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Steph Curry Joins Shaquille O’Neal as EP of Oscar-Nominated Short ‘The Queen of Basketball’ (Exclusive)

The film premiered at the 2021 Tribeca Film Festival, won the best documentary short Critics Choice Award and is currently streaming on the New York Times’ website and YouTube channel.

Stephen Curry and Shaquille O'Neal
Stephen Curry and Shaquille O'Neal Arturo Holmes/MG21/Getty Images; Ethan Miller/Getty Images

The Queen of Basketball, a best documentary short Oscar nominee, received some good news on Wednesday, a week ahead of the start of final voting for the Oscars, The Hollywood Reporter has learned: Stephen Curry, the NBA star, has joined Shaquille O’Neal, the retired NBA legend, as an executive producer of Ben Proudfoot’s New York Times Op-Docs film about Lusia ‘Lucy’ Harris, a trailblazing women’s basketball player who died in January.

“We’re honored to join the talented team behind The Queen of Basketball and play a role in uplifting the story of the trailblazing Lucy Harris,” Curry and Erick Peyton, co-founders of Unanimous Media, said in a statement. “Lucy, a true pioneer in the game of basketball and an inspiration for many, deserves to be recognized for her achievements. Through this compelling short subject documentary, her legacy will continue to live on and impact audiences all over the world.”

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Added O’Neal: “Stephen Curry is one of the NBA’s most iconic players whose voice speaks volumes on and off the court. I’m thrilled to have him join the team to help immortalize Lusia Harris, aka ‘The Queen of Basketball.'”

Brian Tetsuro Ivie, who runs Curry and Peyton’s growing documentary division, first met Proudfoot at USC and brought the film to Curry’s attention. Ivie will also serve as a co-executive producer of the film.

The other executive producers of the film — which premiered at the 2021 Tribeca Film Festival, won the best documentary short Critics Choice Award and is currently streaming on the New York Times’ website and YouTube channel — are Mike Parris, Donnie F. Wilson, Jane Solomon, Adam Ellick and Proudfoot.
Proudfoot, an Oscar nominee and Emmy winner for the 2020 short film A Concerto Is a Conversation, who attended the Oscar Nominees Luncheon on Monday, said: “From the beginning, our hope for The Queen of Basketball was to help close the gap between Ms. Harris’ significance and how many people know her name — and in so doing draw everyone’s attention to the existing inequities in the game. Ms. Harris’ soft-spoken testimony has echoed and amplified to what is now a veritable movement led by two of the most dominant and well-respected basketball players of all time. I am so grateful to partner with Stephen, Erick, Brian and the Unanimous team to bring Lucy’s story to an even wider audience in the months ahead.”

Ms. Harris’s survivors added: “The family of Lusia Harris-Stewart would like to thank Steph Curry for joining The Queen of Basketball as an executive producer. We know our mom would have been overjoyed with his addition as she loved to watch Steph ‘shoot the lights out of that ball.’ We are grateful to Steph for believing in the project and helping to ensure her story is never forgotten. Long live the Queen.”

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