LOS ANGELES, CA — Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Tyrese Haliburton, Kevin Durant, James Harden, and Jaylen Brown have a few things in common. They're among the best basketball players in the world, they each have their own unique personalities, and they were all able to show both of those in this season's edition of Netflix's Starting 5.

The second season of Starting 5 is set to release next week on October 16th. Following an electric first season that saw LeBron James, Jayson Tatum, Anthony Edwards, Jimmy Butler, and Domantas Sabonis take center-stage on the streaming platform, Season Two is ready to give the world an even deeper look into basketball's biggest superstars.

Not only did Netflix select five of the best players in the world, but two of those reached the NBA Finals, forcing the folks over at Netflix to make some tough decisions on content.

Trishtan Williams, one of the directors for Starting 5, returned for Season 2 and worked closely with both Harden and Durant throughout the 2024-25 regular season as well as Shai Gilgeous-Alexander during the NBA Finals.

Williams spoke exclusively with ClutchPoints about all things Starting 5 ahead of the global release of the second season.

Tomer Azarly: Congratulations on the release of the second season of Starting 5 and everything that's come with it. What have the last couple months been like for you and your team as you try to finish editing once the filming is done. What was that like?

Trishtan Williams: It's been a while since we actually went into a Game 7. And so because it was a longer season than normal season, going into Game 7, it put us a little behind the curve in terms of where we are in the edit, because now you need to make up this time. And it's so many incredible moments that happened at the end of the season that we needed to foreshadow as you saw and bring it current. And so you open up those edits, you never really lock that first episode because of moments like that. And that was a prime case of like, ‘okay, now you got to keep this thing open to move some things around and wiggle for a little bit.' So it was very, very busy. But we got it done.

Tomer Azarly: So yeah, so so you guys obviously went with Jaylen Brown, Tyrese Haliburton, Kevin Durant, James Harden and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, just talking about why you guys chose those five. How did you guys start and what inspired you to go with those five?

Trishtan Williams: So when you're casting for this, you put it out. It's moreso who has the real appetite to allow cameras in their home. So it's not a thing over anybody in particular, but who's willing mentally, at the space in their lives, to allow people in their homes. So then now you have the Kevin Durant, James Harden, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Jaylen Brown, and Tyrese Haliburton. What are these stories?

Well, with KD and James, this is the old big three, them and Russ. And did they [win it all]? They didn't do it. Now, you've got this new guy and Shai. Can he pull this off? This young guy with this young team. And so that gives you that great, juicy origin of that OKC story. And you knock those three out the way.

Then of course, you have a Jaylen Brown coming off a season as the defending champs. So it gives us something — a North Star — to look to like, okay, everybody's always chasing down the defending champs. Their team is so good, you got to make sure you can get through them, right? They're a very tough team to keep going against.

I keep telling people, we forget how far out Tyrese Haliburton and the Pacers went last year. It wasn't like they went off the radar. And so when you're thinking about that story, his season started off really slow. So as storytellers, we're like, what do you do with this? What do you do because it's so slow? And what's happening? And how do you tell this story without it being like, ‘oh, my goodness.' And as we see on the back-end, it worked out in our favor. So when you get a story like that, and you have the ebbs-and-flows, the roller coasters, it's always a juicy story and somebody like Haliburton who gives you full access, that's just a wonderful key moment to have as a storyteller.

And then with Jaylen Brown, I think when you're thinking about him as a player that people think they know… Yes, he was the NBA Finals MVP. Yes, he's the smart guy, and people don't give him enough credit for just being a great basketball player. It's kind of like, ‘oh, he's smart,' or, ‘oh, he's boring.' You learn so much about this guy. I think this show actually makes him likable. And people are gonna walk away like, ‘I like you. I didn't know if I liked you or not, but I really, really like you.' So that's what's really cool about him and the moments. I love his story. I call it a beautiful story, because it starts off with him being this guy who has to, at this young age, take care of someone. And then it comes back full circle, and they have to take care of him once he ends up being injured at the end of the season. So such a beautiful full circle story.

And finally, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. As we all know, Shai is wonderful. How do you tell this story when this guy is so consistent? And a lot of times as a storytellers, you beat that guy up because it's like, ‘oh, there's nothing there. There's no heel, like they're just too smooth. So what is the story?' But he's such a wonderful person. There's so many layers to him and just who he is as a good person. The way he dresses, he's charismatic, he's a family guy. It's just so many little things that you can key in on to make you be like, ‘okay, we like this guy,' More importantly, for him to actually win… I think he says it in a trailer: ‘If I do all of this, and we don't win, it'll be for nothing.' So I think it was important for him to actually win. And he did, which was great.

