Writer and director Larry J. Sanders joins the show to discuss his upcoming documentary, Shockwave, which explores the legacy of the three-time champion Detroit Shock.

We dig into why one of the WNBA's most dominant early dynasties seemed to abruptly vanish from the city — and why their story deserves way more credit in league history.

Plus, with a new WNBA franchise set to arrive in Detroit in 2029, we break down what it takes to honor the past while building the future of local sports.

You can check out the teaser here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEXSRJ44hDo

More information: https://bio.site/shockwavefilm

Our Summer Studio Open House is Saturday, August 15! Come join us for free coffee, donuts and conversation: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/1995592904096?aff=oddtdtcreator

Transcript

This has been lightly edited for clarity. Please refer to the original audio before quoting.

Joining myself and Norris Howard on the line is Larry J. Sanders, writer and director of Shockwave. I'm excited to talk about this as a Detroit sports fan. Larry, welcome to Daily Detroit.

Larry J. Sanders: Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Jer Staes: All right, so what was the idea behind putting together this sort of film for fans of the Shock? Because it's called Shockwave, so I'm assuming this is about the Detroit Shock.

Larry J. Sanders: Yes, yes. Lifelong fan, lifelong Detroit sports fan. Grew up on the West Side of Detroit, 6 Mile and Hubbell. Basketball junkie—I feel like basketball is probably the first thing I remember loving with a deep intensity. The Shock came when I was turning six, I want to say, so in a lot of ways it was the very first sports team that I had a real affinity for.

We can talk about the Lions' many failures over the years. The Pistons weren't necessarily at the top of their peak at that time. So I feel like the Shock was definitely the first team that I fell in love with from the city. Their story is incredible. They went from worst to first, that led to them winning three championships, and then in 2009 it seemed like it all just abruptly disappeared. As a 16-year-old—about to turn 17 years old—it felt very abrupt. It felt like those of us who were fans of the team didn't really get closure about what happened to the team and why they left the market.

Fast forward a few years later. Working in journalism now, wanting to do the story as an oral history—specifically because when the W was celebrating its 25th anniversary, it kind of felt like the Shock were conspicuously absent from any sort of celebrations they were having around the league and its history. Again, having won three titles in the first 12 years of the league—that's 25% of the league championships—it felt like a dynasty by any definition. It felt like they should be celebrated more than they were. So I initially wanted to do this project five years ago when the league was celebrating its 25th anniversary.

Fast forward a few years. I work at Howard University as a speechwriter to the president. Started doing their film program sort of as a way to pass the time, to be very honest, and fell in love with it—fell in love with the process of filmmaking. Was thinking about what I would want to do for a thesis project, and circled back to this as both a love letter to the city, but also I felt like I wanted to help be part of bringing a W team back to Detroit.

This predates even the team getting announced as coming back. But now that a team has been announced as coming back in 2029, I think it's important to talk about the history of the Shock and bring that closure before a new team comes back.

Norris Howard: Yeah, and you know, I'm also a fellow West Sider. Grew up on Schoolcraft and Hubbell, so right around the corner from me. But I was a person that also followed the Detroit Shock very, very closely. As a fan of basketball and as a fan of just women's sports in general, I was actually at The Palace during that first championship run and got to see some of those players.

As you're very early on in this project, what is the feedback that you've gotten from people that you've talked to in terms of their memories of the Detroit Shock?

Larry J. Sanders: Everybody seems to have very fond memories of it. Just from talking to people about wanting to do the project, they think it's one that merits doing, simply because of the sort of mystery aspect of it. Like, what happened to this championship team?

The W, especially in that era, had a history of teams either folding or relocating—namely the Houston Comets, who were also a championship team, who are also returning to the W next year, I want to say. But aside from the Shock and the Comets, the majority of teams that folded or relocated either didn't have the market support or they didn't have the winning success on the court.

Norris Howard: Yeah, and that was not the case in Detroit. They were selling out at The Palace, and those postseason runs were incredible. So for me as a fan, I'm really excited about not just this project, but the return of the team.

So my next question is: what actually goes into the information gathering and making a sports documentary? Over the past few years, we've seen some incredible sports documentaries—one of the best, I think, was the Michael Jordan documentary, The Last Dance, that five-part series. What goes into that in terms of what type of people do you reach out to talk to? Who do you try to get to sit down and give you information about what happened with the team?

Larry J. Sanders: I think the answer there is two-fold: it's research and relationship building.

Just for me, casting a wide net of all the principals—all the folks I think were integral to that run. So we're talking about the players: the Deanna Nolans, the Swin Cashes, the Katie Smiths—the players who made the dynasty. And then we're thinking about the Bill Laimbeers, the Cheryl Reeve who's now an iconic coach in Minnesota, the folks who were in the front office and coaching the teams like Rick Mahorn. The sort of—I don't want to call them ancillary players because they were also integral to the team becoming what it was—the Plenette Pearsons, the Elaine Powells. Was trying to get in contact with Kara Braxton before she passed—rest in peace to her.

Just casting the broadest net possible to figure out who can give the most comprehensive story. The owner of the team, Karen Davidson, before she sold—trying to get in contact with her. So definitely trying to be as thorough as possible with outreach.

