An irresistible sports documentary, investigation and human interest drama, "Raymond Lewis L.A. Legend” is also an important cautionary tale about the exploitation of young athletes and its lifelong impact.
If you don’t know the name Raymond Lewis, or Ray Lew to his legions of fans and colleagues, directors Ryan Polomski and Dean Prator have crafted an engrossing and entertaining introduction. Much like last year’s Oscar winning short documentary “The Queen of Basketball” about Lucy Harris, this feature documentary uses rich archival material from the late 1960s and early ‘70s to recall Lewis’s storied high school and college career and reveals the factors that contributed to why he isn’t in the NBA record books.
With terrific archival footage (a young Bryant Gumbel quizzing the 19 year-old Lewis) and interviews with friends and teammates including former L.A. Laker Michael Cooper and legendary NCAA coaches Lorenzo Romar and, in what would be his last recorded interview, Jerry Tarkanian, the film tracks Lewis’s career as a high school phenomenon in South Central L.A. The game footage says it all but the observations of teammates and colleagues who still describe Lewis’s play with wide eyed wonder most capture the exciting and skilled player he was. There was no doubt Lewis was destined for stardom.
But to the surprise of many, Lewis enrolled at Cal State LA, recruited and seduced by cars and money. Like other star basketball players, he was allowed to flounder as a student as long as he excelled on the court. It was the start of a series of missteps that derailed what should have been a brilliant career. The film includes a Howard Cosell report from 1985 about Cal State players who sued the college for fraud. Lewis, by then jaded and troubled, didn’t join his teammates in the lawsuit that helped change the treatment of college athletes.
The Philadelphia 76ers claimed Lewis in the first round of the 1973 NBA draft and he left college as a sophomore. It isn’t clear why Lewis wasn’t given proper guidance when signing a questionable contract with the team but, as interviewees point out, the early ‘70s was very different era for often naive young players and no doubt more predatory for Black players. Lewis balked when he compared his contract with that of another star recruit, Doug Collins, incidentally white. Interviews with 76ers coach Gene Shue, among others, reveal how little institutional support there was for Lewis despite his extraordinary talent and he was subsequently blackballed by the NBA.
As the years flew by, Lewis tried to regain his footing with camp tryouts with the San Diego Clippers and San Antonio Spurs in 1980 when Lewis was 30. He still had game but the window of opportunity had closed.
Fans of basketball and sports history should not miss this documentary. Lewis’s story helped change the system so that players are far better protected but it was too late for him. The film ends with a poignant coda: to this day, many say that Raymond Lewis was the best basketball player they ever saw.
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