10 Performances That Prove NBA Players Make The Best Movie Stars

8. Dennis Rodman - Eddie (1996)

The New York Knicks are referenced all over pop culture. Miranda dates the team doctor in Sex and the City. They're name-checked in The Sugarhill Gang's Rapper's Delight. And in 1996 they were the subject of Whoopi's Goldberg's least-forgivable contribution to film, Eddie. Goldberg plays the titular "Eddie" (short for Edwina), a professional limo driver and passionate Knicks fan who wins a competition to be honorary coach for half a game and then is given the permanent head coach position for...reasons. A lot of fun (?) is had throughout the movie with the fact that she's a woman, which actually would've been a huge deal at the time given that it's 19 years later and there are still no female head coaches in the NBA. So I guess this movie could be considered pretty progressive if it wasn't for the fact that it is so straight up racist in parts that it's kind of hard to watch. One of the stars of the fictionalised Knicks is an eastern European player called Ivan, who can only say "Ivan make basket" like some sort of Hodor who dunks. This character can probably be blamed for the anti-European attitudes still held by Knicks fans today which led to their booing of lottery pick Kristpas Porzingis during the 2015 draft. Sorry Kristaps. There are a tonne of NBA players throughout this movie though very few actual Knicks, presumably because they didn't want to appear in a film in which their team was the joke of the league (you know, kind of like the 2014-2015 Knicks but not real life). Of all the little cameos, the finest is probably Dennis Rodman, who by this stage was playing for the untouchable Jordan-era Bulls and could do whatever he wanted and pull it off. Including pretend he still played for the San Antonio Spurs in a scene in which Whoopi Goldberg attempts to burn him by saying "Get your earrings, baby. You look naked" and tells him he has bad hair which is patently untrue because Rodman's hair was, as always, weird perfection.