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MSN Movies4Top 10 Basketball Movies
Intro/Coach Carter
The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh
Blue Chips
One on One
Above the Rim
White Men Can't Jump
Love & Basketball
Hoosiers
He Got Game
Hoop Dreams
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9. The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh (1979)


The Lowdown: Before there was "Space Jam," there was "The Fish." More entertaining than it ever deserves to be, "Fish" features Julius "Dr. J" Erving as Moses Guthrie, the only star on a hopeless Pittsburgh Pythons team. Towel/ball boy (you're never really sure what he does for them) Tyrone (James Bond III) decides the only way to fix their chemistry is to use the zodiac to put the right players around the Pisces, Moses. With the help of astrologer Mona Mondieu (Stockard Channing), they persuade the team's crazy owner (Jonathan Winters) to stage open tryouts where players are selected based on their sign. A motley crew of characters is assembled -- including legendary Harlem Globetrotter Meadowlark Lemon (as a ball-playing preacher) -- and surprisingly the Pythons go on a roll!

Quality of Play: Beautiful. Lemon's passing skills dazzle against NBA quality players and Dr. J has moves you still don't see today.

Real Ballers: Julius Erving, Meadowlark Lemon, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Norm Nixon, Connie Hawkins, Don Chaney, Chris Ford, Spencer Haywood, Bob Lanier, Cedric "Cornbread" Maxwell, Mychal Thompson and many more.

Find It: Specialty video stores if you're lucky... but we're crying for someone to produce a collector's edition DVD.

Next: 'Blue Chips'
©United Artists
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