Though LeBron James is featured prominently in the trailer, More Than a Game does a good job of not becoming the LeBron James movie. Instead, Coach Dru Joyce II becomes the most captivating character in a study of the relationships between the people involved on the 2003 National High School Basketball Championship team.
A corporate success, Joyce comes to a moment in his life where he asks himself, “What have I done that really matters?” In his transition period of self-discovery Joyce begins coaching his son and his friends on a travel basketball team. “It all began in a gym on Maple Street with a linoleum floor,” Joyce said. “My job wasn’t about basketball, it was about helping them become men.”
Some of the more heart-warming clips in an otherwise overly dramatic story show Joyce sweeping the floor in an empty gym before practice and working with kids in what could pass for the gym you grew up playing church ball in complete with padding on the wall behind the hoop.
The strength of the film comes in the rare clips and the relationships. The clips are a basketball nerd’s dream and include such nuggets as a 14-year-old LeBron dunking and the players walking through school before the state championship game. The exploration of the relationships seems really over the top at times. LeBron’s mother was 16 when he was born, Willie was raised by his brother and Romeo’s sister had to steal to feed the family. The film shows how basketball helped the players overcome their situations and made them a family. As LeBron says, “It was about basketball, but it was more about friendship than anything.” It seems cliché unless you understand that with basketball, it’s always been about more than a game.