When I was growing up, baseball was the first thing people talked about. Now it's basketball. I don't think any sport draws a more star-studded crowd. I've seen actors, actresses, models, athletes from other fields like the NFL, baseball and hockey in the stands. They all want to be there.
Studios are always on the prowl for fresh celebrity blood.
This is the contemporary version of that. Although football greats like O.J. Simpson, Jim Brown, Fred Williamson, Alex Karras and, most recently, Howie Long in Broken Arrow have a better record of breaking into the movies, the recognition factor of the NBA elite has been growing by leaps and rebounds in the past decade. And the star approach taken by the network-televised games also builds up the awareness in Hollywood that these guys don't just play locally but are international stars as well. No one will deny that names like Shaq and Michael Jordan are big. Maybe too big.