Sports
‘NBA Lane’ director Rick Famuyiwa’s love of basketball is fit for commemorating the NBA’s 75th season

Source: The Undefeated
‘I was just flattered and honored to have this come my way, and that I was entrusted with helping to tell this story’
BY MARC J. SPEARS
LOS ANGELES — When filming a walk down NBA Lane to celebrate the league’s upcoming 75th anniversary, director Rick Famuyiwa rolled cameras at Universal Studios and CBS’ backlot. But, the Los Angeles native thought — with the predominantly Black NBA in mind — that it was important to add soul, too, by bringing NBA greats past and present to South Central Los Angeles’ Leimert Park neighborhood.
“There are these Black neighborhoods in LA that are sort of a foundation of my experiences,” Famuyiwa told The Undefeated recently. “And so, growing up in LA, but also growing up a big Laker fan, when we talked about the neighborhood of the NBA and the kinds of places that both the players touch and the players would, I guess in theory, live in this neighborhood that connects 75 years of the history, it was the kind of vibe and the kind of spot that I felt would be right.”
To promote the NBA’s 75th anniversary, the NBA made a short film called NBA Lane, which is a metaphorical neighborhood fitted with the league’s personalities and top moments to help the fans reminisce about the league’s history.
Throughout the trip down NBA Lane, you will encounter some of the greats of the past, current superstars and future stars. During filming at Leimert Park, such current NBA players as Carmelo Anthony, LaMelo Ball, Devin Booker, Anthony Davis, Kawhi Leonard and Jayson Tatum took part. Former NBA greats Gary Payton, Isiah Thomas and Jerry West also were involved in the three-day shoot last month.
“Just reflecting on 75 years and all the teams and players, it is an honor to be a part of 75 years. It has always been a dream of mine to be in the NBA. I was honored when they asked. It’s a big deal,” Tatum told The Undefeated.
This season the NBA will also announce its Top 75 players in league history as picked by a select panel. Anthony, who will enter his 19th NBA season with the Los Angeles Lakers next month, was very proud to be a part of the filming.
“It’s history. Seventy-five years of anything is a lot,” Anthony told The Undefeated. “But for the NBA and basketball in general, that’s definitely a major milestone. And for me personally, to be almost 20 of the 75 is a different perspective. So I had to be a part of this.”
Famuyiwa was attracted to Leimert Park due to its rich Black history that’s still strong today. The 230-acre plot of land is known for being a historical and contemporary hub of Black art, culture and music in Los Angeles. There are several Black-owned businesses as well as a lively poetry hip-hop scene. Famous Leimert Park residents include legendary singers Ella Fitzgerald and Ray Charles, and former LA Mayor Tom Bradley. Many of the local residents stood nearby to watch the filming.
An intrigued Davis, who is entering his third season with the Lakers, asked Famuyiwa about the neighborhood during his film shoot, a place where the Lakers and LA Clippers have hosted community events.
“There’s always been such a warm and kind of an artistic center and an energy around Leimert that I always felt was like the heart any kind of community has to have,” Famuyiwa said. “And so I was excited about bringing that to the screen, even if we weren’t saying that it was Leimert, the idea that that would be a foundational element was important. And it was great that the league and everyone sort of saw that and felt like it added the same kind of character and texture that the piece needed.
“And I was excited to be back there shooting, because going back to college, I spent a lot of time there. There was a spot called The Good Life, which was this open mic hip-hop spot that was right there in Leimert where a lot of people would come together from all walks of life as the sort of art form was really taking a foothold in the city. It was good to be back and just be in that element, but then have the NBA and these great players be there, too.”
Famuyiwa is most known for being director, producer and screenwriter of productions including The Wood, Brown Sugar, Talk to Me, Our Family Wedding, Dope, Confirmation and The Mandalorian. The Nigerian American’s inspiration for writing and directing The Wood in 1999 came from his upbringing not too far from Leimert Park in Inglewood. Famuyiwa said he sat in the nosebleeds at the old Forum in Inglewood while attending a handful of games during his youth. In junior high, he said, he also played in the championship of his junior high basketball league before a Lakers home game against the Detroit Pistons.
“I grew up playing hoops, so basketball has always been sort of a foundational element in my life,” Famuyiwa said. “It taught me a lot about life and teams and cooperation that I still use in my profession today. And then I grew up in Inglewood in the height of the ’80s and ’90s as the Lakers had a dynasty and then in the 2000s, when they had another one.”
