Remember that time Fox News host Laura Ingraham got upset that “someone who gets paid $100 million a year to bounce a ball” would dare have an opinion on the politics going on in the country he was born in, raised in, lives in and pays taxes in—so she said LeBron James and any other NBA player with an opinion on Trump and the nation should just “Shut up and dribble”?
Those words are coming back to haunt her in the best way possible—and I, for one, am all the way here for it.
On Monday, Showtime announced that the NBA superstar is behind a docuseries called Shut Up and Dribble. According to a report from CBS News, the three-part series will debut in October, and will examine the “changing role of athletes in the current political and cultural climate against the backdrop of the NBA.”
The series will trace the path of NBA players from the league’s merger with the ABA in 1976 to the present day and will look at the role players have had in politics, commerce and fashion.
James, his business partner Maverick Carter and his agent Rich Paul will executive produce the series. It will be directed by Gotham Chopra, who also directed Kobe Bryant’s Muse for Showtime in 2015.
James—who just opened a school for underprivileged children in his hometown of Akron, Ohio—has another show called The Shop debuting on HBO Aug. 28. In it, he will travel around the country visiting different barber shops, leading the patrons and barbers in different conversations and debates as he goes.
Showtime President David Nevins said in a statement, “If being a star athlete is inherently a political experience, Shut Up and Dribble tells that complex and dramatic story from the past to the present and from the inside out. LeBron James is one of many competitors whose place in the spotlight has led not to silence but perspective, and he, Maverick Carter and Gotham Chopra have given us an important, insightful docuseries that should bring their fans and fellow citizens to a higher level of discourse, rather than the dismissal satirized in the title.”
I hope Laura Ingraham feels a pin-prick every time the show’s title is mentioned.