When the clock is ticking down and the season is on the line, someone needs to step up and take the buzzer shot. Spike Lee has become that crucial, clutch player for the 2K franchise, and like his beloved Knicks in the ’99 Conference Finals, he’s going for the 4-point play. Spike will be writing, directing, and co-producing the single player Career Mode for NBA 2K16, due out on September 29. And this is no commercial, “in-name-only” type of deal. This is not a bunch of generic cinematics, crudely connecting one basketball game to the next. This is a Spike Lee Joint.
Spike not only wrote the campaign; he also cast it and motion captured it, and he has been involved in its promotion since the start. The tagline is #BeTheStory, and yes—2K16 is interactive in the extreme. It’s omnipresent, not only in the game mechanics, which are more personalized than ever, but in the narrative as well, which turns and hinges upon player choice.
The line between film and video games continues to blur, and this is exciting, new territory for Spike, who has never worked in the gaming medium before. But judging by his courtside enthusiasm at every Knicks game, Spike is the best man for the job. No celebrity fan is more dedicated to the love of this game. He’s on the Garden floor, decked in orange and blue, gesticulating as though he can drive Melo, through sheer force of will, into the paint.
It’s been stated often, but that makes it no less true: What drives our love for sports is the story behind those sports. Sure, most of us can crunch numbers and match statistics. We can metagame, and calculate percentages and odds. That’s all intellectualism. But to get our raw emotions flowing, and to get us screaming? We need backstory; context is key.
Take Michael Jordan, for example, whose gear is available as part of 2K16’s Special Edition. His Airness has the numbers to justify his lofty status. Offensively, he was unmatched. Defensively, he was underrated. But still, many other players were great. We remember the singular, iconic moments in Jordan’s game because they were intertwined, inseparably, with the real-life drama of Jordan’s life. And this birthed the legend of Michael Jordan—the entity whom many idolize as the greatest basketball player of all time.
What would “The Shot” be, were it not for Jordan’s split kick celebration afterwards, and the crucial nature of the point itself? What would the Flu Game be, if we didn’t know that Jordan, prior to the game, was told by doctors to stay off the court? And what would his 1996 Championship mean, had his father not died, and were he not returning from retirement? Legendary, definitive basketball plays such as these never occur in a bubble. Spike, who feuded with Reggie Miller and was a crucial part of the Knicks/Pacers rivalry, knows the emotional heft they can carry.
And in keeping with that knowledge, Spike’s Career Mode, titled Livin’ Da Dream, does not follow an established NBA celebrity—an out-the-gate superstar who wants to become an even bigger superstar. It’s grittier than that, and that is Spike’s greatest contribution to the overall impact of 2K16. He’s interested primarily in the hardscrabble journey upwards—from the high school playground to the college courts to the NBA draft—rather than the NBA itself.
The Career Mode stars Frequency Vibrations (for real—it doesn’t get more Spike Lee than a name like that), a promising basketball prospect on the rise. You see his life play out; there’s struggling back home, choosing a college, listening to the right people, and staying away from the wrong ones. Like all great movies, Livin’ Da Dream isn’t a “basketball story;” it’s the pursuit of the American dream, as told through the lens of a basketball story. The grittier details are being kept close to the vest, but based on the trailer, we have an idea of where this is all headed. It’s no smooth ride from the streets to the stratosphere; Frequency has to deal with jealous “friends,” moochers, and handlers—a variety of “leeches,” of which there are many, many different species. And in between all of that, he has to win games, clinch sponsorships, practice his moves, and sidle up to veterans for additional status and skills.
It’s a lot of speculation, but one thing is for sure; this story isn’t going to be pretty, or end with a neat, perfect bow on top. After all, when has Spike ever done that? He’s always embraced his outsider status. His camera is restless and needy, capturing the eccentricity and paradox that racial minorities must endure, on a daily basis, to grab and clutch their scrap of the American dream.
His films speak for themselves. They confront the hot-button issues, whispered about at dinner tables and at barbershops, and air them out, sometimes embarrassingly, for all the world to see. She’s Gotta Have It: Female, sexual autonomy. Do The Right Thing: Gentrification and latent racial tension. Malcolm X: A reconciliation of black political thought. More recently, Red Hook Summer: The church as a sanctuary and point of conflict for the black community. And his documentaries are perhaps his most resonant legacy—specifically, When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts: his politically charged magnum opus on the New Orleans flood disaster, and the government’s failure to address it. And who can forget 4 Little Girls, his Oscar-nominated documentary about the 1963 Birmingham Church Bombing? That’s Spike for you—always fighting, advocating, and shining a spotlight on the underdog.
And as for Livin’ Da Dream?The obvious comparison will be to Spike’s He Got Game, which was also about a basketball prospect on the rise, and the responsibilities, to both himself and his family, that he must negotiate. But there also seems to be some elements of Bamboozled. It’s one of Spike’s most controversial, obscure films, about a black man in Hollywood who, in an attempt to escape his TV contract, creates a horrifically racist minstrel show, only to discover that people love it.
That film was ahead of its time, but, perhaps, now would have been a better time for it. Livin’ Da Dream deals with similar tropes—of performing routines for the entertainment of others, of escaping one’s past, of feeling degraded by people who should have your back, and of dealing with the guilt and self-loathing that comes with fame. It’s going to get real for Frequency, and depending on your decisions, it might not get better.
This November, Spike Lee will receive an honorary Academy Award, recognizing his contributions to filmmaking to the past 30 years. Spike is one of those filmmakers that’s always on the hunt for these prizes but never, ever wins any of them. He’s been nominated for two Oscars in the past—the first was for Do The Right Thing in 1989. It wasn’t nominated for Best Picture, and that’s considered one of the greatest snubs in Oscar history. After being a boot to the ass of The Man for three decades, Spike might find it bitterly ironic—to be honored, so late, by some of the very people he once targeted.
But perhaps, this is progress. Spike’s involvement in 2K16—a high-budget, AAA title—shows how the establishment, who once feared this revolutionary filmmaker, are now evolving towards and embracing his progressive ideals. Imagine video games that infuriate us. That frustrate us. That confound us. That don’t provide mindless escapism from real life, but instead, force us to confront and live those realities. That’s art. The revolution, apparently, will be televised, and we’ll be able to play and interact with it every step of the way. Ya dig?
