Are you a Broadway fanatic? We'll bet you're pretty cheesed-off that the biggest musical sensation of the year isn't happening in New York, eh? To what do we refer? I Was Marbury of course! What, you haven't heard? Former NBA star and more recent Chinese Basketball Association star Stephon Marbury has an entire musical based on him and its showing in Beijing right now.
Kind of.
The musical itself is less about the former All-Star point guard's life and more about the concept of underdogs winning it all. The player himself does make an appearance, although its not until the very end when he congratulates the actual protagonists in following him to greatness. It got us thinking however: What NBA icons would make the best musicals in actuality? Check out our ideas and feel free to reach out if you want to buy the rights.
01) Julius Erving
Motown: The Musical has already happened but we're not sold on the plot. The concept—all of Motown's former stars gathering for the label's 25th anniversary, thus triggering a series of performance memories for Berry Gordy—is a bit thin. How can we incorporate the sound of late '60s funk and R&B into a more plot-driven musical? How about a bio of Philadelphia 76ers legend Julius "Dr. J" Erving? It's tough to think of a sports star funkier than the man who reinvented the dunk so totally that he might as well have invented the dunk as we know it. The afro, the short-shorts...the dude was essentially a one-man Harlem Globetrotters and he made his opponents look like the Washington Generals to be sure.
02) Daryl Dawkins
We'll keep things in Philadelphia, even if the town doesn't have the best track record with sports-based musicals (Rocky: The Musical only stayed open for five months on Broadway). Our next subject is Daryl "Chocolate Thunder" Dawkins, a player known for two things: one of the first players to go straight from high school to the NBA and the first NBA player to shatter a backboard. The high school thing allows us to label Dawkins as an Amadeus-style prodigy and his rim rattling can become a metaphor for the pent-up anger he feels because of the unfair expectations heaped upon him by the 76ers fan base. Neither of those things (particularly the latter) is true but it makes for good theatre. As a bonus, the "Chocolate Thunder" nickname was given to him by Stevie Wonder...musical gold!
03) Dennis Rodman
Some member of the NBA's greatest ever team had to make this list and Michael Jordan was way too obvious. Dennis Rodman comes to mind when you think about all he has in common with musicals: Broadway musicals are over-the-top, colorful and loud...and Rodman is over-the-top, colorful and loud. And has been for his entire life, from his hair to his marriage to Carmen Electra to his assaults on cameramen. In fact, Broadway might be the wrong place for Dennis. If you're familiar with K-Pop music videos, you know how out of control Koreans can get with entertainment extravaganzas. South Korea's neighbors up north aren't too different and Rodman is one of the few people on Earth with an open invitation to hang out with Kim Jung Un.
04) Russell Westbrook
Oklahoma Thunder coach Scott Brooks gave a typical bit of coach cliché this week when he said he believed that Russell Westbrook was the best point guard in the NBA. Westbrook was quick to agree despite being dominated by actual best point guard Chris Paul in both assists and steals per game during the 2013-'14 season. Most point guards love to have a superstar to feed to—like Paul's lob city campaign with Blake Griffin or Lebron James passing to LeBron James for the Miami Heat—but Westbrook has to actively work to hide his loathing for the fact that he's the second best player on the Thunder. Current MVP Kevin Durant gets the trophies, the endorsements and the diss tracks from Lil B. We imagine a musical based around The Murder of Jesse James by The Coward Robert Ford featuring Durant as the hero and Westbrook as the jealous accomplice who kills him from behind.
05) Tim Duncan
The biggest beef people have with Tim Duncan is that he's so dang boring. The keys to his game are fundamentals, his post game conferences are dull and he's probably never gotten a parking ticket. He's like a Bill Belichick who frowns less. Of course, that's probably why he has five rings and your favorite player doesn't. Ultimately of course, all of his mundane behavior means that he's perhaps the worst candidate for a musical. Unless we base said musical not on the real Tim Duncan, but The Onion's Tim Duncan. The satirical publication has been publishing a long-running series on the low-key star by endearing him with abilities worthy of Dos Equis' "Most Interesting Man in The World." "Tim Duncan Scrubs In to Perform Teammate's Arthroscopic Knee Surgery" and "Tim Duncan Spends Free Tim Trying to Get Wrongfully Incarcerated Man Off Death Row" is the Tim Duncan we want our musical based on.
