Movie Mock Draft

  It’s June, and there’s nothing much to root for. We can’t decide which is weaker: baseball, Mariah Carey’s arm or James Thompson’s ear. But we do have movies. And we do have mock drafts. And with time on our hands, we have the wherewithal to combine both.

   Thus, our first annual Movie Mock Draft, in which we peruse decades of filmdom to select Hollywood’s best ballers and assign them to NBA teams. Chicago is first up. The Mavs pick at 51. So who will it be? Cornbread? Earl? Me? Amazing Grace? Chuck? A member of the animal family? A member of the Wayans family?

   We go pick-by-pick, complete with in-depth scouting reports:

  1 Chicago – BASEketball (1998)  Jerry Reinsdorf owns both the Bulls and the Chicago White Sox and is able to affordably kill two birds with this one creative selection of the man behind the invention of a lazy driveway game featuring the scoring of baseball, the shooting of basketball, and the ogling of Yasmine Bleeth and Jenny McCarthy. Chicagoan Joakim Noah will dig the stoner vibe, Chicagoan Ozzie Guillen will love the nasty language and the “Psyche Out’’ will take NBA/MLB trash-talking to a whole new level. Despite it all, though, fans will still always like the Cubbies better.

2 Miami -- Scott Howard, Teen Wolf  (1985) Riles is in search of a freakishly talented CP3-like point guard, and he gets one in this Michael J. Fox character, who will make the jump straight from high school to the pros. In Howard’s very first high-school game, he recorded a quadruple-double -- points, rebounds, blocks and steals. The lack of assists could be a problem that affects team chemistry; if Howard never passes, he’ll never make Dwayne Wade’s Fave Five. The other concern with Howard-to-Miami: The weather there is not conducive to his problem with body hair.

3 Minnesota -- The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh (1979)  ”The Land Of 10,000 Lakes’’ gets to stock one of them with some “Fish.’’ The good news is that means they get Julius Erving, Jonathan Winters, Flip Wilson, Meadowlark Lemon and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. The downside is that they also have to take Stockard Channing – although to her credit, Rizzo immediately becomes the prettiest girl in Minneapolis.

4 Seattle/Oklahoma City Henry Steele, One On One (1977) Robby Benson’s Henry Steele reportedly developed a habit in college of taking too many uppers before practice. He still seems quite loopy and confused, but it is not known whether than is due to the psychedelic drugs or the mind-numbing instability over not even knowing which city drafted him.

5 Memphis – Neon Budreau, Blue Chips (1994)  Budreau is a phenomenon, the most powerful basketball force of a generation. He’s learned about the dark underside of the game from Nick Nolte, he’s learned free-throw shooting Bob Cousy and he’s embodied by 7-2, 350-pound Shaquille O’Neal. He is exactly what the Memphis Grizzlies need to turn their program around.

   Grizzles exec Jerry West will announce that Memphis has drafted Shaq/Budreau – and then, in a deal announced by Lakers exec Jerry West, they will complete a draft-day deal that sends Budreau to LA in exchange for Koby Karl.

 6 New York – Saleh, The Air Up There (1994) Kevin Bacon travels to Africa in search of untapped athletic talent. (Is Kevin Bacon just “Six Degrees Of Kevin Bacon’’ away from Donnie Nelson?) Bacon finds Saleh (played by Charles Gitonga) and involves himself in the problems of the local Winabi tribe. The movie is real in at least three ways: One, Bob McAdoo served as technical advisor. Two, it was filmed on location in South Africa. And three, Bacon’s character is named “Jimmy Dolan’’ – which of course just happens to be the name of the controversial owner of the Knicks. (Talk about “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon’’!)

 7 LA Clippers – Seabiscuit (2003) Clippers owner Donald T. Sterling, barely paying attention, misunderstands the purpose of the draft (not to mention the theme of this article) and orders Elgin Baylor to select the majestic longshot Seabiscuit. A couple of problems become quite obvious to keen observers, not the least of which is that Seabiscuit is a horse. Also problematic, for everyone but Sterling: Seabiscuit has been dead for 61 years.
  

