LeBron James didn’t repeat as NBA Champion this month, but he’s still a hero to the cast of Comedy Central’s raunchy, basketball-obsessed animated hit “The Legends of Chamberlain Heights,” whose second season premiered last Sunday.
Creator Josiah Johnson told TheWrap that the show’s main characters — high school basketball benchwarmers and class clowns Grover (who prays to James every day), Jamal and Milk — were inspired by the experiences he and co-creator Quinn Hawking had while riding the bench as UCLA basketball players. Brad Ableson, Mike Clements and Michael Starrbury also created the show.
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But a different, much higher-profile baller also cast a large shadow on the first season of “Legends”: Cleveland Cavaliers star James, who won his third NBA championship last year after coming back from a three-games-to-one deficit to beat the Golden State Warriors. While the show premiered after the 2016 NBA Finals, Johnson and his partners didn’t know that when they were creating it
“Last season we went super LeBron-heavy,” Johnson said. “I definitely want to say we got lucky with that. I want to see how the show would have turned out if LeBron would have lost.”
The Cavaliers’ loss in the 2017 NBA Finals earlier this month hasn’t dampened their real-life or fictional enthusiasm for the best player in the game, however, although Johnson wasn’t impressed with the uncompetitive NBA postseason, calling it “boring as s—-”
On the show, Hawking voices Jamal, who memorably fell in love with a 2Pac-lookalike stripper named Tupaquia in what Johnson called his favorite episode of the first season, while Johnson lends his voice to Grover and Milk, the not-so-stereotypical white friend.
“The white character who acts black has been done,” he said. “But not like Milk. I think as I pitched it as ‘we need a white guy to be the hardest kid in the crew.’ He kind of represents the ignorant side of the spectrum.”
And while there’s certainly an element of social awareness in the show — in one episode, Grover decides he needs to buy expensive shoes called “Shackles” — Johnson said it’s not intended to be overly political.
“We try to just sprinkle in social commentary,” Johnson said. “Not beat you over the head with it.”
Naturally, Johnson used a LeBron-inspired analogy when he talked about the quick re-up “Legends” got from Comedy Central — nearly two months before the first season even premiered.
“We got the second season order faster than any other show in Comedy Central history,” he said. “We look at ‘South Park’ — they’re Kobe [Bryant] and we’re LeBron.”
But as the NBA prepares for one of its wildest drafts in years on Thursday night– featuring a top pick that was traded earlier this week, possible trades of stars including Indiana’s Paul George, Chicago’s Jimmy Butler and New York’s Kristaps Porzingis, and a passing savant with a budding media star dad, likely Los Angeles Lakers’ pick Lonzo Ball — don’t be surprised if some of those storylines eventually make their way into “Legends.”
“We love pop culture, we love the NBA,” Johnson said. “We want to incorporate the NBA as much as possible.”
“Legends of Chamberlain Heights” airs Sunday at 11:30 p.m. on Comedy Central.