Hoops Season 1: Should’ve Been A Slam Dunk

Though Netflix has had buckets of success with adult animation series with the likes of BoJack Horseman, F is for Family, and Big Mouth, the streaming service achieved measurable notice for its sports series as well. These TV series, mostly documentaries such as Last Chance U, Sunderland ‘Til I Die, and Cheer, have shown that Netflix can morph and contort to fill niche boxes with massive fan bases around the world. Hoops, their newest series from creator Ben Hoffman and led by voice work from Jake Johnson, attempts to use these formulas for a winning combination, making the resulting miss all the more disappointing.

Hoops is an odd experiment of a show because the writers are failing to try anything new. It feels recycled, repackaged humor, vulgar language, dirty humor, and cheap laughs thrown together in hopes of cohesion. The show makes little effort to traverse new territory, to delve into the characters they’ve created, or to show any basketball being played by these high schoolers. The show should’ve been a slam dunk, but somehow, it clanks off the back rim and fails to score any points through 10 episodes of low-wit comedy.

No Story, More Problems

The plot of Hoops could have been cooked up by a few college freshmen, too high to think straight while playing NBA 2K at 3 am. The series follows Coach Ben Hopkins (Johnson) as he tries to save his job as the basketball coach at Lenwood High, though his team of misfits struggles to win a game. Ben is the prototypical, foul-mouth, Bobby Knight-esque coach, without any of the skill or knowledge to lead his team to any semblance of success. His ex-wife Shannon (Natasha Leggero) hates him and is sleeping with his friend and assistant coach, Ron (Ron Funches). Barry (Rob Riggle), his father, is a retired professional hooper, who owns the town’s premier steakhouse, sparring with his son every chance he gets. And his players, though we don’t get to see their practices, are quite awful, until Ben recruits 7-footer Matty (A. D. Miles) to the team. Ben’s big dream is to one day own an infinity pool.

After the first two episodes, it becomes clear that the writers care more about a quick gag than any in-depth character development. Ben continues to be an awful coach and an even worse person, his wife Shannon struggles to make good choices, Ron, the kindest character in the show, gets beaten down by those around him, and the supporting cast of kids and parents never get more than a few minutes to look into the mirror and grow up. Hoops doesn’t have any issues making jokes on sensitive topics, treading, or stomping, on areas of abandonment, abuse, kidnapping, and murder to name a few. The majority of these jokes don’t land, though, and usually end with Ben shouting obscenities at his players, his wife, or himself.

Ben’s decisions derive from his ideal life: one with an infinity pool (did I mention that?), lots of sex, and an NBA coaching job. He undermines everyone around him in order to achieve this goal, even though his team still rarely wins. It’s never actually stated if this team continues to win throughout the season. The coach, though revered for some odd reason by his players until the final five minutes of episode ten, has a reputation of being despised by everyone else in the town, and rightfully so, his redeeming qualities come out to a resounding zero. Any semi-nice action he takes immediately is countered by a heinous, disgusting, or criminal act. How can you root for a team if the face of that team won’t stop screaming at you, or framing you for murder, or ruining your relationships, or losing teachers’ benefits? Unfortunately, that list can go on like a layup line in pre-game warmups.

Wasted Talent On and Off the Screen

In the last decade, Jake Johnson has carved out a successful career through his rise as a household name in New Girl to his constant collaborations with director Joe Swanberg, making the case for the actor as a solid actor, an indie leading man, and a favorite among critics and audiences alike. Johnson showed his voice acting skill with a few episode appearances in the aforementioned BoJack Horseman and his role as Peter B. Parker in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, so expectations should have been reasonably high in this animated comedy starring role. The result ends up being quite the opposite, regardless of his acting chops and vocal abilities.

His character never goes lower than a certain decibel, always hovering between hissing and screeching. The actor’s comedic timing and range get pushed to the side, as he rarely shows human emotions outside of rage and insufferable sadness. With little to do and lots to shout, Johnson makes a minor impact in a show that slips out of your mind immediately after turning it off.

In the show itself, the team Coach Ben assembles is a ragtag group of gangly, swearing teens who only want sex, drugs, and alcohol. The musical moments in Hoops illustrate this best, with songs about the teens getting drunk, about being in school without teachers, and about their coach cheating on his best friend with his ex-wife in a storage closet. Nothing seems to be driving these kids and this coach to continue with this story. All of them, and us, are just stuck in this school, in this town, and in this angered mediocrity. These high schoolers have potential, and so does this coach, his friend, and his ex-wife. There are flashing moments of ability from each of them, but not a single character is given the chance to explore their difficult pasts, their still-difficult presents, and their likely-difficult futures. Every decision Coach makes endangers himself and others, and even when one of his players gets offered an immense opportunity, he opts for selfishness rather than support.

Little Man Tate

Though largely devoid of palatable humor, Hoops features a few running gags, with the most impactful, and annoying, being Coach Ben’s fascination and obsession with Little Man Tate, the 1991 drama directed by Jodie Foster. He mentions the film at least once in each episode, bringing it up in any situation as a relatable quip. You can’t help but chuckle, at least at the beginning of the season, at the niche nature of this reference to a good film with little cultural impact 30 years later. The funniest moment in the whole series comes as Ben attempts to buy a gumball from a little machine, only to continually receive little green orbs that he throws to the side. If it isn’t obvious, he doesn’t like green gumballs. Hoops often trades subtlety for crude, brash humor and visuals.

The Little Man Tate joke represents the show as a whole, though. It’s misguided in expecting audiences to laugh at this character, his (hot-faced) quirks, and his action, regardless of their volatility. People don’t want to watch someone that’s irredeemable. They don’t want to watch one-track, one-skill, one-shot characters. They want contrast, inner conflict, and at the minimum, better reasons for someone’s awful behavior. The show’s eighth episode, “Death,” is the best in the season, not because of its humor, but because it gives the audience a chance to see these people before they became so insufferable. Each character talks to a grief counselor about an important moment in their lives, and it gives a glimmer of hope for them to change and morph into better members of society. Without background or context outside of this episode, Hoops‘ star coach ends up looking like a horrible person, one you wouldn’t want to spend five minutes with, let alone play on his basketball team.

Hoops should have been better. It checks the boxes of adult animation and sports comedy, with a high school ensemble of lovable misfits, colliding for a show that could have been a breeze to watch. The new Netflix original instead becomes one vulgar joke after another, becoming less funny as time wears on. The players, the parents, and the school deserves better than Coach Ben Hopkins. And so does the audience.

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Hoops is now available to stream on Netflix

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