“Running Point” is an amiable Netflix comedy starring Kate Hudson as an underestimated nepo adult tapped to run the fabled basketball team her late father once led. She is thrilled, if a bit overwhelmed, by the opportunity. Her brothers, who also work for the franchise, warn her to stay off Reddit.
Hudson here is Isla, who never got as much attention from her father as her brothers did. But the Los Angeles Waves is the family business, and she is part of the family. The eldest, Cam (Justin Theroux), was ably running the show, but he gets sent off to rehab in the pilot. The doofy Ness (Scott MacArthur) is all heart, no brains, while the brittle Sandy (Drew Tarver) is all brains, no heart. So it’s up to the reformed party girl Isla to wrangle the players, make trade deals, manage the coaching staff, find sponsors and schmooze with other bigwigs to keep the Waves in playoff contention.
She knows her stuff, though; as with any generic comedic heroine, her one flaw is clumsiness, and she walks into glass doors often enough that she spends a good chunk of her life with an old-timey ice pack against her noggin.
“Point” is loosely inspired by the Lakers’s Jeanie Buss, who is among its executive producers. The show was created by Mindy Kaling, Ike Barinholtz and David Stassen, whose last major collaboration was Kaling’s “The Mindy Project,” and by Elaine Ko. This outing feels watered down in comparison to “Mindy,” but it is still awfully good company, and its 10 episodes have an affable, sunny ease. It is also featherweight and ambitionless — not actually funny, but often fun.
What the show lacks in depth or bite it gains in breadth and scope, and the cast runneth over: Brenda Song as Isla’s BFF and assistant; Jay Ellis as the successful, hunky coach; Chet Hanks as the troublemaker player who doesn’t know what “refute” means. Max Greenfield plays Isla’s doting fiancé, and Jon Glaser plays the abrasive sports radio host. If Tarver is basically playing his same character from “The Other Two,” so be it.
“Point” seems happy enough to be reminiscent of other, better shows, which is perhaps the defining paradigm of current-day streaming comedies. Well, that and galling product integration, which “Point” also embraces.
There is very little basketball here, so the characters rely instead on movies to guide their ideas, taking direction from “Casino,” “The Wedding Singer” and the “John Wick” franchise. “My life is not a good sports movie,” Isla sighs. Keep practicing, Isla! There’s always next year.
