With Space Jam 2 officially underway and LeBron James set to star, which five NBA (or WNBA) players should have their talents stolen by the Monstars?
It’s really happening, folks: Space Jam 2 is officially going to be a thing, with LeBron James set to play the Michael Jordan role in the sequel. According to the Hollywood Reporter, Ryan Coogler (director of Black Panther) will produce and Terence Nance (HBO’s Random Acts of Flyness) will direct.
King James will be teaming up with Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and the rest of the Looney Tunes, most likely in another high-stakes basketball game against the aliens from Moron Mountain. Assuming the plot adheres to the original, those puny little aliens will be stealing the powers of real NBA players to present James and the Tune Squad with a legitimate challenge.
This begs the question: Which five players should the Monstars target?
In the original, the Monstars were hardly a well-rounded bunch, with the five players they stole talent from being Muggsy Bogues, Larry Johnson, Charles Barkley, Patrick Ewing and Shawn Bradley. While Chuck and Ewing were plenty charismatic, and Bradley’s inclusion led to plenty of goofy tall white guy jokes for the dopey blue Monstar, Moron Mountain should do a much better job of fielding a more complementary group of stolen NBA talent.
So what characteristics should these five players embody? Obviously they need to be well-established, superstar-caliber talent, which would be an improvement from the original (no offense to Bogues or Bradley, but they were hardly superstars at the time).
Aside from being recognizable, they also need to be good presences on screen. For example, while Kawhi Leonard is a terrific player, being in a movie would actually require him to speak. Finally, we have to acknowledge that with LeBron at the film’s center, his buddies and former teammates have the inside track to a supporting role, even if they’re well past their primes.
There will be plenty of cameos and questions to be answered down the road. Which former competitor of James/recently retired player will take on Larry Bird‘s role? To make room for more guest stars, will the Monstars get a bench this time around? And can a legitimately funny comedian actually secure the Bill Murray part we all know is going to Kevin Hart?
We’ll have to ponder those answers another day, but for now, we’re going to try and break this down by position. Bear in mind that the original Monstars had one undersized point guard, two power forwards and two centers, so in a small-ball league, we can shirk traditional positions a little bit to find the best five players for Space Jam 2.