FULL SYNOPSIS
A promising athlete learns firsthand about the realities of the business of professional sports in this documentary. In 2004, Sebastian Telfair was the point guard on his high-school basketball team at Lincoln High in Coney Island, NY, but from the start he was no ordinary player -- he'd been groomed as a potential champion since grade school, and by the time he was a senior at Lincoln he was being courted by professional sports agents as well as major college recruiters. Telfair's play on the court was strong enough to attract the attention of noted basketball fans Spike Lee and Jay-Z, but as Telfair pondered the possibility of going pro, he had to consider the story of his brother, another talented basketball player who became a collegiate basketball superstar but went unclaimed in the NBA draft and ending up playing in Greece. After announcing he'd attend college in Louisville, Telfair backtracked and opted to take part in the NBA draft, but as he's groomed as a clean-cut good-guy player with an endorsement deal for Adidas in the works, he has to wait and see where he'll end up and if he'll be able to live up to the hype. Produced in part for the ESPN cable network, Through the Fire: Sebastian Telfair's Defining Year was directed by Jonathan Hock. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Release date:February 10, 2006