While chatting with ex-Smart Gilas and PBA player Dylan Ababou in his current home city of Tulare, California, USA, as we reconnected for my son Ryde’s basketball training, we discussed movies about basketball.
We found it laughable that we could hardly think of a Filipino-made basketball movie serious enough to be categorized as an inspirational drama. I mentioned Last Two Minutes, starring Captain Lionheart Alvin Patrimonio and Defense Minister Jerry Codinera, while he brought up a Benjie Paras film, Dunkin Donato. There’s also Shoot That Ball from Tito, Vic, and Joey—a movie to recall with a grin.
Before we ran out of punchlines, we shifted to Hollywood, which, of course, has a truckload of basketball movies to inspire wannabes.
“Maraming magagandang basketball movies like yung Glory Road, Space Jam, and of course, Coach Carter, isa sa mga all-time favorites,” Ababou noted.
Coach Dylan, who relocated to California in 2022, now runs his own clinic, Fueled Driven Basketball Academy, where he has coached around 200 youngsters, many of them with Filipino lineage.
I first met the one-time UAAP MVP (who played for UST, our alma mater) when he was playing for crowd-favorite Barangay Ginebra. He has blossomed into a well-versed basketball trainer and tactician, apart from being an impassioned spiritual speaker, thanks to former teammate Jayjay Helterbrand, who convinced him to immerse himself in Bible study and align his social circle with people involved in prayer groups.
Coach Dylan pointed out, as we further talked about films we saw about the sport considered a national pastime by Filipinos, “Ang maganda sa basketball movies, makakarelate ang mga athletes at coaches. Yung may conflict, ‘tapos may solution. The protagonists endure suffering, hardships, and challenges. They persevere.”
He added it’s a plus when a film is based on a true story or features real-life basketball heroes, stressing, “It’s sure inspirational when success comes at the end of the movie.”
While Ababou’s Moroccan blood gave him foreign physical features, he is deeply Pinoy by character, way of talking, and even his kind of grounded jokes. Credit should go to his jolly Mommy Rose for having raised a polite gentleman with good humor and a noble stance in life. I have met his stepdad Frank, too—a house builder and magazine publisher who recently turned to book writing. Their trio is a sweet bunch inclined to sports and entertainment.
Some basketball movies Dylan and I talked about are now Hollywood classics.
Coach Carter digs into the true story of Ken Carter, who suspends his high school basketball team—an unbeaten squad—due to the players’ academic woes. Kids, you can’t excel in sports without passing your grades.
Space Jam features the acknowledged G.O.A.T. Michael Jordan playing alongside Looney Tunes characters led by the ever-likable Bugs Bunny. It became the highest-grossing basketball film, a record it held until 2022. A Japanese animation movie called The First Slam Dunk eventually beat the MJ-starrer. But how many of us actually know this?
Another true-to-life sports drama, Glory Road, based its narrative on the 1966 NCAA University Division Basketball Championship when Texas Western College coach Don Haskins (portrayed by actor Josh Lucas) played an all-black first five, a historical first. The movie explored racism, discrimination, and student athletics.
We also tackled the 1992 comedy flick White Men Can’t Jump, starring Woody Harrelson and Wesley Snipes playing street ball hustlers. The legendary movie critic Roger Ebert said that the film is beyond “simply a basketball movie” and that its director, Ron Shelton, “knows his characters.”
Our conversation later led me to researching other basketball movies like Michael J. Fox becoming Teenwolf, Kyrie Irving’s Uncle Drew, Sean Connery in Finding Forrester, and Hustle, with Adam Sandler as a scout and also featuring current NBA star Anthony Edwards in a scene-stealing trash-talker role.
Here’s hoping that in the future, Filipino filmmakers will craft movie plots anchored on Philippine basketball, perhaps one reflecting on the legendary Crispa-Toyota rivalry, or the story of the charismatic Robert Jaworski, or maybe the inspiring tale of Coach Dylan Ababou — an accomplished young man who made it in UAAP, the PBA, and the Philippines’ men’s national team, and then decided to pass on what he has learned in basketball to deserving youngsters and even the young at heart, as long as they love basketball and shoot for a meaningful life.