The Waiting Game (Husain, 2024)
The Waiting Game is a feel-goodish documentary about a charitable organization, the Dropping Dimes Foundation, trying to get the NBA to fund pensions for former American Basketball Association (ABA) players.
The early parts of the film describe the origins of the ABA and make a credible case that its innovations, such as the three-point shot, helped lay the foundation for modern basketball. It is also a social history, explaining with a light touch how racial segregation fueled the differing styles of the two leagues.
The back half focuses on the attempts of the Dropping Dimes Foundation to get the NBA to include ABA players who were excluded, either by oversight or trickery, from the pensions their peers received. As a news story, this part combines human interest and nostalgia. As an entertainment, it lacks dramatic tension. The outcome feels inevitable, and the film doesn’t present any real pushback to the central claim that the ABA players should be paid.
The one potential villain is the NBA itself, but the film and its participants have to walk a tightrope since all involved concede that the league has no legal or ethical obligation to pay the pension. One could argue that a central clause in the merger agreement was intentionally deceptive, but late in The Waiting Game those advocating for the players admit they would have done the same thing were they representing the nascent league. And…they are still asking the league to pay millions of dollars. The film has to try to stimulate anger at the “injustice” of pioneers being excluded from pensions while not needlessly antagonizing the one entity capable of doing anything about it.
As an aside, I found it odd that a film that thematically revolves around people not getting recognition for their work touted several cameo appearances in its promotional material while not naming any of the lawyers or staff at Dropping Dimes. I am sure the negotiators want to keep the focus on the players, but they are part of this story. I would even argue that the feel-good aspects of the documentary come not from seeing an injustice corrected but from seeing people act altruistically. In other words, Dropping Dimes and the NBA shouldn’t be seen as antagonists but as complementary examples of people giving rather than people being forced to make up for past wrongs.
That being said, the film gives us enough of the former players that we can’t help but be glad they were compensated for their contributions to a sport that has provided pleasure and profit for the generations that followed in their footsteps.
