In June 2023, Scoot Henderson was drafted third overall in the NBA draft. At the age of 19, he had made his way from the G League to the Portland Trailblazers. He was the most visible and well-known figure in the G League the year prior. But hundreds of other players populate the League, fighting to get their chance at the big time.

Destination NBA: A G League Odyssey cherry picks a few heads from around the G League, following them through a season and interviewing them about their journey. Scoot is one of them, but he is by no means the centerpiece of the film. Directors Liam Hughes and Bryant Robinson have chosen players at various points in their career path who all have different trajectories. Players like Gabe York, who has spent eight years playing basketball without getting a chance in the NBA. Or Denzel Valentine, who was drafted in the lottery by Chicago in 2016 and found himself in the G League a few years later. Or Ryan Turell, a young shooter who lit up Division III in college and aspires to be the first Orthodox Jewish NBA player.

The format of the doc is fairly standard. Talking head interviews are intercut with game footage and V.O. of commentators talking about the doc’s subjects as a way of narrativizing the course of the season. But there are also flashes of craft — e.g., graphic match transitions and intriguing sound design choices — that keep the film lively.

One could critique the film for acting as highlight reels for its subjects. Perhaps that is what the film is doing. But why shouldn’t these players get the exposure? The film posits that most anyone who makes it to the G League has what it takes to make it in the NBA, whether it be by finding one’s role, or working on specific skills, or heightening one’s discipline, or just lucking into the right path onto a roster. The G League is not the minor leagues; it is a professional environment, and it is an unforgiving gauntlet with little spectacle and even less fame.

The problem, as I see, it with contemporary basketball films is that you can’t write narratives as compelling as those unraveling in the actual game year after year. In a professional league bursting with talent — a league which may be just a few years out from expansion — these narratives cascade outward into the G League. And those are the stories that rarely get told. Destination NBA is just one example as to why the film medium could use more quality nonfiction basketball content.

At the same time, it is not a wholly revelatory documentary. As the film progresses through its second half, when the season starts winding down, the storytelling flaws become apparent. For one, the film is so focused on retelling the underdog narrative about how few people get a shot at athletic greatness that it loses track of the single season scope, such that when one team has a chance at making the G League playoffs the film stops to watch but doesn’t seem all that invested in the outcome.

Part of the problem here is that the film is more interested in breadth than depth. Instead of diving into individual narratives, Destination NBA strings together multiple individual narratives for the sake of painting a more generalized portrait of struggle and perseverance. Still, there is plenty for the NBA fan to to enjoy here.

Destination NBA: A G League Odyssey: B

---

As always, thanks for reading!

—Alex Brannan (Twitter, Letterboxd, Facebook)