Famuyiwa is a huge Lakers fan who wore a black Lakers Magic Johnson jersey during one day of filming. The Clippers will open a new arena in Inglewood in 2024. Famuyiwa starred as a small forward at St. Bernard High School in the Los Angeles suburb of Playa Del Rey. A childhood friend was once quoted in The Los Angeles Times saying that Famuyiwa used to be able to dunk like Michael Jordan.
Famuyiwa said he turned down some full basketball scholarships from mid-major Division I programs to attend the University of Southern California in hopes of being a part of its famed film school.
Famuyiwa walked on to the Trojans’ men’s basketball team coached by Hall of Famer George Raveling. The 6-foot-4 forward went scoreless in eight games for USC during the 1991-92 season, and scored just 2 points on two shots and grabbed 4 rebounds in 11 minutes during the 1992-93 season. The 1992-93 Trojans won a school record-tying 24 games and finished ranked eighth nationally before losing on a half-court buzzer-beater against Georgia Tech in the second round. Famuyiwa left USC’s basketball team following the 1992-93 season after being accepted into film school.
“I got hooked up after applying to film school. And my hoop dreams … well, I knew my hoop dreams had come to an end well before that,” Famuyiwa said.
During his senior year in 1995, Famuyiwa wrote and directed his critically acclaimed thesis film called Blacktop Lingo, which was a 12-minute short film about basketball. With Famuyiwa’s love of basketball in mind, it didn’t take long for him to say yes to the NBA Lane project.
“I was just flattered and honored to have this come my way, and that I was entrusted with helping to tell this story,” Famuyiwa said. “So, for me, it wasn’t even anything. It was kind of a dream to have all these things come together and to be able to bring the passion for film that I have now to it. It was almost like a perfect scenario to jump into and I was thrilled from the very beginning.”
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Lifestyle
Improve your marathon time with proper pre-hydration

Andy Blow, sweat expert and founder of leading sports fuelling and hydration company Precision Fuel and Hydration, discusses how pre hydration can help improve your marathon time.
Dehydration can seriously impact an athlete’s performance, and enjoyment of a marathon.
Yet according to the International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism, 31% of amateur athletes arrive at training sessions or events dehydrated.
For those looking to shave minutes off their race time – simply starting properly hydrated could be the answer.
We caught up with Andy Blow, CEO of Precision Fuel and Hydration, to find out how pre hydration can have such a dramatic effect on your marathon, and how runners can start a race in the best possible condition.
The benefits of pre-hydrating
Optimising your hydration status before a marathon, or ‘preloading’, can increase your blood volume and significantly improve your performance.
According to Sport Nutrition by Jeukendrup and Gleeson, dehydration of just 8% of each individual’s total-body water could half their exercise endurance, based on a 121 minute session.
Research has proven that taking onboard a high concentration of electrolytes, the salts and minerals that help your body function, promotes fluid retention which in turn increases the blood volume in your body.
This increased blood volume supports cardiovascular function helping transport oxygen and fuel to your muscles, and your body’s ability to dissipate heat produced by your working muscles.
This can reduce fatigue and improve endurance performance – helping you run your best marathon possible.
On the other hand, exercising in a dehydrated state can reduce blood volume, limit cardiovascular performance and limit the body’s ability to cool itself through sweat – all limiting the body’s ability to perform.
Pre-hydration is more than drinking water
Hydration is much more than just the amount of water we drink.
Your body is constantly aiming to maintain a balance between water and electrolytes.
It’s therefore important to take on correct levels of both to properly hydrate.
Drinking just water can upset that balance, diluting the body’s concentration of salt. Always wanting to maintain equilibrium, the body’s solution to this is to expel the excess water through urine. It’s basically going make you pee!
Unfortunately, this will also take with it some of the electrolytes in your system, further diluting your blood sodium levels and impacting your performance (and wellbeing in extreme cases).
However, consuming a strong electrolyte solution in the build up to a marathon will boost your salt levels, encouraging your body to retain the water you drink, helping you to start the race fully hydrated.
How to hydrate before a marathon
The timings of a race day, particularly an event as large as the London Marathon, can be vastly different to an athlete’s usual routine.
That’s why planning your hydration strategy is key.
Athletes preparing for a marathon should drink a strong electrolyte drink the night before the race to encourage your body to retain fluid, which will boost blood volume.
Aim for drinks containing >1,000mg of sodium per litre.
The morning of the race, 90 minutes before the start is recommended, athletes should drink another bottle of strong electrolyte drink to top-up blood plasma volume.
It is important to finish this drink 45 minutes before you set off to give the body time to process it.
While this plan will enable the average marathon participant to arrive at the start line hydrated, every person’s sweat concentration and sweat rate will be different, so athletes looking to maximise their potential should know their numbers, do a sweat test and form a more personalised hydration plan.
