NBA: 30 NBA players you forgot acted in movies or TV shows – Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Many of the NBA players on this list appeared in cameos playing themselves, or at the very least playing a basketball player. Only a handful have portrayed characters in the traditional sense as professional actors, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar likely leads the way for quality and quantity of such roles.
His standout role was as pilot Roger Murdock in the1980 film, parody comedy “Airplane!”, taking part in a number of classic comedic exchanges that have revervebrated through pop culture since.
Even in the midst of winning MVP awards and championships with the Los Angeles Lakers, Abdul-Jabbar didn’t stop acting. He played roles in the 1985 comedy Fletch, the horror anthology series “Tales from the “Darkside” and had a memorable recurring role as a substitute teacher on Deff’rent Strokes.
And on and on. He showed up in sitcoms like The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Full House, Martin, Everybody Loves Raymond, Scrubs and The Big Bang Theory. He’s still appearing in things to this day, overseeing a basketball-related date on ABC’s The Bachelorette a few years ago.