Los Angeles Lakers fans are enjoying an incredible turnaround after LeBron James and Anthony Davis led the team into the Western Conference finals, and the journey could be the focus of a Last Dance-style documentary.
After recovering from a terrible 2-10 start in the regular season, the Lakers have made a deep run in the NBA playoffs, with a 4-2 series win against the Golden State Warriors sealed on Friday night to book their place in a Western Conference final with the top seeded Denver Nuggets that gets underway in Colorado on Tuesday.
The Last Dance told the story of Michael Jordan's iconic career and the sensational run to his sixth and final NBA title in 1997-98 and earned widespread acclaim as NBA fans were taken behind the scenes of one of the sport's greatest tales.
The critical and commercial success of the 10-part 2020 ESPN series, coupled with the popularity of documentaries like Amazon's All Or Nothing and FX's Welcome To Wrexham, has opened both players' and broadcasters' eyes to the potential of fly-on-the-wall sports shows.
A series charting a potential fifth NBA title run for James – co-owner of production company Uninterrupted with Maverick Carter, which makes the popular interview series The Shop and has produced training-camp documentaries on boxer Saul 'Canelo' Alvarez – would undoubtedly deliver huge numbers for whoever broadcasts it.
And, according to Lakers radio announcer John Ireland, a camera crew led by Last Dance producer Andy Thompson, has been following James this season.
“I hope I’m not talking out of school here, Andy Thompson, the guy who shot The Last Dance, (former NBA player_ Mychal Thompson’s younger brother, who has worked for the NBA for 30 years, has spent a ton of time with us this year," Ireland told the Awful Announcing Podcast.
"So if LeBron ever wanted to go down this road, I think Andy is stockpiling that just so he has it and has the opportunity to tell the story.
“If we go on a magical run to the title, Andy, who was the driving force behind The Last Dance, most of the stuff you saw in those 10 episodes was shot by Andy Thompson. And Andy’s a smart guy, he’s already working on, potentially, a story about the end of LeBron’s run like he had one for the end of Jordan’s run.”
A fairytale ending to this season is not guaranteed for the Lakers as they face a huge challenge to get beyond the number-one seed Nuggets to make the finals, with two-time MVP Nikola Jokic in dominant form as they eased to a 4-2 series win over the Phoenix Suns in their semi-final.
The Nuggets are favored by the bookmakers going into game one, but the Lakers have been buoyed by Davis' sensational form at both ends of the floor, with James also superb as LA defeated the reigning champion Warriors 122-101 to advance.
