The Paris Olympics: A chat with the director of the Netflix doc ‘Court of Gold'

New York Times

28-02-2025

Last summer, the basketball world was treated to one of the most fiercely contested tournaments in Olympics history in Paris. Earlier this month, fans were able to relive it all again with the new Netflix series, 'Court of Gold.'
The series offers unprecedented behind-the-scenes access to Team USA, with Kevin Durant taking center stage. 'Court of Gold' captures the shifting landscape in international basketball as it follows France, Serbia and Canada during their time in Paris and has already been labeled as the best sports series of 2025.
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On the latest episode of 'NBA Daily,' director Jake Rogal chatted with Es Baraheni and Zena Keita about which team was the most fun to cover and the best bits that didn't make it to our screens.
A partial transcript has been edited for clarity and length. The full episode is available on YouTube below or in the 'NBA Daily' podcast feed on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Keita: Which team was the most fun to be around? I have a thought, but I want your answer first.
Rogal: I want to hear your thoughts first, and I can tell you whether it's true or not.
Baraheni: Yeah, what's your bet?
Keita: I'm thinking Serbia. I think they were a good time. Particularly because while the USA and France were battling for their lives, Serbia had been drunk for 24 hours (laughs). I want to know if Serbia was the most fun.
Rogal: Max Gershberg was the lead producer on the show, and his job in Paris was to get the Serbians to warm up to him and the crew. It was the hardest assignment of the whole project because the Serbians were the most serious. Coach (Svetislav) Pešić ran a very tight ship, and Max had to do a lot of work to convince those guys that this was worth their time. So, the Serbians were one of the harder ones to crack because the tone that Coach Pešić set was, 'Nothing matters besides basketball. I don't care if you're in Paris and your family's here, you need to run on the track instead of having dinner with them.' Once they won a medal, they were fun, but that was one of the last days we were shooting.
The Canadians were the loosest team. They had cool music playing during practice, and they had a swagger about them that just jumped out.
Baraheni: It's what we do, true.
Keita: OK, whatever, Es (laughs).
Rogal: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander led that, but they were cool. Shai set the tone, and coach Jordi (Fernández) is also really cool; he's very human. The French were also really fun to be around. We got really close with Boris Diaw. He's awesome. But they had a lot of pressure on them, and anytime they left where they were, the media around them was insane, so it was harder for them to let loose.
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The USA basketball team was also fun to be around, but they had so much attention that it was hard to gain access there because everyone else was trying, and we were one of 100 people trying to get in with them. Each team had a different personality.
Baraheni: That's awesome to hear, because I guess hanging out each day, you didn't know what you were going to get. There was this unexpected mystery: 'What does today have in store for us?' It's sort of a moving target, storytelling-wise. One of the cool things about it is, at least from watching it from the outside perspective, you're wondering what was left. What did you guys not put in the doc? There are so many moments that were captured with Steph, KD and LeBron celebrating and the incredible USA-Serbia game, but what was the moment you wish was in that doc that wasn't?
Rogal: There are two that come to mind. One is we shot Greece qualifying for the Olympics, and that was cool because you saw Giannis (Antetokounmpo) in the locker room and they're all spraying champagne. It was awesome, but we needed to get to the Olympics early on because we had so much to cover, so we couldn't fit it in. Then the moment between Ant (Anthony Edwards) and President Obama. That night, we shot a dinner afterwards with the president and Team USA, which was amazing. But we didn't have room for it at that moment because, again, we just had to get to the Olympics. Those two moments come to mind.
Our team did an awesome job of getting the best stuff in. With a lot of these docs we shoot, we normally shoot over two or three years, and you have a ton of footage to work with. While we did shoot a lot, it was only from June '24 to December '24, so it's not as much as you would think. We picked the best moments and tried to build the series around those moments and tentpole them throughout the series.
Baraheni: Ant trash-talking Obama is amazing (laughs).
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Keita: No, it was not. It was so awkward. I had such cringe at that moment. I was like, 'This is the president, Ant, what are you doing?' (laughs)
Rogal: Let me take some of your cringes away, because it speaks volumes to who both of them are. President Obama is creating an environment where guys are comfortable enough being themselves. He could've easily come in and said, 'I'm the president, how dare you talk to me that way?' But he didn't, he was cool. He was actually getting more out of Ant by bringing LeBron in and saying, 'You hear what he said?' He was creating a comfortable environment for Ant, which shows how cool President Obama is. Then, Ant was being completely himself, because that's what makes Ant great. He's comfortable being himself no matter who he's in front of, whether it's us or the president; it shows how cool he is.
While I understand it's shocking and uncomfortable, they're both so cool for creating that moment and doing it knowing we were there. I feel like it was a cool moment.
You can listen to full episodes of NBA Daily for free on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, and watch on YouTube.