More Than a Game follows a group of basketball players who started playing together in about fifth grade. It follows them to becoming the national high school champions their senior year. What will get people's attention in the film is that one of these basketball players is LeBron James, who will go on to become a star in the NBA. In reality, the film chronicles the friendship and common aspiration of this group of boys as they develop into young men. It is not so much a film about basketball as it is a film about relationships.

Director Kristopher Belman began following the players while he was in film school. He managed to gain their trust and become enough a part of the group to have his own nickname: Camera Man. The film brings together his footage, including one-on-one interviews, archival news footage, and even home videos of the boys early years together. Their high school team won three Ohio state championships in four years, finally being ranked number one in the nation their senior year.

One of the key relationships in the film is between their coach, Dru Joyce II and the players. Coach Joyce really wasn't trained as a basketball coach. He began because his son, Dru Joyce III, wanted to play basketball. Like many fathers, the elder Joyce wanted to spend time with his son and coaching the team was a way to do that. He got books and videos to learn about the game. When they entered high school at St. Vincent--St. Mary High School, Coach Joyce became an assistant coach there; then, when the head coach moved to the University of Akron, he became SVSM head coach for the boys' last two years.

The coach/player relationship isn't always perfect. He can see them becoming overconfident, but is unable to keep them being beaten because of it. But there is also the issue of coaching one's son at this level. It is hard to maintain a father/son relationship at the same time as a coach/player relationship. Both of them acknowledge in the film that the father/son relationship suffered as a result—which is a bit ironic given than it began as a way to build that relationship.

More Than a Game does a good job of keeping the focus on the group more than its star. It would have been easy to make this into a young LeBron James highlight film. Instead, we get to know each of the players in the group and how they remember this time together.

Where the film fails is in not getting much below the surface. We never know quite how much the Joyces' relationship was damaged. When LeBron is suspended by the Ohio athletic authorities (later overturned by a court) the film really doesn't deal with the underlying questions involved. Other than the five players in the group, we never meet any of their other teammates—it's as if SVSM only fielded the five players.

I suspect that this film serves as an example of the dangers of a documentary filmmaker getting too close—too much of an insider. We only see the bright side of the friendship between these players—never the times (which I'm sure must have happened) when the relationship was strained over minor or major issues. Belman becomes a chronicler of this team's destiny, but never takes his game to the next level—looking past the glow of success.

No doubt basketball fans will enjoy watching James's skills grow through the years. They may also find value in seeing the strength created in a team with a strong bond of friendship. That may be enough to make an enjoyable movie, which this is. More just could have been more.