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30 for 30: I Hate Christian Laettner (2015)
Watching this was an interesting experience for me!
This will be a bit of a weird review, in that while I hope to actually convey my thoughts on the actual documentary, I kind of also need to reveal a bit about myself and how in a way watching this documentary was a cathartic experience for me, and a kind of 'closure' in some respects, and I came away feeling a mix of different emotions.
Please bare with me as I try to explain, and I do apologise if it comes across as a bit cringey, but it's an honest account of how I'm feeling about this documentary.
I was about 12 years old in 1993, and the NBA was.omnipresent in Australian life; every kid was rockin' their favourite team's jersey or baseball cap. There were none of those big obnoxious gold stickers on the brim of the hat, we threw those away and bent the hell out of the brim - "as was the style at the time".
We wore our favourite player's signature Nike basketball shoes on the court - me, I had the Dennis Rodman Nike ones with the zippers! - and we buzzcut our heads which comically steamed in the cold winter air during a game, and we lowered the basketball hoops cemented on our parent's driveways down to 8 feet so that we could have our own dunk contests, mimicking the hottest new windmilling, corkscrewing, under-the-leg, or twisting dunks we were lucky enough to see snippets of on the news or on a Saturday at midday when Channel 10 used to show some highlights and an actual NBA game.
And of course basketball cards were both a currency and a status symbol on the playground, with many recesses and lunch periods spent haggling over rare insert cards to complete a collection, or talks of an almost mythological lottery card that could be redeemed for an exclusive set of rookie cards (Fleer 94-95 I believe it was, and I collected the entire set including all inserts - even those ones that only came in 21 packs - but I regret to say that I sold the lot about a decade ago on eBay... for a measly $20.00... crap...)
And this is how I first became aware of a player called Christian Laettner, and as a young guy coming to terms with his homosexuality, I developed a bit of a serious crush on the strikingly handsome 6'11" power forward for the Minnesota Timberwolves.
I went on to collect many of his basketball cards as a kid and in studying his statistics and history, I got to learn that not only was he a college basketball phenom, but also 12th man of the US 'Dream Team' at the Barcelona Olympics.
I was lucky enough to be given a poster from a schoolmate, of Laettner in his white Timberwolves uniform making a rebound in front of the Timberwolves logo over a black background. I had that poster on my wall for many years, not unlike girls of my age at the time who would have had Jason Priestly or Jordan Knight posters on their walls. Or my mates who preferred Elle Macpherson and Pamela Anderson, lol.
See that's the thing: for quite a few years while I loved this guy for his looks and his stats on the back of my basketball collection, I'd never actually seen the man play, except for very rare clips of, well, him and the rest of the Timberwolves getting dunked on during a 'best plays' segment on those Saturday midday NBA shows. The only time I ever got to see Laettner play was when I selected to play as him when playing NBA Jam on my Super Nintendo!
*Quick aside - it was hard being a fan of anything American in the 90's before the internet, almost impossible to 'keep up' with what was happening in the worlds of the NBA, NFL, NHL and WWF (WWE). You either had to be dedicated enough to subscribe to several magazines and newsletters, or be willing to get a subscription to Sky Sports which was really only shown in pubs and taverns, not in private homes. And apparently it was very expensive, but I digress!
So then I grew up, and eventually lost interest in basketball and card collecting, found other interests, and for about 25 years I kind of forgot about that basketballer I had a crush on when I was a young teenager. I regret that I either lost or binned that poster of him in a house move in the late 90's... (why?!)
Then just recently I thought 'I wonder what happened to that guy' and looked him up on YouTube and found a few recent interviews and of course, plenty of videos of 'The Shot'. I was happy to see that he was still a bloody goodlooking man, even now that his hair has turned a nice salt and peppery silver colour, but also to see what he was like in his prime when he was playing at Duke. Seriously, how was this guy not a model or an actor?!
And then I found out someone had made a documentary about him five or so years ago.
