First Impressions: "Ballers"

Written by Scotty

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There are only a few shows that I look forward to watching, especially if they are new to the airwaves.  When I first saw the commercial for HBO’s Ballers, my interest picked up a little bit.  The fact that Dwayne Johnson is the star of the show was admittedly the draw for me since not much was really explained in the commercials, other than he was a retired football player trying to make a name for himself on the representation front.  It is a novel idea and it looked like it was trying to bring back a little bit of the storyline that Entourage gave us years ago.

The pilot episode felt just like that, a pilot.  Spencer Strasmore is out of the game, but still hanging with his boys that are still in it.  Becoming a money manager, Spencer was brought into the job to pimp his friends as clients, but he has not yet found that happy medium.  As he still gets invited to the Ballers shindigs, Spencer tries to pass on his knowledge of how to control money so the players do not end up out of the game broke, and while some of the young bucks take his advice, most of them are just living their life with every dollar that they have.

The main plot line comes from aging cornerback, Ricky Jerret as he gets called out in a night club for not following the rules and gets into a fight.  Since this is not his first offense, and he has been known as a hot head on and off the field, he gets cut by the owners.  With his name not holding the value it once did in the league, Ricky has to rely on his boy Spencer and his agent to get him onto another team before the preseason starts.  Spencer still has plenty of pull in the league and gets a team rep to check out Ricky’s story and personality to see if the Dolphins should even waste their time in bringing him in.  Although the rules have not applied to Ricky in the past, he is woken up to what his new lifestyle needs to be and will be humbled before he can rise to the top again.

There are a couple other storylines in this as well.  Retired Offensive lineman Charles Greane is in need of a job.  Not knowing what he can do, or really wants to do, he finds himself a new home becoming a cars salesman.  Current linebacker Vernon Littlefield is in need of cash in a big way and knows that his friend Spencer will bail him out once again.  Even though Spencer will do anything for his friend, arriving at the house to see a party taking place, he knows that Vernon will need to change his ways and becomes one of the first friends to be listed on his client list.

Like I said above, it was a pilot episode and it felt just like that.  It has not grabbed me in, but has not yet pushed me away either.  One of the things that I hope gets better and quickly is the rapport between the characters, it did not seem to be very natural in this episode and a little bit forced.  But I will give it another shot as there will be bigger stories coming into play during the season and I really hope that they can capture the friendship dynamic that they are trying to sell, since it is really what the storyline is being pushed towards.

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