Adam Yauch sounds off on his new documentary

What happens when a Beastie Boy forgoes his right to party? Adam Yauch, aka MCA, one-third of the legendary Beastie Boys, is midway through his fifth decade and sports a full head of gray hair (he has for a while now), and these days is slowing down—he's more concerned about his daughter's bedtime than insomniac nights in his home borough of Brooklyn. And in addition to recording a new Beastie Boys album at their Canal Street studio in New York, Yauch has found himself in the uncomfortable position of talking basketball. Despite directing the documentary Gunnin' for That #1 Spot, a look at the country's best high school basketball stars who gathered at Rucker Park in Harlem for the Elite 24 tournament in 2006, MCA isn't all that well versed in basketball. (He didn't even watch the NCAA tournament this year, even though two of the eight players he profiled were in the Final Four.)

The movie, which opens in select theaters on June 27, is both an intimate portrait of eight kids straddling adolescence and athletic stardom and an ode to street ball set to MCA's choice tracks. Recently, Yauch took a break from recording to talk with Radar about being a hyper soccer dad, Sharon Stone's karmic misstep, his love of multitrack tape, and, of course, Justin Timberlake's groupies.

RADAR: How did you get involved in the Elite 24 tournament
ADAM YAUCH: A friend of mine put together the all-star game up at Rucker, and part of it was his enthusiasm—he was so excited about the kids and it seemed like it would be really interesting to document. Partly, the idea that there was a gathering of the top ball players in the country was really appealing. There was this sense that they would all be center stage soon enough, but they weren't quite there yet when we were filming. They were all going to be superstars in a short period of time, but they weren't household names yet. And I was drawn to the idea of these kids coming together to compete in New York; some of them had never even been to a big city before.

What were the kids like before you started shooting?
The way I imagined it was a bunch of high school kids talking trash, but once I started interviewing them I realized that they were pretty professional and really groomed. They were media savvy; they've been doing these kinds of interviews since junior high. They tended to be very aware of who they are and where they're headed.

Do you think there's something lost in that?
It is what is. I don't know if their lives would happier or better if they didn't have that awareness. It's just an interesting development; it almost becomes its own subculture. Ultimately, this game was great because it doesn't have sneaker affiliations and it's out at a park and it's more like a pickup game.

Do you feel like there are parallels between these kids and where you were when the Beastie Boys became a household name?
I started in the band when I was in high school, and our first record was just a little punk record. It wasn't until License to Ill that the band became mainstream, and I was 21 or 22 when that came out. Stuff happens to these kids much younger these days. They're really known by 18, and the amount of money they're dealing with is insane. Some of these contracts with Nike are worth $15 million.

Four out of the eight high school kids you profiled are now eligible for the NBA draft. How do you feel about so-called scholar athletes? It doesn't seem like that many kids are sticking around for longer than a year.
I don't know this stuff well enough to speak about it with confidence, but a friend said Kyle Singler could have been eligible for the draft but that Duke didn't position him well. Honestly, I tried to watch the tournament this year to follow these guys, but I'm just terrible at watching basketball on television. I don't care what the announcers have to say, I don't know what the hell they're talking about, and the way the game is structured with time outs and foul shots and commercial breaks, I get bored and switch the channel and forget to go back. I think I miss out on some good conversations. I always overhear people talking about this game and that game and what do you think of Lakers–Celtics and I'm like, "Uhhhhh, I don't know."

This movie doesn't look like any other sports documentary—it's more like a music video that happens to be about basketball. Was that intentional?
The strategy was to mike up the players and record the game audio. I didn't want to hear any announcers talking. I wanted to be able to hear what was happening on the court. Part of the idea was to have this surreal thing with slow motion and fish-eye lenses, and my idea going into it was to have two completely separate feelings: I wanted to be able to convey being right inside of the game and to have the game move with the music and the slo-mo, and to jump back and forth from those two realities. There's times when the real sound and the music overlaps.

If you don't watch basketball, what's your connection to the game?
I play a lot more than I watch basketball. I play a couple nights a week at Chelsea Piers. My daughter plays soccer up there, too. She plays on this little almost basketball court–looking thing. I don't want to be the hectic, weird person, but I definitely am. I find myself yelling, "C'mon, get in there!" I went to all her soccer games, but now she's really into swimming.