Former Celtics star Kevin Garnett wasn’t the first choice when directors Josh and Benny Safdie were writing an NBA player into their new film “Uncut Gems.”
As New York natives and self-proclaimed “crazy Knicks fans,” the Safdie brothers originally wrote the script in 2010 for Amar’e Stoudemire, who spent four and a half seasons in blue and orange. At the behest of their agency, however, the brothers re-wrote the story three times for three different players, the last being Garnett.
“Around 2015, at one point, our agency was like, ‘Why don’t you cast up this part? Amar’e’s cool, but, like let’s get a bigger star here.