Josh McRoberts and Brandon Rush will reenact 'White Men Can't Jump'
For most of his basketball career, Pacers forward Josh McRoberts(notes) has been a punchline rather than a quality player. At Duke, he was easy to mock, and in the NBA he struggled to find minutes. It wasn't exactly a great outcome for a player who was once rated as the best player in the high school class of 2005.
This season, McRoberts has trended towards respectability while starting all 26 of his games for Indiana. In fact, he wants to give himself an even larger profile by participating in February's dunk contest at All-Star Weekend. Don't worry, he has a great plan to boost his campaign.
Mike Wells has the story at IndyStar.com:
McRoberts and teammate Brandon Rush(notes) filmed a scene from the movie "White Men Can't Jump" for a video they plan to post on a website in the near future because McRoberts wants to take part in his first dunk competition. [...]
McRoberts played the part of Woody Harrelson's character, Billy Hoyle, and Rush was Wesley Snipes' character, Sidney Deane.
"We're trying to get our man Josh into the contest," Rush said. "It was fun taking part in it. Everybody should like it."
The scene, which was filmed at McRoberts' house, was from when Harrelson and Snipes are leaning on a graffiti wall at the end of the movie.
McRoberts and Rush ordered the clothes Harrelson and Snipes wore in the scene off eBay.
I'm guessing that McRoberts has better moves up his sleeve than Harrelson's lone dunk in the film (whoops, SPOILER ALERT), so it might be a mistake to align himself with a player who only completes one supremely awkward dunk on an eight-foot rim over the course of an 115-minute film. This is to say nothing of the fact that Brandon Rush decided to play a part originated by an actor who just entered prison for a three-year sentence.
On the other hand, this video promises McRoberts and Rush wearing hilarious early '90s shorts, tanktops and hats. Would you want to keep someone with that sense of humor out of the dunk contest? Put that man in the contest right now, so long as he wears the same outfit while he dunks.
As soon as it's available, we will obviously post this video on BDL. Keep your eyes peeled for the magic.
UPDATE: We now have a photo of the outfits (via Indy Cornrows).
