moment of the year: the blowout home loss to North Carolina. I see from the more candid video from this documentary a different leader than the painfully constructed portrait of a wise old grandfather type he's tried to cultivate since the early 2010s, which grated on me to the point that I found his humiliation to be somewhat satisfying last spring.

To clarify, the UNC/Duke game at Cameron is more interesting than satisfying for me. It reminds me of election watch parties for losing political campaigns. It turned from wedding day to funeral so quickly, and UNC controlled the whole game. Fascinating thing to look at if you get the chance.

The Coach K of USA Basketball in the mid-2000s managed to really turn around what had been a program mired in arrogance under Brown and convinced a team of very talented and confident but also very young guys to care enough to beat a great Spain team for the gold medal. I suppose I respect Coach K a bit more after this.

[nuts-and-bolts-sports]

The Redeem Team Gives the 2008 Men’s Olympic Basketball Team Their Just Due

The Redeem Team Gives the 2008 Men’s Olympic Basketball Team Their Just Due

By: Zachary Draves In 1992, a dream came true. In 2004, that dream became a nightmare. In 2008, that dream was redeemed. It has almost been 15 years since the 2008 US Men’s Olympic Basketball team went to Beijing and recaptured America’s dominance on the global hardwood in dramatic and convincing fashion. After a devastating bronze medal performance in the 2004 Athens Olympics, it was becoming…

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