Earlier this week, Coach Nick over at BBALLBREAKDOWN did a breakdown the likes of which we haven't really seen before. Anyone who's familiar with Coach Nick, knows he's notorious for breaking down NBA games whether it happened last night or 30 years ago. He breaks the game down from offensive sets to defensive schemes and everything in-between. Most recently, he did one on one of the biggest games in basketball history; The Looney Toons vs. The Monstars from the 1996 classic, 'Space Jam'. I'm pretty sure we've all seen 'Space Jam' at this point. I mean, you're on Ballislife, right? This is Ballislife 101 right here.
It may have been a while, but if you recall, Michael Jordan is recruited by the Looney Toons to help them in their game against the Monstars. The Monstars, at one time a group of small, inferior aliens, are now larger than life after stealing NBA players talent. I'm sure as the ones watched as kids, myself included, you were so enticed by the fact Michael Jordan was playing with Bugs Bunny and company that you didn't really take into account everything that was illegal in the game itself. Coach Nick helps us out by breaking down the historic game in the way only he can.
It's pretty comical to see a game like that get a serious breakdown. If it's been a while since you've seen the movie, I'm sure you probably thought, "Man! I never saw it like that before." It's true, the Toon Squad is pretty bad fundamentally and they really don't seem to even understand the game. Although, bugs isn't all bad. He seems to know what he's doing, which is impressive since he spends the majority of his life taunting Elmer Fudd.
What's most interesting about this? It has to be the fact that none of us ever caught that MJ had his "Secret Stuff" that suddenly made everyone that drank it incredibly swole. With all of the steroid use we see in sports nowaday, mainly baseball, yes, that would be an instant red flag to viewers nowadays that they were taking PED's. Back in 1996, we just thought that was magic of some sort.
In the end, though, no matter how old we get, this movie will always be a classic. The Toon Squad prevailed, the bad guys lost, Bill Murray got some playing time, MJ is freakishly flexible and Marvin the Martian is the worst ref in the history of sports.
Check out the rest of Coach Nick's fantastic breakdowns on his YouTube channel and follow him on twitter @BballSource for more basketball insights.