I further investigated my topic by listening to Adrian Wojnarowski’s podcast, “Woj Pod,” and by watching the documentary, “The City Hoops.” I choose these two sources because they both highlight aspects of the game and the career path of basketball that I have begun to explore in my podcast. As both are created by basketball professionals with years of experience, I know that I can gain useful insights that will help me better develop my project.

There were similarities and differences in these sources when I compared them to my project. Podcasts like “Woj pod” cover similar topics, but they only present part of the full picture. For example, topics of “Woj pod” center around a professional career in basketball while my essential question is about the youth’s perspective on the game. Conversely, “The City Hoops” explores the game solely from the youth’s perspective. Though the documentary covers the youth perspective, it focuses on the specific part of their career in which they spend one year trying to get to the championship. I want to focus on a player’s whole career on and off the court. As I want to cover the career and student focused aspects of the game, I thought learning more about them separately would give me a deeper understanding of both professional and youth basketball. 

Similarly to my podcast, Adrian Wojnarowski’s podcast discusses the players’ careers but in a very different stage than the players I interview. The people Adrian interviews are professional NBA players. In his interviews, he discusses the many aspects of the player—from personal stats to where the team stands in their conference. Unlike my podcast, he typically does not discuss their childhoods or career before the NBA unless they were a basketball star in college. In Adrian’s podcast there is no need to delve deeper into the players’ careers as children. This is why after learning more about professional NBA players through “Woj Pod,” I decided to watch “The City Hoops” documentary which explores student players and their experience on the court. 

The documentary follows Arjay Perovic and the youth AAU team, “The City.” It explores a specific chapter of the player’s lives and of the team as a whole. “The City Hoops” follows the players on their journey from building team chemistry to taking home the national championship trophy. Although the documentary does not go into detail on each individual players’ full careers, the viewer learns about how they grew and where they aspire to go at this time in their lives. This documentary prompted me to think deeply about my essential question which focuses on the youth’s perspective of basketball. 

After listening to the podcast and watching the documentary, I reflected on aspects of both which will help me further develop my project while also considering how my podcast is different from these two sources. In my podcast, I focus on one person an episode and go in depth about that player’s whole career. Additionally, I ask questions relating to themes outside the world of basketball, such as balancing academic work with basketball, a topic that would not be discussed with an NBA player. However, both sources were very valuable to me as I explored my essential question and project. When listening to “Woj Pod” I felt inspired to emulate the way Adrian Wojnarowski delivers his questions. I learned how to discuss basketball while facilitating engaging conversation with the interviewee. Through “The City Hoops,”  I gained a more detailed look at the youth perspective on basketball which is especially useful in addressing my essential question. Both sources will help me continue to develop and execute my project.