Dangers of over drinking
As much as beginning a marathon dehydrated can negatively impact your performance, there is also a danger that athletes can drink too much water in anticipation of a race – leading to a new set of problems.
Nervous drinking before a race is common for newcomers to marathon running, and those who haven’t planned their hydration.
Drinking too much water without taking on electrolytes can lead to hyponatremia.
Hyponatremia can be summarised as low blood sodium levels. This can be caused by inadequately replacing the sodium lost when sweating, compounded by drinking plain water or weak sports drinks mixed that further dilute sodium on the body.
Sodium is vital for several bodily functions like blood pressure and working nerves and muscles.
Hyponatremia can cause nausea or vomiting, fatigue, loss of energy, muscle weakness and cramps; all things you want to avoid when running a marathon.
According to National Kidney Foundation, when sodium levels are particularly low, more serious health implications can occur, even resulting in death.
Don’t waste your training
It’s probable that if you’re signed up to a spring marathon, you’ve done months of hard training.
By making sure you start the race properly hydrated, you not only reduce unnecessary discomfort, fatigue and muscle weakness, but will allow your body to realise its full potential come race day.
Training is also an ideal opportunity to test out your hydration strategy. Try running through your pre-race hydration and timings with the confidence that you are in the best possible shape.
Lifestyle
Finding time for training in the busiest of schedules

Whether you’re a serious runner or casual athlete, fitting your training sessions into a busy schedule can be tough. Once you factor in rigid work hours, family duties, or other commitments, it can feel like there are few available opportunities to get your trainers on and hit the roads. Andy Blow, former elite triathlete, leading sports scientist, and CEO and founder of sport nutrition multinational Precision Fuel & Hydration (PF&H), shares his tips for training with a busy schedule.
Make a plan that works for you
Planning ahead is the key to making the most of every hour in the day.
Consolidate all your commitments onto one central calendar. Whether it’s work meetings, school runs, or domestic chores, you’ll be able to get a clearer idea of your schedule, and what is going to be a realistic amount of training for you to achieve.
Instead of picking a high intensity programme, then trying to cram it into your week, start with non-negotiable commitments and build up your plan around these.
It’s a more sustainable way to train, which means you’re more likely to stick to the plan and hit your long-term goals.
Use your time wisely
Waking up an hour or two earlier means you can get some training in before your day has even begun.
Not only does this add extra hours into your schedule, but they’re hours which are unlikely to be filled with other commitments. How often do you plan an evening run, only for something more pressing to be added to your diary halfway through the day?
Hit the trails early and clock up those morning miles before the world wakes up.
If you’re responsible for taking children or other family members to clubs and appointments, use this time to your advantage. Keep a pair of running shoes in the car and plan a route to complete while you wait.
If your office building has a shower available, turn your commute into a training opportunity by running part or the whole of your journey.
Training smarter also means you’ll get the most out of your time. Instead of running for the sake of running, incorporate sessions that are specific to your end goal, whether this means regular hill sessions, speed intervals or longer, slow runs.
Fuel, hydrate, and recover
What you do between sessions can be as important as the training itself; you’ll never get the best out of a run if you’re lacking energy or have improperly recovered and hydrated. When you’re short on time, every run must count.
When people talk about hydration, it’s often about what and how much you should drink during exercise. But your performance is also hugely influenced by how hydrated you are when you start exercising in the first place.
There’s strong evidence to show that taking in additional sodium with fluids before you start sweating is effective in promoting increased acute fluid retention and improving endurance performance, especially in the warmer weather.
There’s more to fuelling than just calorie intake, and there’s a few common pitfalls which can catch you out.
Not taking enough carbohydrate to adequately support your rate of energy expenditure is the number one fuelling mistake, but it’s possible to take on too much carb as well – primarily because of the gastrointestinal (GI) distress a sugar overdose can cause.
Fuelling using pre-packaged sports nutrition is a no-brainer for short to moderate training sessions or endurance events, where taking in palatable, simple carbohydrates is the key to success. They’re convenient and can simplify getting your carb intake just right.
Despite already recommending getting up that bit earlier sleep is also worthy of mention and is an extremely powerful tool for recovery – something many of us are guilty of neglecting. If you’re an athlete, getting enough sleep should be as big a part of your training program as your exercise sessions.
Set a clear goal
Even if you’re a casual runner, take on the challenge of a race or event you can train for. Having a goal will keep you motivated, especially if it has a fixed date to work towards.
True performance comes from long term consistency, not weeks of hard training, so a long-term goal is a great way to stay accountable over a sustained period.
