It's impossible to watch this documentary, which opens by following a high-school basketball player on the verge of superstardom, and not compare it with the '90s masterpiece Hoop Dreams. Lenny Cooke is a fine doc, but unlike Dreams—which is a masterful work of cinematic sociology, presenting a grand picture of a time, a political context, and an exhaustive history of the material consequences of racial oppression—Cooke is mostly about the character flaw of an individual who once had the whole world in his hand and, like a fool, dropped it.

The documentary begins in 2001. Lenny Cooke is at the end of his secondary education and rated number one in the whole nation. Yes, he is, according to spools of statistics and the deepest professional analysis you can imagine, the best high school basketball player in the country. No one doubts his future of fame and large living. Even LeBron James, at a prestigious basketball camp, sees Cooke as the person to beat on his climb to global superstardom. In one scene, Cooke walks around his old Brooklyn hood with an ESPN reporter, explaining how, once settled in the NBA, he will return to and invest in the rough, poverty-stricken hood. He wants to build a YMCA over here and a movie theater over there. He wants to be the next Magic Johnson, an entrepreneur who connects corporate America with the streets. No one laughs at or questions the reality of his plans. The words coming out of his mouth are as good as the money coming out of an ATM.

But there is a problem: Cooke is lazy. He hates waking up early, he hates doing push-ups, his grades are dismal, and he likes to party with gold-diggers. This laziness, which generates bad decision after bad decision, eventually costs him his brilliant career. He is not picked during the 2001 draft, spends a few years playing ball in markets in Asia and South America, gains weight, and ends up an ordinary guy watching LeBron James on TV. The end of the film might make you cry.