IG: Cassy Athena
Despite the NBA taking place for eight months out of the year, we all know it’s a year-round sport. Everything that happens in the offseason — the draft, trades, whisper networks, rumors, agenda-pushing, sources saying things — helps shape the narratives heading into the upcoming. This is not to say that the action between mid-June and late-October is all important. Most of it isn’t, but the annual summer pick up run rigamarole can be extremely fun if you don’t think too hard about it.
Watching off-season training videos and pick up games can leave the mind in a state of delusion. Steven Adams is going to be a 38% three-point shooter next year. Can’t wait to watch James Harden do this. Finally, Ben Simmons is going to get that jumper going. At a time when the average NBA obsessive is at their most vulnerable — that dead zone between the end of free agency and before training camp begins, a 45-second video of player x showcasing a skill they will never use in an actual game can have them thinking it’s over for the league for no real reason.
Instead of indulging this instinct, a much healthier outlook is to treat this footage like a 10 hour stream of heavy rain on a metal roof of a farmhouse: Something soothing to throw on that is detached from reality. One video from this past off-season immediately comes to mind — JayDoe films (JDF), a filmmaker and director from Philadelphia, captured an off-season run that featured Trae Young, Aaron Gordon, Tobias Harris, and Adam Sandler, among others.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CTSXGIMl9eH/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
“I think they’re shooting a basketball movie about him [Adam Sandler], that’s why everyone was there,” Jay tells me over the phone. “I don’t know the full details but they were treating the pick up like they were little kids again, just having fun with it.”
The run took place at Imhotep Charter, a Philadelphia based high-school and was organized by Stan Williams, a coach at the school’s basketball program. Williams managed to keep it under wraps — “Coach Stan hit me up and was like Jay Doe you can’t tell anybody to come along,” as attendance to these games, aside from the NBA stars involved, hinges on knowing someone who knows someone.
Read on for a more in-depth conversation with JDF about the experience of watching Trae cooking in person, how Adam Sandler fit into a pickup run with professionals, and the ways in which a game like this gets organized:
HFTV: To start things off I wanted to know what it was like seeing Trae [Young] in a more casual environment like a pickup run?
Jay Doe Films: Trae has two different sides to him. A calmer side and then his killer mentality on the court. He’s very intelligent. People gravitate to him off of his character.
HFTV: What was the energy like during the game?
JDF: Trae and all the guys in there were really just having fun. That’s why the clips came out how they did. Brad Wanamaker is one of the first pros I’ve ever filmed and he just has a down to Earth personality. Very approachable. You don’t even feel like he’s a pro and that’s how everyone was that day. Boban, Tobi were laughing and joking the whole time. It had a family feel to it. I didn’t even feel like I was around NBA players. There was greatness present but it was something that felt like a way to clear everyone’s head.
HFTV: So everyone is going 10, 20 percent?
JDF: Yeah I’d say around there but these players have perfected their craft so much that 10 or 20 percent looks so fluid. There’s no fall off and at any second they can go crazy. The thing about it is, Trae was just getting up and down, shooting deep 3s but he was facilitating more than anything and letting the game come to him.
HFTV: Right — he’s not trying to silence the gym like it’s MSG
JDF: Well you know at a certain point the other players are like come on, you’re Trae Young. Not even telling him but just giving him the ball like do some Trae Young stuff please. And in that run he was sort of having an off day but if he [] wanted to go crazy, he would just go crazy. Again it was more of a family affair because they’re shooting a basketball movie about Adam Sandler — the game was organized as something light in between shoots. What year is Trae in again?
HFTV: Going into his fourth
JDF: He hasn’t even tapped into his prime yet. He’s still finding out who he’s about to be. He was laughing whenever he missed a shot. Crazy story too — Fatts Russell was at the run. He was a star at Rhode Island, and a star at Imotehp. Him and Trae played against each other in the NCAA tournament when they were freshmen in college. Fatts hit a three and then picked up Trae the whole 94 feet, and when he guarded him Trae lost control of the ball, which rolled off his foot or something. Fatts picked it up, hit another three, and then started talking crazy. Like up in Trae’s face. You know how Trae is though, he’s a nonchalant killer so he wasn’t fazed but this was sort of like Fatt’s coming out party because Trae had been on a tear all year.
HFTV: No hard feelings at the run then?
JDF: It was all love. I have clips and photos of them together with coach Williams.
HFTV: So how do these high-level pick up games get put together?
JDF: Like I said this world is sort of about who you know. You had to be directly connected to one of the organizers, for me I have a relationship with coach Williams who was the main guy behind it. But these are professionals we’re talking about so not just anyone can be in that gym. You’re not going to put amateurs around professionals, so when you get in there you say to yourself Im not going to do any amateur shit out there. Tobias Harris is huge. Boban is huge, he’s not jumping to dunk the ball, his elbow is over the rim he’s just dropping it in.
HFTV: I’m curious about Sandler — we all know he’s a casual hooper but how does he fit into a run with pros?
JDF: One of the first things I captured was Trae Young hitting him with a bounce pass for a shot on the baseline. What’s crazy is that Adam Sandler is so great in who he is you couldn’t even pick up that he was playing basketball because he just looks like a character. That’s how elite of an actor he is. He actually looked like he belonged out there with pros. It’s crazy to say but I’m serious, he’s so authentic he only played two games in KDs and then he just left without saying anything. He lit up the whole gym and set the tone.
