• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, February 27, 2025

A woman takes over the family pro-basketball business and the men in this male bastion give her no respect -- no respect at all!*

A pro basketball team run by a chick? No way, man! Yes way, says the chick in charge -- plucky Isla Gordon, daughter of the late owner of a fictional basketball franchise in Los Angeles with a storied history.

She’s the feisty central character in the half-hour hoops comedy “Running Point,” premiering Thursday on Netflix.

I would venture to say that gutsy Ms. Gordon is Private Benjamin on the hardwood, but I’ve never seen “Private Benjamin.” 

Suffice it to say that she is played by Kate Hudson, daughter of Private Benjamin herself, Goldie Hawn.

“Private Benjamin” came out in 1980. In the movie, Private B. does indeed face various challenges from overly aggressive men. (I looked it up on Wikipedia.)

In “Running Point,” Isla faces disrespect on all sides -- from two others in top management who happen to be her brothers, and from the players themselves.

These macho men are so crass that they share crude remarks in the locker room about their new boss’s anatomy in a sexual manner! Yuck! Even worse, at least two of the star players have the gall to ignore her. One of them even sprays deodorant in her face when she is trying to talk to him in the locker room.

In the show, the team is the Los Angeles Waves. They play in a fictional league that is not the NBA, but on the same level. Apparently, the NBA passed on this opportunity.

By the end of Episode One, Isla shows ’em who’s boss by making a bold deal with two other teams for a player swap, plus draft picks. 

One of the problems I had with this show while previewing the first episode was the lack of authenticity of the basketball environment, specifically the players. None of them looked like basketball players at all. 

In addition, they are depicted as total neanderthal a—holes, which is not how athletes at the highest level of professional sports -- especially the NBA and NFL -- present themselves today. 

In “Running Point,” the Waves seem like a small-city team on the minor league circuit.

The first episode of “Running Point” starts with lovely Isla making a clumsy attempt at reciting Tolstoy, but her version is a festival of f-words.** 

For this terrible writing, the show credits Mindy Kaling, Ike Barinholtz and David Stassen. If you don’t enjoy gratuitous vulgarity, then write them a letter.

With its storyline about a woman defying the odds to crash through a corporate glass ceiling, “Running Point” feels dated. 

Even if we have not yet achieved c-suite workplace equality, we are certainly farther along than the way it is depicted in the show. 

On the other hand, men’s professional sports is a corporate world that is still largely men-only. At the same time, the NBA today has woman referees, and no one is spraying deodorant in their faces.

“Running Point”premieres on Thursday (February 27) on Netflix.

*Adapted from Rodney Dangerfield

**The quotation is the famous opening sentence of Anna Karenina: “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” (Bantam Classic)