Netflix’s Foul-Mouthed Basketball Comedy ‘Hoops’ Clanks A Few But Scores

The game of basketball has had many storied coaches, from the NBA’s Red Auerbach and Phil Jackson, to college giants such as UCLA’s John Wooden, Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski, UConn’s Geno Auriemma and Tennessee’s Pat Summitt, to high school heroes such as DeMatha’s Morgan Wootten.

Ben Hopkins is none of those. As the central character on Netflix’s very-much-not-for-kids animated comedy series Hoops, Hopkins is the terrible head coach of a bad high school basketball team. Worse, he has a hair-trigger temper and a predilection for bad language blue enough to make Bob Saget blush. The show debuts on Aug. 21.

“I loved the idea of exploring a guy who was that passionate, but also, like the passion didn’t equal the talent,” said show creator Ben Freeman (The Ben Show). “I’ve never seen a show or a movie where this guy was so passionate and loves what he does so much, yet is so bad at it and has apparently no skills and just got there because of his dad. He’s as bad at relationships as he is at coaching. I thought it would be fun to watch him just basically screw everything up.”

Freeman grew up in Lexington, Ky., where the University of Kentucky is one of college basketball’s temples, beginning with Adolph “Baron” Rupp’s four NCAA championships in the 1940s and ‘50s through to incumbent John Calipari, who added the school’s eighth in 2012. Ben Hopkins dreams of being so successful that he’s hired to coach in the pros, with an infinity pool and lots of, ahem, off-court attention.

But Hopkins’ dream faces endless challenges. His team is a diverse batch of generally dim and incompetent misfits, his estranged wife is dating his assistant coach, his father is a famous retired player who runs a steakhouse in town. And then there’s Ben’s epic and self-defeating tantrums.

“Coaching is the last kind of job in America where it’s not frowned upon, almost applauded, the more vulgar and crazy you are,” Hoffman said. “I grew up with (former Indiana University coach) Bobby Knight throwing chairs and stuff. You see these coaches going crazy now and people think of that in a weird way. Any other job, you’d be fired immediately but in sport, as a coach, if you go crazy, they kind of see it as a positive, like, ‘He cares.’”

Hopkins is voiced by Jake Johnson (New Girl, Stumptown), who’s also an executive producer, along with Phil Lord and Christopher Miller (the Lego movies, Oscar winner Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse), M. Dickson, Itay Reiss, and Seth Cohen.

The coach’s father, Barry Hopkins, is voiced by Daily Show veteran Rob Riggle, part of what Riggle calls a “murderer’s row” of comics, also including Ron Funches, Natasha Leggero, Cleo King and A.D. Miles.

“Jake Johnson and I made a list of our favorite comedians, and we just got lucky that almost all of them said, ‘Yes,’” Hoffman said.

Riggle grew up playing basketball, and studied theater at the University of Kansas, another Mecca of the game, though he quickly cautions, “I wasn’t anything that special, but I love the game of basketball.”

Riggle’s real team sport might be improvisation, as with Hoffman and Johnson, who put together that group of voice talent based in part on their improv skills.

“We wanted to make sure we had people who made us laugh, and with improv experience, who if we said to go off the script and just mess around with and have fun with it, if they had the talent to do that. We wanted to try a little bit more improvisation.”

And it made a lot of difference in terms of creating more spontaneous comedy, Riggle said.

“With most animation, it’s just you and the director and some of the producers because it’s so hard to get everybody on the same schedule or get everybody in there,” Riggle said. “This particular production, Jake was available all the time because he was producing on it. So he came into every recording session, so you got to do a lot of lines with him, which was fantastic.”

Hoffman wrote the pilot six years ago, after his own show on Comedy Central wrapped up.

“I grew up in Kentucky where basketball is king,” Hoffman said. “So that is where it really comes home for me. I wrote it at a time where I was kind of frustrated with Hollywood, and I did not want to write a show about frustrated comedy writers. I just went back to my youth. And I would say basketball is the showbiz of Kentucky where those are the stars in that state and that town where I grew up.”

Hopkins coaches the Lenwood High Colts, a rather bedraggled crew that at least is diverse, including a Black kid who’s into Billy Joel, and a gay guy who gets harassed by other gay students for hanging out with his straight teammates.

The mix of characters offers plenty of humor opportunities, and plenty of chances to offend. Not every joke scores, though as the episodes progress, the show seems to find a surer comedic footing. Regardless, it’s definitely not a show to watch with your 10-year-old.

“The thing is this is no holds barred,” Riggle said. ‘This is not for children. This isn’t for adults who can’t handle it. Okay? If you’re adult who doesn’t like that language, no judgment, that’s fine. That’s your thing. This is not for you. But this, I would say it’s it’s a hard R (rating)and it’s for adults and it’s a lot of fun too.”