L'Or à bout de bras

Poor quality doc / reality TV.

I learnt nothing new from what I saw during the Olympics on social media, TV, etc.

The storyline is very simple and yet parts are very unbalanced.

I miss the days when documentaries were shot with a notion of good frame, good light... those days are definitely over! Not only interviews were not well shot in general, but games images were terrible. Did the guys who operated the cameras know anything about basketball?

Nothing very surprising from Netflix, as we're used to more and more poor content... I really hope they can level up the quality of these kind of programs and hire the appropriate crews to do so.

Kevin Durant is blatantly stupid.

"So they are saying we need to bring our A team to win, so do they". Dude, like wtf hahah. Like other countries have a pool of 200 players they could bring to compete with nba players. Nevertheless, good documentary and Serbia was much more of a challenge for USA then France.

The world has caught up with the American basketball team, and the results show it. They can no longer win by 30-point margins against European teams; the best basketball players in the world are currently Europeans and SGA. It will get even more interesting when Steph, KD, and LeBron retire, and in Los Angeles, it will be these players who need to succeed them.

Wemby and France will be even better, Jokic and Serbia(with few players like Topic and Jovic).

Title: Selective Storytelling - Ignoring the Biggest Controversy

Review:

Netflix had the opportunity to create a groundbreaking documentary about the greatest basketball tournament in history. They had unprecedented access to players, locker rooms, and behind-the-scenes moments, yet they failed to tell the full story.

The series does a great job highlighting controversial officiating when Canada was robbed against France. The main referee of that game? Ademir Zurapovic from Bosnia and Herzegovina. But somehow, when the same referee was at the center of the even bigger scandal in the Serbia-USA semifinal, the documentary goes completely silent.

For everyone outside the USA (and countries that dislike Serbia), the main takeaway from that game was the biased officiating by referees from Bosnia and Herzegovina and Panama. Yet, this series makes no mention of it. In 10 years, anyone watching will think Serbia vs. USA was a fair battle, when in reality, it was heavily influenced by questionable calls.

Netflix had all the tools to make a great series, but by ignoring the truth, they turned it into just another sanitized sports documentary.

This was a very enjoyable docuseries that followed four great teams during their time in the Paris Olympics. I really liked seeing more about other countries besides just the USA. To get to know the players and coaches for the other national teams was a great insight to the personalities of lesser known players. Seeing interviews with guys like Steve Nash and Tony Parker was a great way to contextualize basketball history on this Olympic stage.

I would have liked a little more insight to the group play of the teams. It would have been great to see more about Canada going 3-0. Since these episodes all varied in length, it definitely could have been added into the earlier episodes. But there was plenty of other great material included.

There was a great episode that got into the history of Serbia and the breaking up of Yugoslavia as well. I learned a lot that I never knew before, and got unique insight through the lens of sport and the Olympics.

The final episode really delivers, too. I love how much it allowed Steph the glory for his amazing moment in the gold medal game. A historic and close to an unforgettable game.

And, finally, shout out to KD. That man lives and breathes basketball, and seeing that level of passion for not only the sport but the camaraderie it brings is inspiring.

Court of Gold does not contain layered or dramatic storylines - which is fine. The profound brilliance of this series is in the fact that it just simply archives some of the greatest basketball, Olympic, and sports moments in history, like:

• The closing of the chapter Lebron, Durant, and Curry Era
• The 'Steph Curry Shot' heard around the world (Is he Top 10 All-Time, now?)
• The sport of Basketball as the potential #1 international sport in the future
• American Black Swag vs. The World
• And (obviously) the beginning of the 'Wemby Era'

As a viewer, you must watch with the understanding that the docuseries serves as a still shot in time, not as a multilayered documentary. Appreciate as a viewer, the art in which the players play the game and merely experience an actual historical paradigm shift in basketball, Olympic, and sports history.

To the nostalgic critics and disappointment haters... it is a Netflix sports documentary. Chill out!