Both of them were discovered by amateur scouts and entered the prestigious private school St Joseph in Chicago. In the school, their destiny is mainly controlled by Coach Pingatore. This high school teacher of Isiah Thomas is an out-and-out "strict teacher"; he cherishes and spurs talent, but obviously he only cares about a part of the "genius" and their achievements in basketball. Arthur has not been appreciated by coach P since the beginning of the camp. After the first year, St Joseph increased his tuition, and the coach did not retain people. A's family could no longer support him, and A had to drop out of school during the semester. William was lucky: With his excellent performance in the first year, he officially became a member of the school team and received private funding to complete his studies for free. It seems that A's life is completely in a trough, and W is so powerful, as if he has taken another step away from his dream.
But then fate made a big joke for William: He injured his knee and needed surgery. Behind this "accidental" injury, W, as the main player appreciated by Coach P, must also bear more responsibility and criticism. Coach P yelled at people mercilessly and asked the players to put out 120% of their efforts in the training and competition fields. W’s knee injury was caused by the increased training burden, and the wrong decision that coach P could not get rid of was the wrong decision of returning to play before the knee injury had healed, resulting in aggravation of the injury. The impact of coach P is also psychological. He likes to compare his players with IT in high school. He has said many times how IT was when he first entered school, how training and competition were. But how many years did it take to produce an All-Star player with outstanding mental and physical qualities like IT? He uses this standard to demand players, I think it is a bit too strict and unfair. In and out of the film, William didn't know how much he endured his roar. Once the team loses, he bears the most burden. When he graduated from high school, W said that St Joseph's basketball has become a job in the past few years, rather than a sport he once loved with all his heart. In addition, coach P doesn't care about players' lives outside of basketball, and requires them to devote themselves to their lives. I think for a teenager like W who has gone to school in a community he is not familiar with since his father was absent, if there is a coach who really cares about his personal growth and life instead of just thinking about his "playing out", he must Will be a lot happier. But coach P is not such a person, and it can be seen from the back that they have a sense of distance outside of basketball.
Arthur's fate slowly improved after a big somersault. He dropped out of St Joseph due to financial burden and went to Marshall, a public high school in his community. The notice outside the school was for students to "stay in school". Teachers and coaches all bluntly said that many students in this school would go there sooner or later. Mixed on the street (for inner city teens' street life, please refer to "FireWire"). At the same time, his parents were divorced, his father took drugs, committed crimes, and went to jail, and his mother lost her job to rely on low-maintenance family. But A returned to the community he was familiar with. In the camera, he was in school, had real good friends, and played on the school team. Marshall's coach Bedford has a different style from coach P. Although he is also strict, he does not demand excessively on his players. At the same time, he cares about his players. According to some sources, he used to buy groceries for their family in the most difficult period of the A family. Arthur slowly played well under him. In the last year, he led the team to third place in the state and also received some scholarships from junior colleges. In Marshall, perhaps Arthur has less hope of entering the NBA, but he is undoubtedly happier than William in St Joseph.
Another factor that affects the lives of the two is their family. Both families are not well-off, but the situation is very different. William's father was absent from the beginning. His brother Curtis is more like the father of the family. He has to participate in the decision of W's big and small things. Curtis was also a very talented basketball player when he was young. In the newspaper clippings, he used the role of analogy to young IT. However, after entering college, he stopped studying because he could not get along with the coach. Now he works as security guards and porters on the streets. Work. He saw himself in William, and he apparently placed his unfulfilled basketball dream on W. But like many parents who do this, this kind of thinking will only increase the pressure on the child. In addition, the setbacks of Curtis's basketball career are believed to be related to his personality, so I very much doubt that William has a good and harmonious family environment. On the other hand, the lack of a father's role in William's life made him long for a family and had a daughter during high school. This is obviously extremely unwise for his personal growth, but W who is with his girlfriend and daughter is happy and satisfied, which is destined to be unable to devote himself to basketball.
In contrast to Arthur, although his parents are divided and combined, it is clear that his parents love him very much and care about him, and his father will play basketball with him (rather than training William like Curtis), and do his best to help him pay off St. Joseph's money is used to earn credits, and his mother must ensure that her children live a healthy and decent life even if the mountains and rivers are exhausted. Finally, when Arthur signed the school, his parents repeatedly said not to make decisions just to save money and we would think of ways together. Arthur often calls his friends to play at home, and a large room is full of fun. It can be seen that compared to W, A's family is happier and gives him more support in all aspects.
Finally, let's talk about the differences in personality between the two. Although "character determines destiny" seems reasonable, this movie reflects that a person's character is actually affected by various aspects. Let me talk about William first. He has better basketball talents than Arthur, but the lack of his father since childhood and the pressure brought by his mother and brother made him less confident. This is evident from the fact that he didn't choose to score boldly in St Joseph's basketball and made mistakes in key moments in several games. Although Coach P has been spurring him to become more aggressive, the way he coaches may actually increase the pressure on W's heart. After having a small family of his own, I can obviously feel that W is distracted by his family and he doesn't "want" so much about basketball. This is also related to his family's lack of paternal love and sense of security. Look at Arthur again. Although coach P judged him to be unconfident at the beginning, and he was not ruthless enough to push himself compared to W, he lived happily and did not have that much pressure. This comes from his good relationship with friends, parents and the support given to them by his family.
Their lives after the film also matched their personalities dramatically: William encountered academic and basketball difficulties in college, and once dropped out of the team. After graduating from university, there were many setbacks in his life. What's more amazing is that MJ (maybe after watching this movie?) once contacted W and invited him to train, hoping that he could join the Wizards and realize the basketball dream of his youth. But when MJ began to let other NBA players to train, W looked a bit negative, which is also his lack of confidence in his heart. Later, in the Wizards training camp W was tragically fractured and seriously injured, and his basketball career came to an end. He later became a pastor and moved to San Antonio. After graduating from junior college, A went to Arkansas to play for two years. Although he has never been selected to the NBA, he has been working on basketball. He founded a sports brand of his own, and also established a foundation to help young people in inner city, including current NBA player Patrick Beverley who have benefited.
Although the movie is called "Basketball Dream", it shows how vague dreams are in the face of the fickleness of fate. Both William and Arthur were so enthusiastic about dreams, and they also had talents beyond ordinary people, but the factors of family, school, and society affected them and prevented them from spreading their wings as expected. Contemporary theory of success always says that as long as you work hard, your dream will surely come true. However, this movie reflects that even if you work hard, your dream may still disappear for 10,000 reasons, and you won’t even dream of it in the end. The film touched on many topics: race, economy, community, family, school, athlete system, etc., but the most valuable thing is that the author did not shoot with the mentality of "I want to show this grand theme", but It is completely focused on all aspects of the life of the two teenagers during the four years. The rich details make the audience seem to accompany them through various ups and downs during the four years of watching the movie. The film shows William's unmarried & underage child, Arthur's father buying drugs on the street corner and other behaviors that are not in line with the so-called "social values", but the author does not use these values to judge them, but objectively reveals them through details.
It is all this that makes this movie so unforgettable: William and Arthur may be anyone around you, they have their own history, family, luck and misfortune, happiness and sadness, you have no way of knowing these. So do you have to use your values to evaluate their gains and losses? W and A, you can say that they wasted their talents, gave up their dreams or were given up by dreams. However, in the face of fate, how lucky it is to realize the lofty dream, and what are the reasons for giving up the dream.
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