With James Harden, he's someone who never speaks about anything his entire career. Who knows this man outside of him being a mega rockstar superstar with the biggest beard? Everywhere he goes, he's like very famous. But he finally speaks about a lot of those moments that the audience has questions for as far as when he got traded from OKC, what that was like at Houston, when he was with Brooklyn and the 76ers, all of these lingering questions that people have always said, or he'd never combatted. Now you have him speaking on it, which is really great.

And then of course, KD. you've got Kevin Durant, you've got one of the GOAT's himself in terms of like a basketball God. Like, “I love basketball, and I'm not going to do anything else in life until I retire. But then you have him actually sitting in front of us tweeting and cussing people out and on the court, mic'd up cussing out Gary Payton. And so it is just, I mean, we couldn't have made out a better show if we wanted to.

Tomer Azarly: Was Kevin Durant actually tweeting in front of you guys?

Trishtan Williams: Yeah. What you see is real. That was not like, oh, pick up moment. No, this is him in the very moment. I've got something to say and I'm going to say it.

Tomer Azarly: Wow. Kevin really is like that. So I'm very much looking forward to seeing the reception for this season, but what was the reception from the first season? And what was some of the feedback? What did you guys learn about how to best approach a second season if you want to continue this?

Trishtan Williams: The one approach was we didn't need to cover as many games as we covered first season. So we had the science down and we were more calculated about going into the games. When you first start something, it's the first of anything. So it's really hard and you don't want to miss any moment. You don't know what you're really searching for at the time. So you're, you're shooting a lot, right? And we shot a lot this season. But I think particularly with the games, we were very more narrowed in and calculated about what we needed to film and what we didn't need to film.

Tomer Azarly: The dream is to have a player make a deep playoff run, maybe get to the NBA Finals. But as Shai and Tyrese get closer to the Finals, are you asking, ‘where do we fit all this content here?' And then you get a seven game series on top of that!

Trishtan Williams: That's why episode eight is over an hour long. Thank God it's streaming, right? And you got the autonomy and the liberty to do that with the blessing of Netflix. But it's like, goodness, it's too much to unpack. Like, honestly, this is a season where we probably needed all the episodes in the world because it could have went on and on and on. But you couldn't have written this any better, right? People are like, ‘oh my goodness, you guys got the cheat code with Tyrese Haliburton and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander!' Like, who would have known? No one could have known that. Like these two small markets and we're there with them. These are the two guys and they're our characters. It's real. But we wouldn't have known that. Like no one would have known.

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I mean, Shai was doing great. But then you think about his run, he had to get through Denver. That wasn't an easy series. And so ultimately that was a very scary one for Shai to try to get through and they ultimately made it over. But it was scary. So it's a possibility. It could have went the other way.

Tomer Azarly: I thought there were some very funny moments. Jaylen Brown's grandpa is hilarious. There was also a moment where Shai's dog kicks Chris Paul out of the dinner table during the Conference Finals. I thought that was hilarious. What were some of your favorite moments, some funny moments or anything that really stuck out to you personally?

Trishtan Williams: So, funny moments. One, I think there's a moment we're in the backyard with Chet and all the guys and Shai is doing this yard sale. He's having a yard sale. Who calls for a yard sale? I remember him telling me, ‘oh, I'm going to have a yard sale. And I'm like, ‘okay, so where's the location going to be?' He said, ‘I'm going to do it in my house.' And I'm like, ‘you're going to let random people come to your house?' He's like, ‘no, I let my teammates come to my house.' And so I was like, well, can they fit your clothes? Because Chet is like in there shopping. He's ten times taller than Shai. It's the funniest moment. But those are some of the funny moments like that, where it's just natural and organic. The teammates, they come together and it's not a surprise. I think that's a good moment to display their level of closeness and why they were able to get to the Finals, because of moments like that. Even with Shai's son's birthday party. Literally, that was the night of the day before Game 1 of the NBA Finals. And they're like at a birthday party. Yeah. Everybody needs to be asleep. Resting. And that's why he's like, ‘alright, I'll go get some rest and we can make sure we do this tomorrow.' Like they're at a kid's one year birthday party. So it got real.

Echo kicking Chris Paul out like what? He's petrified of this dog, the dog's name is Echo. But he's petrified of Echo. He's like what should I do? He's like Shai, you want to switch seats?' He's like, ‘get out of here.'

Another moment is when you got KD tweeting people like in real time like you are a very funny man like you're really tweeting people. A funny moment with James is he was getting ready to go in a club of course we don't show all of that, but James is like, ‘yeah I'm about to go to club!' So you get to really see these guys. Some of the things that people do think they know, they know. And then some of the things they don't know you know we get to show. Those are some of the funny moments.

