By R.L. Bynum
What has Armando Bacot’s transition from a high-profile Carolina star to playing in small G League arenas been like?
The third season of the award-winning docuseries “The Break,” which debuts Monday, will give you an intimate look at how Bacot balances chasing NBA dreams with building an off-the-court legacy.
Through 13 games, he’s averaging 13.8 points, 9.2 rebounds and 2.9 assists after leading the Memphis Hustle to a 112–101 Wednesday road win over the Mexico City Capitanes with a career-high 25 points on 9 of 13 shooting.
The series streams on the G League’s YouTube channel and app (on the App Store or Google Play) and the NBA channels on Tubi and Roku. Some scenes from the series appear on the ESPN YouTube channel.
“It was cool to hear him talk about his other teammates in the G League,” said Taylor Sharp, a 2016 UNC graduate and Morganton native who is the director and producer. “Having had time with so many pros during the summers at Carolina, he seemed to have a pretty good attitude of how to approach this G League season.”
Those summer pickup games in the Smith Center include a range of players from the NBA to those with G League and overseas professional experience.
“It seems like the Carolina family was alive and well for him in terms of having other people to lean on and other people whose experiences have in some way impacted him,” said Sharp, whose production company name, Blue Cup Productions, is an homage to the iconic Chapel Hill bar He’s Not Here.
Hall of Fame center Shaquille O’Neal, in partnership with The General, narrates the series, which highlights three G League players each season.
“Being the voice of ‘The Break’ means so much to me because it’s about more than basketball — it’s about the heart, grind, and hustle it takes to make it to the top,” O’Neal said. “These G League players remind us why we love this game and how important it is to have someone in our corner.”
The six 15-to-20-minute monthly episodes this season spotlight Bacot, along with two guards — Mac McClung, a former Georgetown and Texas Tech player on a two-way contract with the Orlando Magic, and Dink Pate, an 18-year-old projected first-round pick in the 2025 NBA draft playing for the Mexico City Capitanes.
McClung and Bacot both grew up in Virginia and played AAU basketball together.
The series began following Bacot’s season, beginning when he signed with the Memphis Hustle, the G League affiliate of the Memphis Grizzlies.
“I learned a lot about how big his family is in Richmond, and heard a lot of stories about his childhood,” Sharp said. “Basketball is a really important piece of his development as a young person and, ultimately, finding direction in life and being focused. That was nice to hear him and his mom talk about how much of a troublemaker he was as a youngster and how basketball gave him a direction pretty early that has obviously taken him very far.”
Sharp first worked with what was then known as the D League during a summer as a Carolina student.
“Fortunately, I’ve had the opportunity to work with them on some long-form storytelling projects since then, and ‘The Break’ has been definitely the premier docuseries we’ve worked on,” Sharp said.
The three featured players fit the contrasting paths the series desires for each season, with McClung more likely to play some NBA games this season, and Pate, who became the youngest professional basketball player in the United States last season playing for the G League’s Ignite team.
Bacot’s path was different. He went to preseason camp with the Grizzlies. They waived him days after he was courtside for UNC’s exhibition win at Memphis but later signed the center to a G League contract with the Hustle.
Sharp says Bacot is the quintessential G League story of a player who could sign a 10-day NBA contract at any time and is trying to prove himself, hoping to make it in the NBA.
“Armando was one of the most exciting players who was entering the G League this season,” Sharp said. “A household name in college who had tremendous success at such a well-known program and had some really marquee moments during his collegiate career. So, it was only right that we followed him as he started his professional career with Memphis.”
Bacot took a significant pay cut from making “$2 million-plus” during his fifth college season, with the average G League player earning only $40,500. But Sharp said that all the NIL money Bacot made in college made it easier for him to follow his dream rather than play for higher salaries overseas.
“He seemed to very specifically say that, due to his success in the NIL landscape at UNC, it seemed to be a clear choice to spend the season in the G League and to fight his way [to the NBA],” Sharp said. “The ultimate goal for him is to be on an NBA roster. But he just seems to have really valued his experience with the Memphis Grizzlies during training camp and preseason, and he’s embracing this G League season as an opportunity to prove that he’s an NBA player.”
Sharp says that many fans greet Bacot before and after the game, even if the crowds are significantly smaller than the ones who attended his college games.
“He’s really embracing this as an opportunity just to focus on bettering his craft and adapting his style of play to the professional game, and he’s pretty excited that this year he can just be head down, focused on his game,” Sharp said.
One of the big improvements for Bacot has been 3-point shooting. He’s made 14 of 50 attempts (28%) after hitting only 5 of 25 in 169 college games.
Bacot has the advantage of his G League team sharing a practice facility with its NBA affiliate, which isn’t the case for much of the league. The Hustle plays its games in nearby Southaven, Miss., at the 8,400-seat Landers Center.
“In his case, there’s a lot of connectivity,” Sharp said. “I think he has a pretty good barometer of what the NBA wants from him, and he can spend his time in the G League working on that.”
Follow Bacot’s progress all season on “The Break.”
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