10 Performances That Prove NBA Players Make The Best Movie Stars

2. Michael Jordan - Space Jam (1996)

Y'all ready for this? Bugs Bunny. Alien monsters. The best use of Bill Murray since Ghostbusters. A theme song by R. Kelly, back before we knew he is a terrible person and stopped being able to enjoy his music. Charles Barkley cracking jokes, back before we knew he is also a terrible person and stopped being able to enjoy hearing him talk. The undoubted G.O.A.T of sport comedies, starring the undoubted G.O.A.T of basketball: Michael Jordan. The plot of Space Jam is pretty straightforward. A bunch of tiny, adorable aliens want to kidnap the Looney Tunes to perform at their amusement park in outerspace and so the Looney Tunes challenge them to a game of basketball instead, so then the aliens steal the talents of a bunch of NBA players and turn into gigantic super-players (except in the case of Nawt, who steals from Muggsy Bogues, the shortest player in the history of the NBA). They call themselves the Monstars, which is just a brilliant team name, and scare the hell out of the Looney Tunes, so Bugs Bunny sucks Michael Jordan down a hole in a golf course and convinces him to become their ally and a bunch of celebrities have cameos and in the end Jordan decides to come out of retirement and play for the Chicago Bulls again, just like he did in real life, which suggests this may actually have been a documentary. Something to think about. Jordan has chemistry with everyone in this movie, from Murray to Daffy Duck. He's both snarky and warm and at no point seems phased by having to act against (presumably) no one for a lot of his scenes. If you only watched this movie as a child, give it another go- it holds up remarkably well. If, as rumoured, a LeBron-led Space Jam 2 is in the works, those'll be some big Air Jordans to fill. Though hopefully the sequel won't make the same mistake as the original in putting two centres on the Monstars team. Alien or not, you're going to struggle to spread the floor that way.