Delving away from the hard line that this blog usually takes, I wanted to talk about the phenomenon of actors playing basketball players in movies that are unrelated to basketball.
It's very convenient for film makers, because hockey is far removed from the spotlight and football requires a very select body type, and no one wants to watch a movie starring an offensive lineman.
I mean, not without Sandra Bullock.
So, anyways, basketball. Actors generally range from 5'5 to about 6'4. Any taller and they only get cast in bit parts. In basketball, contrary to popular wisdom, you can be more or less any height and play point guard, which just so happens to make an easy parallel to being a quarterback. Hollywood likes things that the audience can understand. If this guy is a brash, take charge fellow, he'll be a shoot-first guy in the mold of Allen Iverson or Stephon Marbury. If he's compassionate and a do-gooder, he'll be Jason Kidd, fascilitating for his teammates. If he's black, he'll play like Pete Maravich. It's all very confusing.
Ever since Hoosiers broke the color barrier (by making it okay for white guys to play basketball and be plucky and likeable) and Muggsy Bogues broke the height barrier (by showing that short guys were in fact capable of playing basketball and even blocking Patrick Ewing), it's been cool to show white guys in movies and have a brief note of them being a star point guard on a basketball team. It's much easier to sell someone as Steve Nash then as Doug Flutie.
I'd also like to take this space to say that Common looks like Stephon Marbury. The fact that he plays on the Nets in that Just Wright movie makes me think that he's going to lead the production crew to a box office bomb and leave for another movie because he's not getting paid as much as Queen Latifah.
I'll still see it, because hey, Dwight Howard.
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