'GOAT' Has No Business Being As Good As It Is

Every Filipino kid who’s ever played basketball on the playground has heard this axiom: “You can’t teach height.” In a game where players need to put a ball through a hoop 10 feet off the ground, every grown inch and a good vertical leap mattered. The Filipinos’ love for basketball has always been something of a mystery when football, a sport that lends itself better to our diminutive stature, is right there. Leo Messi, one of the greatest to ever play the game, is just 5’7”. But it is what it is, and the Philippines loves basketball more than any other country, even more than the United States, where basketball is only the second most popular sport behind American football. 

But basketball today is very, very different from how it looked ten, twenty years ago. The game that used to prize size has gotten a lot more complex and strategic. It’s just math. When the 3-point shot was introduced in 1980, many felt it was little more than a gimmick, especially when the best shooters made about 40 percent of their shots from beyond the arc. But a 40 percent three-pointer is as good as a 60 percent 2-pointer, and as soon as teams started to figure this out and more players became proficient with the shot, the game started to change. And nobody led this change more than Stephen Curry, who stands at 6’2” — a shortie by NBA standards — with a middling vertical. In 1994, the Houston Rockets made 429 three-pointers on their way to the Championship, the first team to ever make over 400 three-pointers in a season. In 2016, Curry sank 402 of those shots on his own.

One Filipino who understood this math long before everyone else did was Allan Caidic, who on November 21, 1991, unloaded a staggering 79-point barrage, including 17 three-pointers, nine of them in a quarter that net him 37 points. It’s one of the greatest performances by any basketball player ever, and nobody in the PBA has ever gotten close. Sure, Bong Alvarez scored 71 points the year before that, but the man did it the hard way, driving all the way to the basket and even making 10 Mr. Excitement-worthy dunks, but that’s a story for another time.

The point is, basketball changed. Curry’s accuracy from the outside redefined defensive strategies league-wide, spreading defenses that used to center near the paint to all over the floor. After Curry’s 2016 season, NBA players attempted 41% more 3-pointers over the next four years. In playgrounds and gyms all over the world, kids started putting up threes and long-range jumpers, perfecting their shots. WNBA phenom Caitlin Clark was 13 when Curry won his first championship, now the incoming third-year player who molded her ranged game after his is breaking records in her league, too, shooting 7 three pointers in one game from 28 to 30 feet away. The 3-point line is 22 feet from the basket.

Which finally brings us to GOAT, the new feature from Sony Animation Studios, which can now add K-Pop Demon Hunters to its namedrop alongside the Spiderverse films. Co-produced by Curry, the film is basically a Zootopia version of Stephen Curry’s rise in the NBA or poses the question “what if Stephen Curry played with Kobe Bryant?” It’s the story of a literal goat, Will Harris (Stranger Things’ Caleb McLaughlin), who dreams of playing professional roarball, which is kind of like basketball but cooler. He grew up idolizing Jett Fillmore (Gabrielle Union), a black panther whose game is reminiscent of a late, great player who was well-known for being abrasive to underperforming teammates and was often criticized for not passing the ball. The intensely physical game of roarball is dominated by ‘bigs’, or larger, more intimidating animals like rhinos, bears, or stallions with beautiful manes. No ‘small’ has ever played the game of roarball, but that doesn’t stop Will from dreaming big.

And why not? If this is the Stephen Curry biopic we’re going to get, it might as well get things right. Curry doesn’t voice Will; he merely cameos as the voice of his Vineland Thorns teammate, the rapping giraffe Lenny Williamson. But Will is pretty much Curry, with some of his signature mannerisms from having his mouthguard out the side of his mouth to his ‘night, night’ sleeping gesture to writing on the side of his shoe. While Curry writes, “I can do all things,” plucked from Philippians 4:13, his animated counterpart writes the more agnostic and generic, “dream big.” He even writes on an Under Armour, Curry’s shoe brand for the past 13 years.

The entire film feels like an Under Armour placement, with all the shoes and athletic gear sporting the familiar UA logo. It’s ironic and somewhat sad that Curry and Under Armour actually ended their partnership last November. It’s likely that Curry won’t ever wear his last signature shoe, the Curry 13s, but at least Under Armour has the next best thing — an anthropomorphic goat that changes the game of roarball. Ok, so maybe a cartoon goat is nothing like a two-time MVP and four-time NBA Champion who made basketball players all over the world work on their long-range game. But the spirit is the same, as Will’s ‘dream big’ motto is simple enough for audiences of all ages to live by.

GOAT is a genuine surprise, and is far better and more entertaining than any 100-minute product placement has any right to be. It’s also notable that the roarball league is co-ed, and Will’s childhood idol is a woman. Not only is Jett Fillmore female, but she’s also the most dominant player in the league while sporting the most stunning haute couture off the court.  GOAT is thoughtfully made from top to bottom, with an expectedly predictable but also serviceable and solid plot, interesting characters, and just enough world-building and distinctiveness in its art style that it feels nothing like Zootopia or even Space Jam. It stands on its own and surprisingly carves its own place in the glut of sports stories or ones with anthropomorphized animals.

GOAT may not change animated features the way Curry revolutionized basketball, but it’s a solid family-friendly film that’s sure to hit with basketball-crazed Filipino families. The film’s supercharged version of basketball is thematic and visually exciting, and it would actually be cool if Under Armour actually sold roarball league teams' swag. Curry and the athletic brand’s partnership might have ended, but at least we all got a really fun movie out of it.

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