Considering the number of current NBA stars, casting Steph Curry as the lead of a network sitcom is a radical choice. Rising star Anthony Edwards is a bigger personality. Reigning MVP Nikola Jokic is a more serious actor. Klay Thompson, Curry’s former Splash Brother, is a situational comedy in himself, as apt to appear in a TV news interview on the scaffolding of New York City as he is to laugh at his online impersonators.
It is Curry, however, who is the star and executive producer of Mr Throwback, a new Peacock series that seems part of a broader strategy by NBC Universal to retain its massive Olympics audience, wrest its TV comedy crown from Disney (home of Abbott Elementary) and reclaim some of its former Thursday night swagger. It’s also something of a preview of the 2025-26 NBA season, when NBC will broadcast games again after a 23-year hiatus. NBC's rights deal leaves Warner Bros Discovery out of the loop and would appear to spell the end of Inside the NBA, the standard in basketball comedy.
With just six half-hour episodes, Mr Throwback can't compete with Inside's dominance of NBA coverage on Tuesday and Thursday nights. Nor is it set up to threaten the studio show's ability to trade memes and jokes with its audience in real time. It's no coincidence that hosts Ernie Johnson, Kenny Smith, Charles Barkley and Shaquille O'Neal all appear in the pilot. Their presence lends it authenticity.
The same goes for Curry, who, monotone attitude aside, embodies a wry underdog quality. The son of one of the greatest shooters in NBA history, with a brother also in the league, Curry seems to have his path in the NBA predestined. But 15 seasons later, the USA Basketball hero still resents early criticism about his size, his stamina and his free-wheeling style of play, all of which made him a four-time NBA champion and the greatest shooter of all time.
Crucially, the 6-foot-10 MVP guard speaks to an old sports truth: Behind every great athlete is a rival who didn’t make it despite being the best competitor in his era. Consider Leroy Smith, the hapless Carolina kid who made his high school basketball team over Michael Jordan, who devoted much of his Hall of Fame induction speech to recalling that snub while Smith, who was no better than a pro, looked on from the audience.
Like Young Rock, the NBC comedy about the early life of Dwayne Johnson, Curry propels the story as a main character and expert witness in the mockumentary frame of Mr Throwback. But the focus is squarely on Danny Grossman, the “Jewish Jordan” marketed as a man to 12-year-olds until a movement against his birth killed off the propaganda; Adam Pally infuses him with the same bearish energy he applied to his gay brother character in Happy Endings, the heyday of ensemble comedy. Danny works as a souvenir dealer because he still lives in the past, but the profits aren’t nearly enough to cover his growing gambling addiction.
A $90,000 debt prompts Danny to seek a meeting with Curry, a super-benefactor who, it turns out, has plagiarized some of his trademarks from the Jewish Jordan. When Danny is caught stealing one of Curry’s game-worn jerseys for his cause, the documentary crew following the NBA star takes Danny; Danny goes on to tell an even bigger lie about needing the money from T-shirt sales to pay the hospital bills for his daughter (Layla Scalisi), who is definitely not terminally ill. From there, the race is on to see how much deeper a hole Danny can dig for himself before his entire world comes crashing down again.
At first glance, Mr Throwback would seem to have too many balls in the air between developing its well-defined characters (including Curry), advancing its complex plots, and making sure all the stars — particularly criminally underused SNL alum Ego Nwodim (who plays Curry's BFF-turned-media maven Kimberly) — get their shine. But if anyone can juggle all these elements it's showrunner David Caspe; at the helm of the Happy Endings writers' room, he somehow managed to braid these and more complicated threads together while maintaining a blistering joke pace.
The jokes don't come as fast and furious in Mr Throwback, whose writers' room doesn't seem to have anywhere near as many.
Mr Throwback will struggle to keep up with the perpetual stream of snark that is NBA Twitter, let alone the rat-tat-tat pace of Happy Endings. But the premise of the Peacock series, which is as good as it gets, is timely for an era when fame, however far away, is easily regained or repurposed with a few clicks. Building the entire production around Curry was a radical choice, sure, but the payoff is clear.
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