In a parody of 30 for 30, Bart becomes a star basketball player, but things go awry when he gets involved with the mafia.
Tropes:
- Acquired Situational Narcissism: The attention Bart receives as Springfield Elementary's star basketball player rapidly goes to his head to the point where he refuses to let anybody else on the team touch the ball. The fact that the team keeps winning on his ability alone does nothing to help matters.
- Aesop Amnesia: The episode follows a similar Break the Haughty trajectory to "The Boys of Bummer" with the community granting Bart royal status due to his ability to lead his peewee sports team to victory only to turn against him when he lets them down. But at least the treatment here is not as harsh.
- As Himself: Stephen Curry's cameo during the credits.
- Blackmail: Lisa blackmails Fat Tony into sparing Bart and Homer by threatening to reveal that, as a kid, he used to play basketball for a girl's team and wasn't good enough to be more than a substitute.
- Brick Joke: Early on the episode, Krusty tells a joke about Dolly Parton. The epilogue features her suing him.
- Digging Yourself Deeper: Bart, after finding out Fat Tony was betting against him, tells during his interview how he was told to lose the finals "or else".
- Disappeared Dad: Nelson's Dad returns and then leaves again.
- Documentary Episode: The episode plays out a typical Simpsons story about one of the family members gaining a temporary raison d'être (in this case, Bart becoming Springfield Elementary's star basketball player) in the style of a 30 for 30 documentary about the rise and fall of a sports career.
- Drowning My Sorrows: At one point, Agnes Skinner is seen taking a drink from a bottle simply labeled "Sad".
- Fun with Acronyms: Nelson's Been Abandoned.
- "Just Joking" Justification: Fat Tony uses this excuse after making some unfortunate comments.
- Meaningful Name: Johnny Tightlips' real name is Giovanni Silencio.
- Ms. Exposition: Lisa complains about being this in the documentary.Lisa: Bart didn't know it, but he was point shaving. That's when a player wins the game, but makes sure his team doesn't cover the spread. The team's happy, the gamblers are happy, everybody wins. The only unhappy person is someone like me, who has to explain the thing.
- My Life Flashed Before My Eyes: Homer says it happened to him and Bart.
- Narrator All Along: Nelson's Dad turns out to be the one narrating the documentary.
- Normal Fish in a Tiny Pond: The return to status quo at the end is explained by the fact that Bart was never especially good at basketball to begin with, but was simply better than the other elementary schoolers and crumbled the second he found himself up against a slightly taller player.
- "Not Making This Up" Disclaimer: One of Grampa's scenes stops and a narrator explains that the scene isn't frozen. Gramps got paralyzed.
- Series Continuity Error: Lisa threatens to expose Fat Tony's childhood history with a Springfield girls' basketball team. However, the current Fat Tony, who supplanted his cousin the original Fat Tony in "Donnie Fatso," is from San Diego and up to this point there's been no implication that he grew up in Springfield.
- Shout-Out: Realizing he's unable to keep secrets, a mobster asks for the phone number of the psychiatrist whose help Fat Tony secretly seeks.
- Spoiled Brat: Marge fears Bart is becoming this as his athletic success gets him special treatment from everyone in Springfield. Homer defends him but is later forced to admit she was right.
- Take That!: Lisa says it's okay to discuss secrets in documentaries because nobody watches them unless it's about rich men who killed people.
- Tempting Fate: During one of Lisa's scenes, she's glad to be allowed to play the sax. When she's about to start, the scene cuts to Grampa being glad the song was cut. Given her role in saving Bart and Homer, she says she deserves a caption. She's then given one that reads "no, she does not".
- Verbal Tic: Bart quotes Fat Tony as having told him to throw the game "or else." Tony's lawyer tries to claim that he would never use such language and is Instantly Proven Wrong by his client compulsively ending sentences with the phrase.
- Wastebasket Ball: Explaining what made Bart so good at basketball: he had to serve a very lengthy detention during which there was no other way to entertain himself.
- "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: Homer no longer was a coach but still could tell kids what to do; Stephen Curry didn't appear in the documentary; Krusty gets sued; Fat Tony is once again bested by his female teammates; and Nelson's Dad briefly returned.
