But no matter how Allen is received at the TD Garden from here on, his character, Jesus Shuttlesworth, will always be among the best basketball characters in movie history.
Allen was surprisingly capable opposite Denzel Washington in the movie, which was also Allen's acting debut. The scenes in which Allen played basketball were refreshing to hoops fans, who would have to endure non-baller actors stumbling through later movies (think Morris Chestnut in Like Mike or Common in Just Wright).
That got us thinking about the best basketball players from movies. To qualify for this Top 10, the player has to actually be a character — no cameos like Spud Webb in Eddie or NBA players who never touch a ball in the movie like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in Airplane!. Also, nobody is judging acting ability or the quality of the movie, so do not expect to see any of the kids from Coach Carter included.
This is all about scouting the Top 10 players from the silver screen.
Check out the Top 10 basketball-playing characters in movies>>
Screen grab via YouTube/cpearson18
