Stephen Curry Teams Up with Shaquille O’Neal as Executive Producer of THE QUEEN OF BASKETBALL to Lead a Full Court Press Celebrating and Honoring the Legacy of Basketball Pioneer Lusia “Lucy” Harris
Three-time NBA Champion and two-time MVP Stephen Curry has joined forces with basketball legend Shaquille O’Neal to support the Academy Award® nominated short subject documentary “The Queen of Basketball” as executive producer with a mission to make Lusia “Lucy” Harris a household name. Harris died unexpectedly at age 66 on January 18.
“The Queen of Basketball,” currently streaming on nytimes.com and The New York Times YouTube channel, tells the story of one of the greatest living women’s basketball players. She won 3 national trophies, scored the first basket in women’s Olympic history, and was drafted to the NBA. But you’ve probably never heard of Lusia “Lucy” Harris.
“We’re honored to join the talented team behind The Queen of Basketball and play a role in uplifting the story of the trailblazing Lucy Harris,” said Stephen Curry and Erick Peyton, Co-Founders of Unanimous Media. “Lucy, a true pioneer in the game of basketball and an inspiration for many, deserves to be recognized for her achievements. Through this compelling short subject documentary, her legacy will continue to live on and impact audiences all over the world.”
Shaquille O’Neal said: “Stephen Curry is one of the NBA’s most iconic players whose voice speaks volumes on and off the court. I’m thrilled to have him join the team to help immortalize Lusia Harris aka The Queen of Basketball.”
Curry joins Shaquille O’Neal as Executive Producer. O’Neal is one of the greatest basketball players to ever play the sport: he is a four-time NBA champion, three-time NBA Finals MVP, NBA Most Valuable Player, Olympic gold medalist, and inductee into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame and FIBA Hall of Fame. Fellow executive producers include Mike Parris, Donnie F. Wilson, Erick Peyton, Jane Solomon, Adam Ellick & Ben Proudfoot
Brian Tetsuro Ivie, who runs Curry and Peyton’s growing documentary division, first met director Ben Proudfoot at the University of Southern California – Los Angeles (USC), and brought the film to Curry’s attention. Ivie will also serve as a Co-Executive Producer on the project.
O’Neal’s former Los Angeles Lakers teammate on three consecutive NBA championship winning teams, the late Kobe Bryant, won an Academy Award® in 2018 for the animated short film, Dear Basketball, that he wrote and produced.
The film re-airs on NBA TV multiple times this month as part of its primetime Women’s History Month coverage: Tuesday, March 8 at 6:00 PM (International Women’s Day); Thursday, March 17 at 10:00 PM following game coverage; Monday, March 21 at 11:00 PM following game coverage; Sunday, March 27 at 12:00 PM the date of the 94th Academy Awards; and Monday, March 28 at 6:30 PM the day after the 94th Academy Awards.
Stephen Curry has spent his 13-year career in the NBA with the Golden State Warriors, where he was the first person to be named Most Valuable Player by unanimous vote in NBA History and was league MVP two years in a row. He holds eight NBA all-star selections and three NBA Championships. Curry co-founded his production company, Unanimous Media, with a goal to elevate diverse voices and shine a light on narratives with a focus on family, sports, and faith-based content.
Director Ben Proudfoot said: “From the beginning, our hope for The Queen of Basketball was to help close the gap between Ms. Harris’ significance and how many people know her name – and in so doing draw everyone’s attention to the existing inequities in the game. Ms. Harris’ soft-spoken testimony has echoed and amplified to what is now a veritable movement led by two of the most dominant and well-respected basketball players of all time. I am so grateful to partner with Stephen, Erick, Brian and the Unanimous team to bring Lucy’s story to an even wider audience in the months ahead.”
Ms. Harris’s family said: “The family of Lusia Harris-Stewart would like to thank Steph Curry for joining ‘The Queen of Basketball’ as an executive producer. We know our mom would have been overjoyed with his addition as she loved to watch Steph ‘shoot the lights out of that ball.’ We are grateful to Steph for believing in the project and helping to ensure her story is never forgotten. Long live the Queen.”
“The Queen of Basketball” tells the story of Lusia “Lucy” Harris Stewart, a peerless pioneer in women’s basketball. She led a tiny rural Mississippi college to three national titles, scored the first basket in women’s Olympic history in 1976, and was the first and only woman drafted into the NBA. In 1992, she became one of the first two women inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame. Yet, she remains largely unknown, even among basketball enthusiasts.
Directed by Oscar® nominated and Emmy® winning filmmaker Ben Proudfoot (“A Concerto is a Conversation”) and produced by Breakwater Studios for The New York Times Op-Docs, “The Queen of Basketball” had its world premiere at the 2021 Tribeca Film Festival. During Tribeca, Robin Roberts hosted Harris on ABC’s Good Morning America. Roberts, a graduate of Southeastern Louisiana University where she was the top-three all time leading scorer and inductee into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame, called Harris her “childhood hero.”
The film won Best Documentary Short at the 2021 Palm Springs International ShortFest, an Oscar®-qualifying award. It has also screened at Hamptons International Film Festival, SFFILM’s Doc Stories, and DOC NYC.
“The Queen of Basketball” won the 2021 Critics Choice Documentary Awards for Best Documentary Short and was included on DOC NYC’s Short List: Shorts program of the year’s best short documentaries.
The film had a theatrical release in June 2021 followed by its streaming release on June 29 on nytimes.com and The New York Times YouTube channel. It debuted on the coveted Short of the Week site on August 4 and WNYC Radio named it the Documentary of the Week on November 5.
Ben Proudfoot is the Oscar® nominated creative force behind Breakwater Studios. Dedicated to the art of the short documentary, the studio’s work has been recognized by the Sundance Film Festival, Tribeca, Hot Docs, The Emmys, The Webbys, James Beard Foundation, and Telluride among others. His recent film “A Concerto is a Conversation”, co-directed by Kris Bowers and executive produced by Ava DuVernay, debuted at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival, was released by The New York Times Op-Docs, and received an Academy Award® nomination for Best Documentary Short Subject. Proudfoot was named one of Forbes Magazine’s “30 Under 30” for his leadership and innovation in the brand-funded documentary space. He hails from Halifax, Nova Scotia, and is a graduate of the University of Southern California. Proudfoot is an accomplished sleight-of-hand magician and has performed at The Magic Castle in Los Angeles.
Lindsay Crouse served as producer for Op-Docs, and Adam Ellick, who leads Op-Docs and Opinion Video, served as executive producer. Op-Docs is the celebrated series of short documentaries from The New York Times, begun in 2011 by The Times’s Opinion department. It showcases the work of both emerging and established independent filmmakers and artists who explore the most important issues facing our world. Op-Docs has had a number of recent Oscar®-nominated (“A Concerto is a Conversation”, “Walk Run Cha-Cha”, “4.1 Miles”) and Oscar®-shortlisted films (“Takeover”, “Hysterical Girl”, “Stay Close”, “Alone”, “Ten Meter Tower”, “116 Cameras”).
