10 Performances That Prove NBA Players Make The Best Movie Stars

5. Larry Bird - Blue Chips (1994)

College sport is big business in America. National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) tournaments often attract higher viewership numbers and are gambled on more than their professional counterparts, so recruitment of athletes is intense. Hell, Friday Night Lights basically did a whole series about it through a football lens. Blue Chips is a gritty look at the corruption inherent in this process and the lengths to which coaches will go to secure a star recruit. At least, that's what it is in theory. In reality, it's a film in which Shaq (yeah, he's in this one too) has a scene where he plays with a class of kindergarteners after being asked politely to try not to step on them. Shaq is, unsurprisingly, terrible in this movie though there is a fairly hilarious scene in which he plays basketball against what looks to be real high school students which is like releasing a direwolf in a room full of pugs. It also stars mid-career Nick Nolte, which we can all agree is not the best era of Nick Nolte. Despite Shaq and Penny Hardaway playing the high school recruits in question and therefore having much bigger roles, it's Celtics legend Larry Bird who steals the film by appearing as himself in just one scene. A scene which appears to have been filmed at his actual house because who's got the time to travel? Bird had retired as a player two years earlier and was just beginning his coaching career, so Nolte's character visits him to ask his advice. He drives through Bird's home state of Indiana to find Larry shooting some hoops on his private court. It's stilted and hilariously awkward and worth it for when Nolte says, teasingly, "A white farmboy with a basketball? Oh I dunno son, I don't think you're ever gonna make it", dialogue that must have been written by Bird himself, as he never missed a chance to give the finger to his doubters. It's a pretty weird moment in a movie which deals at least peripherally with issues of white privilege but it was probably fun for anyone missing Bird's legendary on-court trash-talk.