In Honor Of The FBI/College Basketball Trial: Let's Bring Back Blue Chips With This New Cast

So our guy Capt. Cons shot this over to me last week and I’ve been thinking about it ever since. I didn’t want to put it in the Mailbag because it deserves its own blog. Let’s think about this too – we’re right in the middle of the FBI trial investigating college basketball. Plus, is there a better movie to recast than Blue Chips. It’s one of the best hoops movies out there and just makes sense to do with the paying of players like we saw in Blue Chips.

With that in mind, we’ll focus on recasting the following characters: Coach Pete Bell (Nick Nolte), his wife Jenny (Mary McDonnell), booster Happy Kuykendahl (J.T. Walsh), Ed the sports writer (Ed O’Neil) and then the three star players Ricky Roe (Matt Nover), Neon Boudeaux (Shaq) and Butch McRae (Penny Hardaway).

I know my graphics won’t look as good as the Big Time Movie Boys, but I’m a basketball guy. I also like pop culture, so here we go to connect both worlds.

Coach Pete Bell – Kevin Costner

Kevin Costner playing alongside Sandra Bullock just makes sense to me here. They look like they could be married and we’ve seen him with a supportive yet estranged marriage before. Costner also has the make of a guy that could break rules but immediately feel bad about it and second guess everything. I do need him to rock the goatee as Coach Pete Bell though.

Jenny Bell – Sandra Bullock

This feels like a no-brainer for me. Sandra Bullock is perfect at playing the sports wife. I may just be thinking of The Blind Side, but she fits this need perfectly. Jenny was supportive and also a trainer to the kids. You’re telling me you can’t see Sandra be supportive, yet a bit of a bitch to Pete Bell while also helping out the players? She’s my choice.

Happy Kuykendahl – Brad Leland

I mean Leland has already nailed this role before and it’s the one he’s made to play. Dirty booster that will do anything to see his team win? Sound familiar? Sound a bit like Buddy Garrity? Yeah, I know it’s type-casting, but there’s literally no one better to play the dirty booster better than Brad Leleand. Hell, it just feels weird to call him anything but Buddy.

Ed, the sports writer – Bill Hader

A bit of a weird pick here, but I’m sort of going on two things here. First, Bill Hader just looks like he’s a newspaper writer. I mean not even on-line stuff, he just looks like he would write op-ed pieces or something like for newspapers. There’s just something about him. Second, O’Neil was able to go from 7 years of Married With Children into Blue Chips and it didn’t feel like it was Al Bundy playing Ed. Hader has been more of a comedian obviously, but after a year of Barry, I think we can see him get into another character.

Ricky Roe – Kristaps Porzingis

Ricky was a quieter dude out of the big 3 and Kristaps sort of fits that build a bit. Both came from a ‘weird’ place as Roe was from the farms of Indiana and Kristaps is from Clem’s favorite vacation spot Latvia. Ricky being a forward also helps with Kristaps being picked here.

Neon Boudeaux – Karl-Anthony Towns

A big, uber-talented and goofy big guy? No brainer here. Give me Karl-Anthony Towns for Neon. Really it’s just a two-man race between KAT and Joel Embiid. That said, I’ll give the nod to KAT here. Towns was the No. 1 or 2 center coming out of high school as well depending where you looked. So with that and his personality, it’s a good fit for the new Neon.

Butch McRae – Kyrie Irving

Kyrie already has some acting experience with Uncle Drew, so we’ll slide him in for the point guard spot here too. He’s a bit older, which does make me hesitant to take him over someone like Ben Simmons here. But, with that in mind Butch was a bit overshadowed by Neon, similar to Kyrie and LeBron. Penny also build a relationship with Shaq here a year before being drafted by the Magic, so the Knicks fan in me is hoping Kristaps can convince Kyrie to leave somehow.