'Running Point' Star Drew Tarver Is Not Related to Actor Jason Bateman

Sports comedies historically don't have a super high success rate, but Running Point is attempting to buck that trend with its first season on Netflix. The show, which stars Kate Hudson as a reformed party girl who unexpectedly finds herself running her family's professional basketball team, has a great ensemble cast, and its first season is available now.

Following the drop of that first season, many took note of Drew Tarver, who plays Kate's younger brother in the series. Drew might be familiar to some people because of his work on the underrated comedy The Other Two, but some thought he looked eerily similar to actor Jason Bateman. Here's what we know about whether the two are actually related.

There is no evidence that Drew and Jason are related, although the two do look alike. Jason just has one sister, and his kids are 18 and 12. They could, I suppose, be distant cousins, but the far likelier explanation is that the two actors just look a lot alike.

Drew is not yet nearly as well known or famous as Jason, but he has stacked up an impressive list of TV credits that include Running Point and The Other Two.

Born in a small town in rural Georgia, Drew got his start doing improvisational work at the Upright Citizens Brigade in New York City before eventually moving to Los Angeles.

As he began to get booked on shows, Drew's first big break came with The Other Two, where he plays one of two striving, desperate older siblings to a young pop phenom who has overshadowed them both. The show received widespread critical acclaim and ran for a total of three seasons.

Although the team at the center of Drew's new show Running Point is the Los Angeles Waves, the show was made with cooperation from Lakers ownership and is loosely inspired by what it would be like to run the Lakers, the marquee franchise in the NBA.

The show was created by Drew Stassen, Ike Barenholtz, and Mindy Kaling, and it seems that all three of them were happy to dive into this alternate basketball world.

“We really were excited to have the opportunity to create our own little mini alternate NBA universe, and we wanted to do that because we wanted to add the freedom to present characters that are deeply flawed without having to worry about upsetting actual players,” Ike told NBC News. “I think subtextually, you’ll see what you want to see, but I think we really wanted to just kind of build a world where there are some things that have happened in real life.”

Jeannie Buss, who is the Lakers co-owner, is the loose inspiration for Kate's character. Lakers fans around the world are hoping that, like the team in the show, the real-life Los Angeles Lakers can go on a deep playoff run to close out the 2024-2025 season.