So I signed up to Disney+ JUST to watch this documentary and it was so 'bizarre' to finally see that man from my poster 'come to life' and play... and he played bloody well... but also to learn about the man himself, where he came from and where he is today. And while I'm happy for his success as a happily retired former basketball star and family man, I did come away feeling a bit sad and, well, angry in that he was kind of robbed of what could have been a much more stellar career in the NBA.
I won't lie - as a kid, either by zeitgeist or my own silly boyhood crush - I too just presumed Laettner must have been some rich college kid from an affluent family, so I was quite surprised to learn that he comes from a working class Roman Catholic family like mine, and that everything he achieved in high school and college he very worked hard for. There wasn't any nepotism or privilege; the man worked to where he got to, and that's very admirable.
I do feel however that he's probably one of those 'never meet your hero types' in that given his rather narcissistic and arrogant personality - at least, as a younger man - however like filmmaker James Cameron it is an earned narcissism and arrogance: the man's records at Duke stand as a testament to that!
His four years at Duke takes up the majority of the documentary, which is all good and fine, however it would have been great had they explored his NBA career in a bit more depth (the documentary probably needed another 30-45 minutes runtime in my opinion).
It was kind of depressing in a way, in that after his laudable success at Duke he was drafted to the terrible Timberwolves, and I believe that his time there 'robbed' him of the opportunity to further develop his game and truly live up to everyone's expectations as 'the next Larry Bird'. I believe that had he found himself under the guidance of a good and longterm coach and with a solid roster of teammates, he could have flourished in the NBA. But team after team after team he was traded to, he never found this it seems, and it's a real shame that 'the stars never aligned' for Laettner in the NBA.
But he wasn't a bust like some would like to label him; his end-of-career statistics are respectable if not enviable, and I'm happy to have rediscovered not only Mr Laettner, but also basketball again (I intend on getting a subscription and looking up his old games in the NBA and might even have to invest in a basketball myself and shoot some hoops for the first time in years). Oh, and I bought a 'I Still Love Laettner' shirt XD
So in closing I just looked up some of those old basketball cards I owned as a kid on eBay and I see them in a different light now. Of course he's still the man in a photograph that a young gay Australian basketball-obsessed kid crushed on in the 90's, but now as a 41 year old man looking with new eyes I see the person, the athlete, the family man, the college superstar, and also the college villain.
This was truly an interesting experience, and should Mr Laettner ever read this review I just wanted to say: thanks mate.
Paddleton (2019)
Buried by Netflix, dug up by RedLetterMedia
A hidden gem that is quite possibly one of the most touching stories about male friendship and the acceptance of the inevitable.
Highly recommended.
Hannah Gadsby: Nanette (2018)
Cancer
Just when we'd all thought the cancer had gone into remission, Australia's favourite nomedienne is back again.
The Spoony Experiment (2007)
It's time to face the facts; Spoony's given up (and we should too)
As of the time of writing this post, it has been:
*76 days since his 'Street Hunter Rebuary' review (his last real movie review)
*351 days since his 'Spoony & April See Avengers 2: Age of Ultron' review (his last real vlog)
*437 days since the 'Massacre At Central High' review (his second-last real movie review)
*521 days since the 'Nightmare: Back In The Hole' review (his last Black Hole of Board Games Review)
*622 days since the 'Big Trouble In Little China for Commodore 64' review (his last actual video game review, done in his classic style)
Everything in between has either been Wrestle Wrestles, Live Wires or Counter Monkeys (which in all fairness ARE content, but none of which I've never really been interested in watching).
Nothing against Mr Antwiler, but he really does need to at least announce that he's semi-retired from being a serious internet reviewer and we fans need to come to the realisation that he's not going to return to form anytime soon (which is understandable, because he's not a well man).
He needs to look after himself and get his life in order, and then hopefully one day he'll make a great comeback, but this is unlikely for the foreseeable future in my opinion.