10 Performances That Prove NBA Players Make The Best Movie Stars

10. Shaquille O'Neal - Kazaam (1996)

Kazaam tells the story of a young boy, estranged from his father, who tries to find solace in his relationship with the other adult male in his life...the titular Kazaam, a 7 foot tall, 5000 year old rapping genie played by Shaq. Who also lets him down and abandons him during his hour of need, allowing him to be nearly killed. Twice. Eventually, the genie/father figure palms him off on the same dad who left him high and dry in the first place. The movie is clearly a tragic indictment of the irresponsible behaviour of deadbeat dads everywhere and the folly of placing your trust in strange adults who promise to help you. But the internet tells me that this movie was classified as a comedy, so it's possible that's not the intended message. In 1996, Shaquille O'Neal was one of the best basketball players in the world. So there's no way he needed to do this movie. He chose to spend his offseason filming this absurdly terrible film, time that fans would've preferred he spent at the free throw line. The movie seems to have been partly an attempt to display Shaq's (limited) skills as a rapper. He breaks out into rhymes throughout the film and is even offered a record deal. Towards the end, the film seems to remember that if you have a famous basketball player in your movie you should probably have him, you know, play some basketball. So Kazaam uses his magic powers to turn the bad guy into a ball and dunk him into some garbage. Also hanging out in the garbage? Kazaam's director, Paul Michael Glaser, who was panned so completely for it that he never directed a movie again. Shaq once said that him shooting 40% from the foul line was "just God's way of saying that nobody's perfect". God needn't have bothered. Kazaam proves that point quite nicely. As does Grown Ups 2. And Scary Movie 4. And really everything else on Shaq's IMDb page.