Documentaries are supposed to educate. This usually means they’re boring. But, not always, sometimes the formula gets tweaked a little bit, and documentary makers decide to take chances, and those risks payoff and we get to have a little fun.

“38 at the Garden” feels like that. And while the story of Jeremy Lin and the “Linsanity” that took place over a decade ago is well chronicled here, it knows exactly what it is. An unexpected basketball success story. And that results in an entertaining documentary.

We get to learn about Lin’s career, but the doc wisely uses it as an opportunity to include what’s going on in the Asian community today. And that includes the negative things like the perpetual stereotypes, and sadly even the violence that has taken place in the United States recently.

There are also cool animations, and fun testomonials from Jenny Yang, Hasan Minhaj, Iman Shumpert (my favorite) and Lin himself, and they fill out the space nicely.

The only problem with “38 at The Garden” is that it may assume that everyone is going to follow the NBA. That could shut some out.

But at only 38 minutes (I see what you did there), director Frank Chi wastes none of our time. This is a low risk TV endeavor that I think you’ll enjoy.

38 at The Garden
GRADE: B
Rated: not applicable
Running time: 38 minutes

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