Stream It Or Skip It: ‘One Shot: Overtime Elite’ on Prime Video, A Docuseries About A New Professional Basketball League for Teenagers Angling For NBA Glory

Founded in 2021, Overtime Elite is a new path for young basketball players hoping to make the NBA–a professional basketball league for players between 16 and 20 years old that offers an alternative to NCAA basketball or playing overseas. One Shot: Overtime Elite, a new series streaming on Amazon Prime Video, offers a look inside the company’s workings, and a peek at some of the potential future stars opting for this path.

ONE SHOT: OVERTIME ELITE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A montage of tense sense inside the Overtime arena and locker rooms, as dramatic music throbs and players talk about the stakes of the game. It’s a hype reel for the show itself, and sets the tone of what’s to come.

The Gist: The pilot of One Shot: Overtime Elite works to introduce some of the players that OTE hopes to make stars–TikTok star Eli Ellis, high-flying junior Jahki Howard, future NBA picks the Thompson twins, and so on. But a lot of the episode’s airtime is also given to OTE’s management–the recruitment and player-development staff that’s building this league essentially from scratch. It’s very slickly produced, and feels a good bit like a recruitment video for the league itself.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? There’s an obvious comparison to be made to another program that’s recently debuted on Amazon Prime, Destination NBA: A G League Odyssey, which follows players within the NBA’s own developmental league. One Shot: Overtime Elite focuses on younger players taking a different track to professional ball, but it’s got a similar vibe.

Our Take: One Shot: Overtime Elite is a kind of sports-documentary miniseries we’ve seen a lot lately–an attempt to turn a real sport into a reality show. There’s been big successes, like Netflix F1-focused Drive To Survive (and its golf- and tennis-focused clones, Full Swing and Break Point). There’s been other basketball ones like this, too–Top Class, which follows Bronny James’ Sierra Canyon Trailblazers, Destination NBA: A G League Odyssey, and Last Chance U: Basketball, to name a few.

That is to say–One Shot: Overtime Elite is stepping into a crowded genre, and it’s hard to see exactly how it’s going to break away from the pack.

The series is an infomercial of sorts for Overtime Elite, a two-year-old professional developmental league for top-flight young players between the ages of 16 and 20. OTE is working to establish itself as an alternative to the traditional high school-to-college path to the NBA, and it’s got a compelling pitch to players: they’re getting paid. (There’s also a scholarship path for players who want to retain eligibility should they choose to play in the NCAA.) Though the league is relatively new, it’s already proven itself as a path to the big-time, with twins Amen and Ausar Thompson (who played for OTE’s City Reapers) getting drafted back-to-back in the top five of the 2023 NBA Draft. OTE is for real, and with that success, it’s sure to attract more players looking for a path to the NBA where they can get paid fairly along the way.

The only problem is that the show is rather dry. There’s a lot of serious narration, dramatic score and slick production values. It just doesn’t offer a ton to grab casual viewers in, or to get you invested in the success of the players it’s supposedly introducing you to. Instead, it almost feels geared toward convincing other future players that Overtime Elite is for real. It succeeds on that front, but it’s less successful as entertainment.

Sex and Skin: No sex or skin, but plenty of R-rated language; this isn’t appropriate for younger viewers.

Parting Shot: The City Reapers finish off a win against the YNG Dreamers, but no one’s happy–players argue even as they’re walking off the court, cursing at each other and storming out. It’s drama, but it’s not terribly compelling drama.

Sleeper Star: There’s no question here–the most recognizable figures in One Shot: Overtime Elite are twins Amen and Ausar Thompson, who played for OTE’s City Reapers and then went #4 and #5 in the 2023 NBA Draft. They’re proof that OTE can pull in top-flight talent, and that it can’t be ignored as an option for players going forward.

Most Pilot-y Line: “Your emotion is way more important than your skill,” coach Dave Leitao implores players during a practice. “You’ve been down and up, I’ve been down and up, we’ve all been down and up, we’ve got to help guys be up.” It comes in the context of multiple of OTE’s main figures discussing potential star Jahki Howard’s difficult personal situation, with coaches talking about how they want to help him, but it’s hard to tell if it’s genuine concern or simply interest in his potential.

Our Call: SKIP IT. If you’re a hardcore basketball fan who needs to know about every prospect years before they arrive in the NBA, then there might be something here for you. For the average sports fan, though, there’s just not a huge hook.

Scott Hines, publisher of the widely-beloved Action Cookbook Newsletter, is an architect, blogger and proficient internet user based in Louisville, Kentucky.