Love & Basketball is a touchstone of Black cinema, and for good reason: it’s a coming-of-age story about two Black athletes and the evolution of their relationships with their families, the game they love, and each other. 

Gina Prince-Bythewood’s 2000 feature film directorial debut, which she also wrote, was produced by Spike Lee with costume design by the iconic Ruth E. Carter. The rom-com also stars a dozen Black screen titans, including Sanaa Lathan, Omar Epps, Alfre Woodard, Dennis Haysbert, Debbi Morgan, Regina Hall, Gabrielle Union, Kyla Pratt, Harry J. Lennix, Boris Kodjoe, Monica Calhoun, and Tyra Banks. (Fun fact: Before playing Monica Wright, Sanaa Lathan had NEVER played basketball.)

At the time of its release, Love & Basketball was innovative in that it focused on the internal lives of Black youth instead of their external environments or circumstances, and it was rare in that it featured a young, ambitious Black woman as the main protagonist.

Twenty-six years later, though, a new generation of young, ambitious Black women have taken to the film with a fresh perspective, one shaped by emotional intelligence and an intolerance for toxicity. Turns out Quincy McCall was not a knight in shining armor — he was an emotional terrorist.

Quincy McCall’s Red Flags (That Should’ve Resulted in Ejection From the Game)

• His unwillingness to write Monica an ‘I’m Sorry’ card after she cuts her cheek during their fight as kids

• Being jealous of Monica’s first date at the spring dance despite being an overly-going high school hotshot

• Flirting with his fans at USC in front of Monica

• Asking Monica to break curfew and expecting her to provide emotional labor, even if it means sacrificing her standing on her team

• Emotionally punishing Monica by ignoring her winning the starting point guard spot and blatantly cheating on her

• Blindsiding Monica with his decision to drop out of USC to go pro

“All’s fair in love and basketball” until there’s double standards.

And then… the climax of the horror: Monica finds out Quincy is getting married in two weeks and spontaneously declares her sustained, unconditional love for him. After Quincy rejects her by calling her self-absorbed, Monica utters the most-romanticized — and, arguably, most chilling — line of the entire film: “I’ll play you. One game, one-on-one. [For] your heart.”

This defining moment in Quincy and Monica’s story is also the most criticized and most despised. A’ja Wilson famously HATES Love & Basketball, and it’s all because of this scene. “Don’t nobody do none of that, girl — what?! Do not play me for my heart. Ain’t nobody got time for that! I cannot STAND Love & Basketball… people say it’s ‘not in my generation,’ and I don’t ‘understand it,’ but no, I can’t get down with Love & Basketball. I cannot stand that movie.”

Digital creator @Meccavellii has also called out women who adore the movie, asking the important questions: “What do you like about watching Sanaa Lathan get dogged out for two entire hours, over the span of two decades?! …We watched [Quincy] choose every single thing BUT Monica.”

And even though Quincy says he’s moved on, he still competes against Monica, and wins, humiliating her in both vulnerability and skill. As creator @qbabyreads spells it out: “He got up with a torn ACL and started dunking on her. That’s not love!” Just as Monica is about to graciously accept her defeat, Quincy says sike and finally — nonchalantly — chooses her: “Double or nothing.” 

The film’s epilogue serves as Quincy and Monica’s happy-ever-after, with Monica now playing for the WNBA’s Los Angeles Sparks and Quincy watching courtside with their young daughter. But are we supposed to forgive the fact that with a few swishes, Quincy’s devotion to and commitment to his fiancée — who, in two weeks, was to become his wife — was totally undone? Are we to believe that his ball was fully back in Monica’s romantic court? Or that it ever left at all? 

Love & Basketball was innovative, rare, and also wrong. Young, talented, ambitious women don’t compete to be chosen or deemed worthy of someone’s heart. We don’t compete for love. We compete for victory. For legacy. For greatness.

Kaitlyn McNab is a contributing writer for TOGETHXR.com and an award-winning culture reporter and editor. Her creative mission is to celebrate and articulate diverse experiences across all narrative mediums.

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