GAmong the current NBA stars, casting Steph Curry as the lead in a network sitcom is a radical choice. Rising star Anthony Edwards is a bigger personality. Reigning MVP Nikola Jokic is a better straight man. Klay Thompson, Curry’s former Splash Brother, is a situational comedy in his own right – just as capable of popping up in a TV interview with a guy on the street about Scaffolding in New York City as laugh at his online imitations.
Still, it’s Curry who stars and executive produces Mr. Throwback – a new Peacock series that appears to be part of a larger strategy at NBC Universal to retain its outsized Olympic audience, reclaim its TV comedy crown from Disney (home of Abbott Elementary) and regain some of its old Thursday-night bravado. It’s also a bit of a teaser for the 2025-26 NBA season, when NBC will resume airing games after a 23-year hiatus. NBC’s rights deal effectively pushes Warner Bros. Discovery to the sidelines and seemingly spells the end of Inside the NBA, the benchmark in basketball comedy.
With just six half-hour episodes, Mr. Throwback can’t compete with Inside’s dominance of Tuesday and Thursday night NBA coverage. It also doesn’t plan to replace the studio show’s talent for exchanging memes and jokes with its audience in real time. It is no coincidence that hosts Ernie Johnson, Kenny Smith, Charles Barkley and Shaquille O’Neal walk into the pilot. Their presence lends authenticity.
That goes for Curry, too—who, monotone effects aside, embodies an ironic underdog quality. The son of one of the best shooters in NBA history, with a brother Around the league, too, it appears Curry had his NBA path predestined. But 15 pro seasons later, the USA Basketball great still faces early criticism over his size, durability and free-flowing style — all of which helped shape him into a four-time NBA champion and the consensus best shooter who ever lived.
Crucially, the 6ft 2in MVP guard speaks to a time-honored athletic truism: Behind every sports great is a rival who didn’t make it despite being the better competitor at the time. Think Leroy Smith, the hapless Carolina kid who made the high school varsity basketball team over Michael Jordan – who part of his speech to the basketball hall of fame while Smith, nothing more than a professional craftsman, watched from the audience.
Like Young Rock , the NBC comedy about Dwayne Johnson’s early life, Curry propels the story as a protagonist and expert witness in Mr. Throwback’s mockumentary frame. But the focus is squarely on Danny Grossman, the “Jewish Jordan” who was touted as a man to 12-year-olds until a birther movement squashed the hype; Adam Pally brings the same ursine energy he brought to his gay bro character in Happy Endings , the pinnacle of ensemble comedy. Danny works as a memorabilia dealer because he’s still living in the past, but the profits aren’t nearly enough to support his growing gambling addiction.
A $90,000 debt prompts Danny to seek a reunion with Curry, a super-do-gooder who, as it turns out, stole quite a bit of his money. signature trademarks from Jewish Jordan. When Danny is caught stealing one of Curry’s game-worn jerseys for his business, the documentary crew following the NBA star naturally sticks with Danny; he then tells an even bigger lie about needing the money from the jersey sales to pay the hospital bills for his daughter (Layla Scalisi), who is definitely not terminally ill. From there, the race is on to see how deep a hole Danny can dig for himself before his world comes crashing down again.
At first glance, Mr. Throwback seems to have too many balls in the air between developing its sharply drawn characters (including Curry), advancing its intricate plots and ensuring that all of its stars—not least the criminally underused SNL alum Ego Nwodim (who plays Curry’s best friend turned media pundit Kimberly)—get their shine. But if anyone can juggle all of these elements, it’s showrunner David Caspe; as the helm of Happy Endings’s writers’ room, he somehow managed to weave together those and more thorny threads while maintaining a breakneck joke ratio.
The jokes don’t come as fast and furious in Mr. Throwback, whose writers’ room doesn’t seem to be anywhere near the size of Happy Endings, but the jokes do land. An interview with a speaker includes Danny’s sports father father, Mitch (Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Tracy Letts), who corroborates a story Curry tells about the time the coach channeled Indiana’s Bobby Knight and threw a chair onto the court with a kid still in it. “Those were different times,” Mitch sighs. “I could throw kids then. I can’t anymore. I’m not strong enough.”
Mr. Throwback will struggle to keep pace with the perpetual sarcasm that is NBA Twitter, let alone the rat-tat-tat rhythm of Happy Endings . But the Peacock series’ best-to-never premise is well-timed in an era when fame, no matter how distant, can be easily restored or restyled with a few clicks. Building the entire production around Curry was a radical choice, to be sure, but the payoff is nothing if not net.