Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Starting 5’ on Netflix, A Behind-The-Scenes Look at the NBA Season Through Five of Its Biggest Stars

Perhaps more than any other major American sports league, the NBA rises and falls on the strength of its superstars. Starting 5 , a new 10-episode series debuting on Netflix, is here to show us those stars. The series follows the 2023-24 NBA season through the eyes of LeBron James, Jimmy Butler, Jayson Tatum, Anthony Edwards and Domantas Sabonis, showing the ups, downs, win, losses and more..

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Opening Shot: We’re at LeBron James’s house, decorated for Halloween. LeBron talks about how Halloween is his favorite holiday as he gets made up as Beetlejuice. If there’s any benefit of being the face of the NBA for nearly two decades, it’s that LeBron can buy one of those 12-foot skeletons for his yard. (I’m not jealous.) (Okay, I’m a little jealous). It’s a stage-managed moment, for sure, but it’s a taste of the off-the-court color we’re going to get.

The Gist: The bulk of the pilot episode of Starting 5 consists of introductions of the five players involved: LeBron James, Jimmy Butler, Jayson Tatum, Anthony Edwards and Domantas Sabonis. Each of the players is interviewed directly, but other figures from around the NBA and each of the players’ lives provides commentary to frame their place in the league and their expectations for the upcoming season.

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What Shows Will It Remind You Of? With its tight production values and its familiar star-first approach, Starting 5 feels a lot like the NBA version of Netflix’s recent NFL-star-focused effort Quarterback .

Our Take: The first episode of Starting 5 is titled “Meet the Hoopers”, and it’s clearly focused on introductions, but the notion that introductions are necessary is pretty silly, given the star caliber we’re talking about here. The first player we’re “introduced” to is LeBron James, one of the most recognizable faces on Planet Earth, entering his 21st season in the NBA. If you’re not already familiar with LeBron, you’re probably not watching a Netflix NBA series (because you are an alien and do not understand how to work a human streaming device.)

The star power rounding out the so-called starting five might pale in comparison to James, but even a casual basketball fan is likely familiar with Jimmy Butler, Jayson Tatum, Anthony Edwards and Domantas Sabonis, each of them multi-time NBA All-Stars.

The players here are at very different points in their careers, ranging from LeBron James’ elder statesman/all-time-great position to Anthony Edwards’ up-and-coming superstar status. There’s also very different personalities on display here. LeBron seems at ease, the goofy, happy-go-lucky Dad of the league, while Jimmy Butler plays the resident eccentric, stealing scenes early in the first episode. We learn about his running bit of showing up for NBA media days with new hairstyles each year (he shows off emo bangs here), and his love of good coffee–something that famously distinguished him during the NBA’s 2020 Covid ‘bubble’, when he ran a coffee shop for the other players quarantined in Orlando.

On the other end of the emotional spectrum, there’s Jayson Tatum, who seems laser-focused on cementing his legacy with the title that’s eluded him so far.

“I’ve made All-Stars and all those things, multiple conference finals, and, you know, been to the Finals,” Tatum muses, looking at the season ahead. “And essentially, the only thing I haven’t done is win a championship.” We quick-cut to a shot of the Boston Celtics’ many championship banners hanging in the rafters of TD Garden, so as to emphasize the expectations Tatum is dealing with going into the season. “If you wanna succeed here, you hang your championship or you don’t.”

Sex and Skin: None, but there’s a decent amount of language to be aware of if you’ve got younger viewers. (LeBron swears more than I expected!)

Parting Shot: LeBron muses about where he stands more than two decades into his career. “I am at the top of my game mentally and physically every single day. If there was somebody on the floor that I felt was in better condition or a better fit for the moment than me, then I could possibly sit down for a little longer. I have not seen that yet.”

We then cut to a Lamborghini roaring to life in Minneapolis, a proxy for its driver, the brash young challenger to LeBron’s throne.. “I do not look up to anybody in the league right now, currently. Not at all. Yeah, not the slightest. Yeah, I want to cook LeBron one-on-one. Who don’t?”

Sleeper Star: Butler definitely forges the most interesting character in the pilot, but the real sleeper here might be the time we get with LeBron’s family, including daughter Zhuri, son Bryce, wife Savannah, and mother Gloria, all having a good time and bonding over scary movies as they prepare for a Halloween party.

Most Pilot-y Line: “We ain’t from shit. We come from shit,” LeBron muses in the locker room after a season-opening game. “So we get that first million, for a Black kid outta the hood… when you get a million dollars, bro, we know that ain’t the A-all, be-all, but it’s more than our family’s ever had before, so that is like… I ain’t never signed a contract more than my first one, like for the feeling. That first one, you’re like, ‘shit’.”

It’s a strangely candid and valedictory moment from LeBron, who’s rarely acknowledged that his career is much closer to its end than its beginning, and he gets a bit wistful at how his stardom struck early:

“I was given the keys to a franchise at 18 years old, and then around about 19, 20, I realized I was the face of the NBA. They never told me, but I was looking around like… ‘oh, shit’. I mean, can you imagine being 18, 19, 20, 21 years old with a bunch of money and being able to do what you wanna do and not be able to just walk into a movie theater and not be able to just go to an amusement park or not be able to hang out with your friends and go out and just be a kid?”

Our Call: STREAM IT. A new NBA season is nearly upon us, and Starting 5 is a great way to get geared up for it.

Scott Hines, publisher of the widely-beloved Action Cookbook Newsletter , is an architect, blogger and proficient internet user based in Louisville, Kentucky.

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