Ballers Season 3 Episode 1 Review/Recap: Seeds of Expansion

With Game of Thrones taking up pretty much the entire night last Sunday, HBO decided to hold off on their other premieres until this week.

Following right after was the third season premiere of Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson's Ballers, which was titled "Seeds of Expansion."

The second season of Ballers wrapped up with a lot of cliffhangers leading into the offseason. Spencer Strasmore, played by Johnson, failed to get approval from the NFL Players Association due to a grievance filed by former friend Eddie George, who he screwed over in a financial deal years ago.

After a night of partying after realizing his career was likely over, he gave a speech to the incoming rookies, including an apologize to George.

However, it as left open-ended on if George was going to forgive him. The season itself ended with him going in for the hip replacement surgery he desperately needed.

When we pick up in season three, Spencer appears to be free of pain as he is playing basketball with client and friend Ricky Jerret, who had loaned Spencer $5 million last season to help him out with buying Anderson Sports Management. Spencer had promised Ricky he'd pay him back in full within a year, of which he has only a few months to go. Ricky does drop a big bomb, as he is concerned he may have gotten a girl pregnant as she is late and won't answer his calls.

Spencer jokes that he hasn't ever had that issue, because his pullout is 100%.

However, Ricky questions Spencer's swimmers, which gets his mind going. We really don't learn if Ricky did indeed join the Patriots or not, but it makes sense they will go that route with them winning the Super Bowl.

We then see Spencer back at Anderson Sports Management, where he purchased a piece of the company rather than all of it as he was offered at the end of last season.

We see a quick news report about NFL expansion, with Mr. Anderson asking Spencer if he thinks that will really happen, especially with overseas teams.

After this, his best buddy and partner Joe comes in and talks with Spencer, but Spencer gets a call from Steph Curry.

Curry and his wife Ayesha try to get him to get a girl and go on vacation with them as they are going.

Spencer says he doesn't have anyone to take or the time, but they agree to have dinner that night when Curry arrives in Miami.

Spencer really wants to close a deal to get Steph Curry onboard at ASM, so he asks Mr. Anderson to go along and help him lock him down.

Anderson has a meeting of his own that night with wealthy casino owner Wayne Hastings Jr. that he has been working forever. They end up agreeing to go all together with hopes of helping each other close the deals.

In the meantime, Spencer visits the doctor for a check up, where everything with his surgery is going well.

He inquires about fertility and the doctor sets up an appointment with another doctor that day to get tested.

He goes to get tested, but ends up leaving since he now has to find a new person to take to dinner, as curry has to cancel.

Anderson was certainly not happy with this. He tells Spencer that he had already told Hastings Jr.

about Curry coming and was super excited, so he needs to get him back.

He even says he'll pay off all the debts he owes to his clients if he does.

Spencer tries to get someone from the Miami Heat instead, but Joe talks him into just going himself, because he is the real asset for ASM.

While all this is going on, we get a few side stories with the other leads. Ricky goes and finally talks to the girl he is worried is pregnant. She is mad at him and eventually says she really isn't.

They hook up after he forgives him, but reveals that she really is pregnant.

She wanted to see how he would be once he found out she wasn't, and then was. He says he will be there for her, but you can see the look on his eyes of total worry.

Charles Greane is just off getting promoted to Assistant GM for the Dolphins last season under GM Larry Siefert.

He doesn't have a huge plot this episode, but it revolves around him seeing one of the coaches leaving that had just gotten fired.

Siefert tells Charles to handle the press conference, where questions of issues between the coaching staff and management were brought up, which he doesn't handle very well.

Lastly, we have Vernon Littlefield and his friend Reggie, who has started his own clothing line called "High Powered" with a marijuana leaf on them. Vernon goes to a signing where he finds two kids that are really fans of his, rather than the usuals for Dak Prescott and Ezekiel Elliott.

One of the kids asks about his shirt, in which he says they aren't selling them yet.

He then throws him the shirt, which likely is going to cause issues due to giving a kid a shirt with a marijuana leaf on it.

The episode wraps up at the dinner party held by Hasting Jr., where Spencer really manages to impress him, especially with a great speech at the dinner. Hastings Jr.

says he really doesn't need anything they can offer due to his wealth. However, Spencer ends the episode by bringing up what he thinks of bringing an NFL team to Las Vegas, which really gets him excited.

Premieres are often setup episodes and this one definitely was, but it was a lot of fun.

It is very cool that they are bringing in the whole moving a team to Las Vegas thing with Ballers that is really happening in real life.

The move to Las Vegas from Miami is going to be interesting, but I'm excited to see where they are going with it.

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