 8 Milwaukee – Jesus Shuttlesworth, He Got Game (1998)  The Bucks get Ray Allen! Oh, wait. They already had him. And they were still just the Bucks.

   Never mind.

   Milwaukee passes.

 9 Charlotte -- O, O (2001)   Mekhi Phifer as Odin 'O' James! A modernization of Shakespeare’s “Othello’’! A hot Julia Stiles! This finally provides Bob Johnson something decent to put on BET.

 10 New Jersey – Anthony “Meat’’ Tuperello, Porky’s (1982) Despite the efforts from everyone from Chad Ford to Sonny Vaccaro to Marty Blake, no one can quite figure out how “Meat’’ – a beefy, dark-haired, Italian-American lug with a tough urban accent and demeanor, landed at Miami’s Angel Beach High. (Witness Protection Program, maybe?) Anyway, Meat will land back where he belongs, in Joisee, setting nasty backdoor screens in the Princeton offense by day and by night, wing-manning Devin Harris and Vince Carter down to the Bada-Bing.

 11 Indiana – Jimmy Chitwood, Hoosiers (1986) The Pacers make the white – I mean, the right – choice with the rangy Chitwood, who is a hard-working pure shooter with pointy elbows and a deep appreciation for backboards nailed to barns. “We think he could be the next me,’’ says Pacers boss Larry Bird. “But if not that, he’ll at least get along get along with Dunleavy, Foster and Murphy when we go on bus rides.’’

 12 Sacramento – Jamal Jeffries, Juwanna Mann (2002)  A “value’’ pick here, or so the Maloof Brothers think. Jamal is played by Miguel A. Nunez Jr. (who followed this movie with the role that will define him: Miguel now does my landscaping). He’s got Artest-level behavioral problems so he dresses like a girl in order to get back in the good graces of the game. All of which turns out to be a crushing blow to the Maloof Brothers, who’d planned on taking “Juwanna’’ to the Palms, getting her X’ed up, and getting all crazy up in the honeymoon suite.

    Eventually, the Maloofs will say, they misjudged his “length.’’

    So maybe instead the Maloof Brothers will try to draft Candace Parker.

 13 Portland Chief Bromden, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)  Question: What’s better than a team having one insanely stoic, serious, intense, guard-the-basket giant who is 20 going on 50? Answer: A team having two of ‘em. The Blazers’ will line them up side-by-side, Chief Bromden and Greg Oden. There are no smiles. There are no baskets. There is no escape.

 14 Golden State –  Woodrow Tracy “Woody’’ Harrelson  Chris Mullin picks a Mullin-like athlete who is also a Billy Hoyle-like athlete and a Pepper Lewis-type athlete and an Ed Monix-type athlete and a Roy Munson-type athlete and a Krushinski-like athlete and a “Play It To The Bone’’-like  athlete and Woody Boyd-like bartender.

   The Warriors are getting themselves one of sport’s most versatile athletes, capable of playing five positions: guard, bull-rider, bowler, linebacker and boxer.

   And bartender.

 51 Dallas – Ernie “Chip’’ Douglas, The Cable Guy (1996) The Mavs had hoped for more options here. But Jesse Metcalf of John Tucker Must Die (2006)? Dead.  Lil’ Bow Wow of Like Mike (2002)? Mark Cuban is all for there being no age-limit, but this is pushing it. Jackie Moon from Semi-Pro (2008)? Moon informed the club before the draft that he thought himself a more fitting heir to Cuban on “Dancing With The Stars,’’ where he hoped to mamba to his own disco hit, “Love Me Sexy.’’ Roger Murdoch, the co-pilot from Airplane? He says he’s tired from “dragging Walton and Lanier up and down the court for 48 minutes.”

   So the Mavs allow new coach Rick Carlisle to make the selection, and when he sees the film of Chip Douglas (aka Murray Slaughter, George Jetson, Jean Luc Picard, The Big Ragoo, Darrin Stephens). … well, he sees a lot of himself.

938pm june 1 2008