But then also, there's been a lesson in relationship building that maybe I wasn't as attuned to when I went out to do this project to start. Again, this is my thesis project for Howard University. Some of my classmates and peers who finished the program this year wrote original scripts that they could just go out and cast people for. In my own mind, the story already exists, the people already exist, I just have to go out and put a camera in front of them and get them to tell their story.

What I've come to realize over the last year and a half to two years getting this project off the ground is that it's actually gaining people's trust. Why should they let you be the one to tell the story? Building that over the last few months specifically, but definitely over the last year or so—in addition to the outreach—is making sure that they know I have good intentions and that I'm someone who has a good perspective on a story that deserves to be told.

Jer Staes: What surprised you most about this documentary process and what you've learned so far?

Larry J. Sanders: I think definitely just the getting it off the ground part. Naively, again, I just kind of thought it would be something where I could reach out to people and they'd be willing to do it. But there's been a larger effort of making sure people know I have good intentions and that I don't have ill intent. This is a story that I think deserves to be told and I'm the right person to tell it.

More on a micro level, in doing archival research and pulling stuff, I didn't realize that the team almost got relocated the year before they won the 2003 championship. I always sort of thought Detroit was a stable market for the WNBA and for the Shock specifically. But in reminiscing on how the team was floundering in that era—they finished with the worst record in the league in 2002—I was pulling archival stuff over the winter and came to find out that, yeah, they almost got sold ahead of the 2003 season.

In the retelling of it in the Free Press and stuff like that, Bill Laimbeer was able to convince Mr. Davidson to keep the team in the market for one more year, and then the rest is history. They went on to win titles and become one of the defining franchises of the 2000s, if not in league history. But the team almost left the market well before they could have even reached those heights.

Jer Staes: Now, one thing that I hear from people out there—and I don't share this view, but I wanted to see what you thought of it—there are a lot of people thinking, "Why now with the WNBA?" It didn't work before. What's changed in the world and in the community to support this, whereas before, as you said, it almost went away and then did go away to Tulsa for a while there?

Larry J. Sanders: I think instructionally the league is in a much better place. We see tangibly that salaries have gone up, attendance is at an all-time peak. News just came out that the WNBA All-Star Game exceeded the NBA All-Star Game in attendance this year, which—if we're talking about numbers—is eye-popping to see that there were more eyeballs, at least in the building, to watch the WNBA All-Star Game than the men's.

I think that you can see that the numbers themselves have improved. One of the mysteries in the documentary that we want to get at is: what exactly happened with the team leaving the market? I think the company line or the stock answer was that the Great Recession hit Detroit and the Michigan area, and so it just wasn't tenable to keep the team in market anymore.

I kind of want to interrogate why there was no interrogation of that in real time. It kind of seemed like, to be frank, there were male journalists who were eager to write that this team wasn't going to work in Detroit anymore. So I want to interrogate whether there was misogynoir at foot, or if there was an eagerness to dismiss the team as a failure, rather than looking at other factors at play that maybe could have kept them in market.

Norris Howard: I think that's a really interesting point because I do remember there not being much fanfare around the team actually leaving. I remember a couple of stories that came out, but ultimately it felt like the Detroit sports world didn't necessarily properly mourn the loss of a winning franchise. In Ann Arbor, it was called Five Championship Drive or Six Championship Drive—those championships were counted alongside the Pistons' championships.

And on top of that, when we look at the overall sports landscape of 2026, not only has women's sports become more viable through Title IX, but also looking at what the Women's World Cup and the US Women's National Team has done for the growth of that sport, and the growth of the WNBA with stars like Angel Reese, Caitlin Clark, and A'ja Wilson.

I also want to talk to you directly: you're saying that the project is a work in progress. It's something that you're currently working on, and you want to get this across the line and out to the people. Tell us more about where the production is and how people can help.

Larry J. Sanders: Currently, we're in something of a pre-production heading into production stage. We shot our trailer/sizzle reel, which is available on our website,shockwavefilm.com. It's a three-and-a-half-minute trailer getting into the history of the team and the goals that I have for the film, getting it out ahead of next summer or summer 2027.

Right now we're still doing outreach to folks. We have a few players confirmed to participate: Deanna Nolan said she's down to participate, I've been in contact with Cheryl Ford who's down to participate, and Katie Smith has expressed interest. Still reaching out to other players and coaches, but there's been general interest in getting this story out there.

Anybody can check out the project atshockwavefilm.com. Right now we're doing fundraising for our first round of production. We're treating this almost like a basketball game—we're heading into the first quarter, and we're thinking we might have a four-quarter game. Once we get this through, we'll figure out what the next three quarters will require.

We want this to go international, not even just national. Like I said, I want this to be a love letter to Detroit, and I also want this to be a reminder to the world about the greatness that comes out of this city. Sometimes we get overlooked for reasons that make me mad and sad at the same time. We have so much greatness coming out of the city and so many stories that get overlooked for terrible reasons, and I want to be part of the change I want to see.

Jer Staes: I do believe there's a generational change happening in Detroit and with sports. Go see the sizzle reel—I'm a former Directors Guild of America member and I can tell you it's good. You want to go check it out on their website; I'll have links to everything in the show notes.

Larry J. Sanders, writer and director of Shockwave, thank you so much for your time on Daily Detroit. Keep us updated, will you?

Larry J. Sanders: Yes, I will. Thank you all for having me.