With busy schedules and multiple commitments, life can very easily get in the way of our goals. But I truly believe that there’s time for training in even the busiest schedule if you train smart, set priorities, and plan your time carefully.
Education
University students hold the keys to ‘level up’ the esports industry

Written by Tao Martinez, Head of University Esports Development at GGTech
For many students, getting in from a class or lecture means jumping onto CS:GO or League of Legends with their friends to pass the time and have a laugh for a few hours.
Climbing the ranks may spark conversation about “going professional” one day but forging a career in esports has never been more accessible for students, with the industry growing by the day.
The total revenue of the esports industry in 2021 was estimated by Newzoo to be $833.6 million, and this is enhanced by a rising number of jobs, university courses and opportunities, making it one of the fastest growing and desirable sectors to lead a career in.
The opportunities
The most obvious route into esports is through being the best at a given game, with teams willing to sign players up on a contract to represent them at tournaments and online leagues. And whilst this is desirable, there are actually a whole host of other careers within the industry.
With Covid fears beginning to fade, in-person gaming events are returning with competitions such as the Amazon UNIVERSITY Esports Masters, hosted by GGTech in collaboration with NUEL, bringing together the best university talent across Europe to face off.
Beyond the players, these events require event organisers, planners and managers, advertising, sponsorship, social media promotion, casting, filming, tech support, and that’s before even getting to the participants which involves players, coaches, and team organisations.
There are so many aspects to a successful esports competition which in turn creates a wealth of jobs and opportunities – which are growing all the time. And these opportunities are also available through online esports leagues as well.
We are in an era where traditional television is being taken over by Netflix, YouTube and Twitch, creating new mediums for viewers to engage with esports, which is reflected by a growing viewer base.
Research from VentureBeat estimated that in 2021 there were 234 million esports enthusiasts, up from 197 and 200.8 million respectively in 2019, highlighting a stark growth. What’s more is that by 2024 there are expected to be 285.8 million enthusiasts and 291.6 million occasional viewers. Esports is a rapidly growing industry that people want to be involved with, and it’ll only get bigger in the coming years.
This is supported by an increase in job awareness through sites like Hitmarker, a dedicated jobs site for advertising esports opportunities.
University courses
The esports ecosystem supports universities through the development of teaching, facilities and opportunities in the industry which helps to focus on student’s interests whilst developing their core skills in preparation for a career in the industry.
For example, Confetti Institute of Creative Technologies, as part of Nottingham Trent University, offer a BSc in Esports Production which teaches students about the global esports industry, the principles of esports, production and technology, as well as broadcasting and management. This will be delivered in Confetti X, a £5 million dedicated esports complex due to open ahead of the upcoming academic year.
Universities such as Sheffield Hallam offer courses in esports management, whilst Chichester has its own esports degree. This is supplemented by universities such as Warwick who have large student esports communities who come together for competitions and tournaments.
The importance of good training in developing the esports industry is being increasingly recognised by universities who are creating new courses each year as a result. Courses involving business, management, events, marketing, journalism and design all offer unique skills which match up with a plethora of new jobs emerging in the esports scene, and with the industry growing at the rate it is, the number of these jobs will only rise.
Moving forwards, the onus is not only on the esports industry supplying opportunities for university students, but also on the university ecosystem to provide the highest-quality education and training in order to fuel the integration of new talent into the dynamic esports workforce.
In order to assist students who are pursuing a career in esports, GGTech works with university students to run and produce the Amazon UNIVERSITY Esports Masters competitions, giving them vital first-hand experience at casting, broadcasting and event management.
Part of the fabric for the future development and growth of the esports industry is putting faith in the talent of university students, being willing to innovate courses, equipment and opportunities, and supporting students every step of the way to help turn their hobby into their future employment.
That’s why university campuses are the best testing space for evolving equipment, products and services whilst allowing students to gain valuable experience, especially through internships and competition management.
Opening people’s eyes to the vast array of opportunities and careers that the esports sector has to offer will fuel the next generation to become the core of the industry during its rapid growth.
Now is the time for a career in esports
In the esports industry revenues are growing, viewership is growing, the number of participants is growing, and this is creating more and more opportunities all the time.
There is no better time to pursue a career in esports, and education is at the forefront of attracting prospective students into the industry. As the sector grows, we will see an increasing number of universities offering esports related courses and follow in the footsteps of Confetti in building dedicated facilities for students to gain the best first-hand experience for running tournaments.
Students should be encouraged to take the plunge, and universities and esports professionals must provide the best assistance possible to welcome in the new generation to help the entire esports industry grow.

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