Daddy tells the story of youth basketball coach and drug trafficker Curtis Malone. In 1993 Curtis founded the DC Assault, an AAU basketball team whose mission was to help inner city boys escape the projects. Over the next two decades he built the team into a national powerhouse. The program’s resume included one thousand alumni, a hundred NCAA scholarships, and several NBA players. Despite the many on-court achievements, to Curtis the team was about more than basketball. The players and their parents became his family. He provided them with food, clothing, and housing when they had nowhere else to turn. He even raised future NBA players DerMarr Johnson, Nolan Smith, and Michael Beasley under his own roof.
But on August 9th, 2013, Curtis’s double life caught up with him. Following a yearlong investigation, the DEA raided his home and uncovered large quantities of cocaine and heroin as well as an unregistered handgun. Law enforcement identified his operation as one of the largest drug trafficking conspiracies on the East Coast. Ironically, in the drug world Curtis was known as "Daddy." The documentary examines Curtis Malone’s life from his childhood to his incarceration. It challenges audiences to decide if he is a calculating criminal or caring mentor. Ultimately, it raises the question whether we as people are defined by our wrongdoings, or rather the sum of our actions. In addition to Curtis, the film includes interviews with the NBA players he raised, the DEA agents who investigated him, and the U.S. Attorney who prosecuted him.