Tomer Azarly: You touched on a little bit, but these are five very different personalities. Some are more outgoing, some are more reserved. For example, I think a lot of people are gonna be surprised that James Harden has a son. How did you go about navigating all these these players' personal lives, incorporating that aspect, and giving fans of knowledge while also keeping it basketball-centric.

Trishtan Williams: Well here's the thing: the moment with James, I remember vividly when it happened. We're in the backyard, we're filming and I walked away from the backyard I hear him calling my name and I'm like, ‘hey what's up?' and he's like ‘I got something to tell you' so I put the cameras down and he's like, ‘my son is on the way.' And I learned that way, just like everybody else. I was like, ‘okay.' He asked, ‘so how do we go about this?'

So these are the real conversations. This is when being a good director comes into play, where you can get your character to trust you. I know this is a something the world knows they're gonna find this out and just trust me. I'm a mother, I have a 16 year old, and so I will only want somebody to do right by me or respect that process and what that looks like with my child and so I'm like, ‘don't you worry, you know there are easy ways to tell this story and do it elegantly and tastefully to where it's your business and it's your right for it to be your business. Now that it's here, you're in a space in your life where you're open and willing to expose the more deeper secrets of yourself and your relationships and everything that's been going on in your brain. I said, ‘don't you worry, just trust me. He said, ‘okay,' and then that's how it happened.

Tomer Azarly: What are you kind of hoping viewers and/or fans really take away from this show with five different characters, two of whom go all the way to the NBA Finals?

Trishtan Williams: I want people to walk away with empathy for all of the players. I think people think these guys have millions of dollars, people think that money fixes everything, or it fixes your soul or makes things better and that's not the case. So even when you think about KD and being traded and how you have to mentally and emotionally deal with the level of pressure that comes from the media. You have to be strong enough with this armor to combat everything that's been said about you that you know you went from this team to that team and you know where do you get a statue so for people to really like trust in it I mean respect your legacy so I think that's what I want them to walk away with. Overall, for me, the word is empathy. When it comes to James of understanding that there's a lot that he never spoke about and he's now coming to the to the table and speaking about it. I think people are going to have a greater appreciation for him at this phase of who he is in his career.

When it comes to Shai of like even if you are a consistent person in life it's okay to be consistent and hard work will get you everything you want in this world.

When it comes to Jaylen, you can be smart, you can be a top athlete, and you can do well. His mother helps drive that scene very well. I think with him talking about the finances so just walking away with a true understanding and having empathy for these guys. Also, a lot of empathy for Haliburton. As we saw, he went down and no one wants that for him in a story, Of course, with how it started, it just ends great. That's a very odd way to say it, but it ends great. It shows that you can keep your head up, don't let it keep you down and know that as long as you're alive, you've get another chance. I stand on this, I really believe this season is award-winning

Tomer Azarly: One of the biggest thing people look for in these type of shows is authenticity. Like, can we really see what a player is like, how they are? We see a lot of the front-facing stuff, but not much of the behind-the-scenes stuff. How did you guys get the authenticity out there? Did you have to have conversations with any of the players about that? Like, ‘hey if we do this show, you're going to have to be real with us.'

Trishtan Williams: Before you start filming, you are sitting down with these guys. I'm letting them get to know me, to talk about real life, and having real conversations and saying exactly that. I will say I think season one helped, right? So you have to do more of that coaching and guiding for season one to get everybody to get that understanding but once you see LeBron James, Anthony Edwards, Jimmy Butler, Domantas Sabonis, and you see guys of this magnitude open up their worlds, then they say, ‘oh, well, that wasn't so bad and I like how they did that.' I think that season one it just laid out the red carpet for us. But again you get to these moments you say in order for this to be a good show, you have to be as honest and as vulnerable as possible so people could really get there and I think they understand the assignment. So when big moments come, no one's pushing cameras away and that's when you know you've got gold. When it's happening and the cameras are here and it's still gonna happen.

Tomer Azarly: What have been the receptions of the players involved? What have they thought about some of the editing then some of the clips that they've seen so far?

Trishtan Williams: They love it. They love it and move people aren't used to seeing themselves on TV. They're like, “oh my God, I can't believe I said that.' But they love it, and it's been great. It's been a great process working with all five of the gentlemen and you know Just with all the collaborators with a Higher Ground, Omaha, Uninterrupted, Fulwell, Netflix. It's just a lot of partners, but I think we all are such professionals and we do a great job of getting to the bottom line of everything.