Domantas Sabonis becomes vulnerable in Netflix docuseries ‘Starting 5’
You come home from a day at the office to find a Netflix crew in your living room.
This is what Domantas Sabonis has experienced over the past year. Only for the 6-foot-2 Lithuanian-American basketball player is “the office” Golden 1 Center, synonymous with purple-drenched jerseys and crazed fans chanting “Light the Beam!” chant, a rallying cry that refers to the 1,000 watts of RGB laser power that radiates until midnight with each subsequent Sacramento Kings victory.
Sabonis, the Kings’ starting center and three-time NBA All-Star, is one of five leads in Netflix’s sports docuseries “Starting 5.” It follows the lives of five players – LeBron James of the Los Angeles Lakers, Jayson Tatum of the Boston Celtics, Jimmy Butler of the Miami Heat and Anthony Edwards of the Minnesota Timberwolves – during the 2023-2024 NBA season.
“Every time we went to the park, six or seven cameramen followed me,” Sabonis says. Netflix did a great job making sure the same crew was assigned to his family, he said. “You kind of forget that the cameras are there. You are in father mode and just take care of your children.”
Showrunner Peter J. Scalettar says the creative team behind “Starting 5” knew the basketball storyline alone was insufficient to captivate audiences. The crew, he explains, shot episodes with the intention of breaking through players’ media-trained facade to find the underlying emotional subtext.
Series director Trishtan Williams adds that by showcasing Sabonis’ wife, Shashana Rosen, as much as possible and focusing on the family dynamic, the creatives were able to find vulnerabilities.
Williams describes the Golden State Warriors’ second forward Draymond Green stomped on Sabonis’ chest during a 2023 playoff game. “Starting 5” captures the scene, along with a visceral live reaction from Rosen, who was pregnant at the time.
“You hear Shashana say, ‘Oh my god. He’s at home, he’s on a ventilator. He can’t breathe,” Williams said. “I think this is part of humanizing the players, to show the world that (they) go through a lot.”
Domantas, the son of former NBA star and Hall of Famer Arvydas Sabonis, admits that as a child he had no idea how great a basketball player his father was. It wasn’t until he looked up highlights from the late 1990s on YouTube, he recalls, that his father’s legacy began to sink in.
“He’s a basketball king,” Scalettar says of what made Domantas an intriguing subject to document. “Being a second-generation NBA star, there are some interesting parallels from a storytelling perspective.”
Much of the series revolves around Sabonis’ struggle as a European to fit in with the NBA and American culture. Despite his father being a major international star, Domantas has been traded three times and forced to move his family; this past season he failed to make the NBA All-Star team despite leading the league in triple-doubles.
In terms of brand and likeness, Sabonis isn’t flashy compared to some of the other top stars at the top of the sport today. Sabonis has never played a leading role in an Adam Sandler film like Edwards. Unlike Butler, he has none budding bromance with Colombian pop star J Balvin. He’s not on video game covers like Tatum. And he’s not LeBron James. In “Starting 5,” he is none of these things. But he is depicted as a leader who gives Christmas presents to every employee in the Kings organization. He is a father who dresses up as Big Bird to play with his son Tiger. At the end of the ten-episode series, a portrait of Sabonis emerges as a layered canvas of raw emotion.
Domas is driven by his need for more recognition for his career and wonders, “Why don’t I get the love that everyone else gets?” says Scalettar. “Even feeling some of that from him (is) quite revealing for these superstar athletes to show that level of vulnerability.”
