J.R. Smith’s resume is long and distinguished; over a 17-year NBA career, he was valued for his shooting, and won NBA titles in 2016 and 2020. But there’s one thing he hadn’t done: graduate from college. In 2021, this changed, when the now-retired Smith enrolled at North Carolina A&T State University as a freshman. This second act is the focus of Redefined: J.R. Smith, a new series streaming on Amazon Prime Video.
Opening Shot: A characteristically-shirtless J.R. Smith plops down on a couch for an interview. “Do I need to wear a shirt for this?”, he smiles, before we launch into a brief introductory montage showing highlights from Smith’s 17-year NBA career, with commentators describing his game and personality.
The Gist: In 2020, JR Smith played his final NBA game, serving as a bench player as the Los Angeles Lakers won a championship in the league’s COVID ‘bubble’. He didn’t decide to just rest and play golf in retirement, though–instead, he enrolled as a freshman student at North Carolina A&T State, a historically-black college where he would pursue the degree he skipped by going prep-to-pro years earlier. Redefined: JR Smith follows his journey, as he seeks to inspire his fellow students and write the second act of his own story. (But he will be golfing.)
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? There’s no shortage of single-athlete-focus documentaries available these days, but most are late-career retrospectives; far fewer take a look at what the athletes are doing now. (Unless it’s Michael Jordan in The Last Dance, in which case the answer is “nursing 25-year-old grudges”). The closest parallel here might be Amazon’s recent series Life After, which also followed athletes’ post-playing activities.
Our Take: I’ll be completely frank here: I cannot be objective about J.R. Smith. I am a lifelong fan of Cleveland sports teams, and Smith played an integral role in the Cleveland Cavaliers’ successful push to the 2016 NBA Championship, a victory that broke a 52-year championship drought for the city’s professional sports teams. Smith’s contributions on the court were vital, but his celebration after–in which he appeared shirtless for nearly a week–served as a perfect encapsulation of the unbridled joy that Cleveland fans like myself felt.
It also offered a handy visual for Smith’s personality as a player: he always looked like he was having a great time. From his early days with the New Orleans Hornets, fresh out of prep school and full of swagger, on to a starring role with the New York Knicks and his championship runs with the Cavs and Lakers, Smith was never someone you could overlook. He was brash, he was fearless, and he was unpredictable–but usually valuable–on the court.
In Redefined: J.R. Smith, the retired NBA star is showing a side that fans might not be familiar with, though. Smith shows himself to more serious person than he was often given credit for, and his decision to enroll in college as a 36-year-old multimillionaire took many by surprise. Early on in the show’s pilot, he explains his thinking–he had always intended to go to college, and had imagined following Michael Jordan’s path at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, but had skipped that step when he drew the attention of NBA scouts and agents as a McDonald’s All-American in high school.
Now, nearly two decades later, he’s opted to enroll as a freshman at North Carolina A&T State University, a historically-black college in Greensboro, North Carolina. Several figures from the school appear in the first episode to explain the history and importance of HBCUs, and stress their continued relevance today. We see Smith on campus, interacting with star-struck fellow students but doing his best to blend in as just another freshman (albeit, one with two NBA championship rings.) He speaks of his desire to inspire young Black students, his desire to elevate the profile of HBCUs, and his decision to join the school’s golf team.
The show is candid about Smith’s reputation as volatile–showing a montage of media criticisms, a memorable and costly gaffe in the 2018 NBA Finals, and referencing legal troubles he experienced as a younger player. It’s necessary, both to tell the story and to explain the purpose of his second act and of the documentary. There’s a genuinely touching moment toward the end of the first episode where Smith speaks tearfully about the image that’s been made of him and his desire to just be himself.
“I ain’t nobody else, man.”
Sex and Skin: Nothing salacious, though we do see Smith shrtless. But, if you know anything about JR Smith, that’s priced in from the start.
Parting Shot: We see Smith enrolling at his new college, posing for a student ID photo, and smiling with students in selfies, but also weighed down by the challenges of his new path. It’s a very humanizing portrait of a compelling athlete who’s rarely been allowed to be human.
Sleeper Star: Smith’s unquestionably the only star of this show, but it’s nice to get some outside perspective from his parents, fellow athletes, and ESPN anchor Scott Van Pelt, among others. Most vital, though, is Smith’s friend former teammate on the Knicks and Cavs, Iman Shumpert, who’s able to speak most candidly about the way Smith was often portrayed in the media.
Most Pilot-y Line: “I see the reason he’s good at basketball,” Iman Shumpert recalls, describing the side of Smith that he knows many don’t see. “I see the reason his daughter sprints into his arms when he comes home. I watch people try and give me something about J.R., and I’m just like… this dude has been awesome to me.”
Our Call: STREAM IT. J.R. Smith’s always taken his own path, but this latest act might be his most compelling direction yet, and is a well-produced document of it.
Scott Hines is an architect, blogger and proficient internet user based in Louisville, Kentucky who publishes the widely-beloved Action Cookbook Newsletter.