It's a social justice sinergy made in Heaven: "Mr. Hollywood" LeBron James and ex-ESPN broadcaster/writer Jemele Hill (appearing in file photo). The two Trump-hating millionaires are joining forces to produce the basketball documentary Shut Up and Dribble, a three-part Showtime series in November that she'll narrate.
On the heels of yet another NBA championship series loss, James has moved his mega-enterprise to Los Angeles. Right now, there is little focus on the Lakers and an obsession with his growing showbiz empire; he's said to have a dozen film and TV gigs in the works, including roles in upcoming movies. James has been dubbed by The Hollywood Reporter as the hottest producer in Tinsel town.
Shut Up and Dribble derives its name from a Laura Ingraham jab at James for vulgarly slamming the president a few months ago. It's one of several projects to be produced by James and his associate Maverick Carter.
Since calling President Donald Trump and his supporters "white supremacists" last fall, Hill has blundered through the failed ESPN debacle SC6, been suspended over her call for a boycott of advertisers who were paying her salary (oops!), fizzled as a mostly no-show writer for The Undefeated and emerged through it all as the National Association of Black Journalists' Journalist of the Year award winner.
Hill told The Hollywood Reporter: “I think LeBron, like a lot of people, has been very frustrated by the behavior of this administration. [Black Americans] feel very insulted and vulnerable within this time because of who’s in charge.”
And Stephen A. Crockett Jr., who writes for The Root, is at or near the very top of that list of people who hate Trump. And Ingraham. Rather than offer any substantive previews of the material viewers can expect to see on Shut Up and Dribble, Crockett praises James and Hill and then unleashes a torrent of hateful remarks about the president and Ingraham.
Crockett calls Hill "One of the realest to ever talk about sports, a must-follow on Twitter, and newly liberated fuckboy uncoverer, Jemele Hill." He writes that Hill's "white supremacist" attack on Trump "was a bold statement. It was also a true statement. But we are in a strange time where calling a sack of afterbirth a sack of afterbirth doesn’t go well in the Times New Roman hat font community. Hill was muted on ESPN and moved from a primetime 6 p.m. slot to the black vertical, The Undefeated. The president came for her. His minions also came for her but Hill never backed down.”
James is this way too, Crockett writes. "He doesn’t back down from his position as a leader on the court or his obligations to his community. He’s been vocal about his disdain for the ran-over, orange Etonic sneaker in the Oval Office and he openly supported Trump’s greatest rival and the woman whose name he can’t keep off his KFC greased stained tongue: Hillary Clinton."
Crockett ratcheted up the verbal mauling:
"The impetus for the film’s name came out of all places, President’s Trump personal YouTube channel, Fox News, after conservative pundit and resident Fox News asshole—which is kind of like saying a sneaker in Foot Locker considering the overwhelming number of assholes at Fox News—Laura Ingraham, claimed that James and Kevin Durant needed to stay out of politics and 'shut up and dribble.'
"What a way to turn a put down into a come up, which is all we really have left as long as the evil, discarded orange peel is in office."
The only real information Crockett gives about the documentary is that Isiah Thomas, Charles Barkley, Kevin Durant, Sway Calloway, Jay Z and Justin Timberlake will appear in it. James will talk about his favorite subject: "being LeBron James."
