As Adam Sandler’s harried basketball scout Stanley Sugerman struggles to prepare his protégé Bo Cruz (Juancho Hernangómez) for the big leagues, Hustle kicks into Rocky mode — and not just because it’s also set in Philly. The scene that follows sees Cruz perfecting drills, dunks and, of course, racing up a steep hill as Stanley badgers him onward from the driver’s seat of his car. Unorthodox? Sure. Memorable? Definitely. “You see [Bo] going from being kind of green at it and new at it to being great at it by the end of the montage,” Hustle co-producer Joseph Vecsey tells Tudum. In other words: By the end of the scene, he has no trouble staying ahead of Stanley’s car.

Bo Cruz's Epic Training Montage In HustleStanley pushes Bo through intense drills. Hustle stars Juancho Hernangómez and Adam Sandler.

But even with comic touches like that one, the filmmakers were committed to keeping their basketball scenes as grounded and realistic as possible. “Adam is huge into basketball and knows basketball so well,” Vecsey tells us. “We just [had to make] sure it was authentic from the ground up — that all the basketball choreography was as authentic as possible.”

For Hernangómez, this flexibility made the film — and the production — better. “I think the best thing they did on the movie with the director, with Jeremiah [Zagar, the film’s director], they were so open to change things, to change the script, to change exercises, anything you feel uncomfortable,” Hernangómez tells Tudum. “We changed a lot of script. We changed a lot of basketball scenes. Talking with Anthony I was like, ‘Hey, this, this motion doesn’t look real. Like, I'm not gonna do that in the game.’ So, we changed it. And I feel that open mind. It helps to make it even more real.”

“A big thing with NBA players right now is their workout guys,” says Utah Jazz assistant coach and former pro Dell Demps (who also appears in the film as an assistant coach of the Philadelphia 76ers). “The majority of guys now have someone that they work out with [who’s] typically not a coach on their team.” It was important for producers to capture that expert specificity to depict Cruz’s training, including each type of workout in the sequence. “What we wanted to do is create an environment where [Cruz] was getting different types of training from real NBA trainers that real NBA players do,” Demps says. “And we wanted to incorporate that into the movie.”

Cassy Athena/Netflix

To tackle these different areas, the production brought on NBA trainers Micah Lancaster, Drew Hanlen and Chris Matthews. Producers assigned these trainers to different elements of the montage, including shooting, ball handling and drills — including some less traditional ones. “[Micah] has this drill he does with a fan where the players are dribbling and they gotta touch the cone [while] the fan blows the cone out of the way, so they have to stay low,” notes Demps. On-screen, this drill was used to show how Cruz’s ball-handling improved during the montage. 

Demps also made a point to emphasize less basketball-heavy parts of the montage, such as weight lifting and running. “We wanted to make it realistic [and depict] what real NBA players are doing in the off-season,” he says. 

The film’s inspirations weren’t limited to NBA training; just as in Hustle, they also relied on a few local pros. “[W]e had some of Philly's best streetballers, and some guys were AND1 guys back in the day,” Demps says. Adding these streetball scenes came directly from the film’s star. “Me and Adam made a connection right away because of our love for basketball,” Vecsey says. “He loves streetball, and I could do all the basketball tricks and dribble really well and stuff like that.” 

For Hernangómez, however, the hardest part of all wasn’t learning how to make different shots, it was learning how not to make them. “The hardest part was when they told me I gotta miss shots,” he says. “I cannot try to shoot to miss. You’re trying to do something and pray like, ‘Oh, look, a good miss. But as a player, I’m never going to shoot to miss.” Is he bragging? Maybe a little. After all that work, it’s allowed.

How NBA Pros Bring Authenticity To Hustle

This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.