Analytical Breakdown of the 'Space Jam' Tune Squad

by Preston Tolliver
Let's be honest -- there are a lot of things in “Space Jam” that don't make sense. Not the whole "Michael Jordan being sucked down a golf hole and having to save a world of cartoon characters from a team of aliens who stole talent from other NBA players" thing. That's super plausible. In fact, I would argue that “Space Jam” is just as responsible for His Airness returning to the court as “Rocky IV” was for ending the Cold War. Facts are facts, and it's silly to dwell on them.

What doesn't make sense, however, is the structure of the Tune Squad: its two tallest starters, Jordan and Bugs Bunny, filled the backcourt, while they put their two shortest players, Daffy Duck and the Tasmanian Devil, in the post to duel it out with the juiced-up alien equivalents of Patrick Ewing and Larry Johnson. Sure, Jordan has always played the two, but in this case, wouldn't it make sense to put him near the basket? And if the stories were reversed, and the Tune Squad possessed talents of NBA players, whose souls would have been absorbed into that magic, glowing basketball that was never really explained?

Before we continue, let's take a look at the Monstars. There's no need to analyze their on-court talents and compare them to NBA players, because we know who they're supposed to be:

• Pound, the round, orange alien who possesses Charles Barkley's talent

• Bang, the green alien with a flattop who possesses Patrick Ewing's talent

• Bupkus, the purple alien who possesses Larry Johnson's talent

• Blanko, the tall, lanky blue alien who possesses Shawn Bradley's talent

• Nawt, the red, short alien, who possesses Muggsy Bogues's talent

The movie only shows us only a few minutes of actual game time in what's really a 48-minute contest (as proven by different shots of the scoreboard throughout the latter half of the film), making it difficult to surmise who did what on the court. For example, it's entirely possible that Daffy Duck, even though we never saw him take so much as a shot attempt, led the team in scoring, rather than Michael Jordan -- we just didn't see it. So all we can really do is a little math, and assume that final stats were relative to what we saw on screen. Additionally, everything in this article assumes that Michael refused to rest on the bench any during the game, which, knowing his psychopathic, not at all normal or healthy level of competitiveness, isn't that hard to believe. Furthermore, in a land where characters endure falling Acme anvils and exploding sticks of dynamite on a pretty common basis, you have to translate such shenanigans to your typical basketball statistics. For example, even though he didn't swat the ball out of Bupkus's hands, we can count Wile E. Coyote's rigging of the basket with enough dynamite to level a small town as a blocked shot.

Where we run into some controversy is in the last 10 seconds of the game, at which time the Tune Squad is, according to the scoreboard, down 77-67. However, before their final timeout expires, the Tune Squad is within reach -- down 77-76 -- and not coincidentally, Bill Murray runs out of the locker room after the team is told they'll have to forfeit without a fifth player. So, it would be logical to surmise that prior to running out on the court, Bill Murray stopped at the scorer's table and talked his way into nine points, because, well, he's Bill Murray. This would also make him either the second or third leading scorer on the team.

So, when we transfer all these shenanigans and hijinks and tomfoolery and whatever other silly word you want to use to describe whatever the hell went on, those five or six minutes we see look a little like this:

Michael Jordan: 14 points, 1 assist

Bill Murray: 9 points

Lola Bunny: 2 points

Bugs Bunny: 2 assists, 1 steal

Daffy Duck: Nothing. Daffy did nothing. At all.

Taz: 2 points

Foghorn Leghorn: 1 assist

Porky Pig: 2 points

Elmer Fudd: 2 points

Tweety Bird: 1 assist

Sylvester the Cat: 1 assist

Stan Podolak: 2 points

Wile E. Coyote: 1 block

Pepe Le Pew: 2 points

Yosemite Sam: Also nothing

On-screen, that adds up to 35 total on-screen points (again, we're giving those nine instantaneous points to Bill Murray), six assists, one steal and a block. Since that still leaves 43 unclaimed points, we can use some math and a little logical reasoning to assume the final scoring breakdown would look a little more like this (obviously, bench players would likely see little to no change, and players like Stan Podalak and Bill Murray, whose time on the court we saw in their entirety, will be unaltered):

Michael Jordan: 37 points

Lola Bunny: 12 points

Bill Murray: 9 points

Bugs Bunny: 4 points

Taz: 6 points

Porky Pig: 4 points

Elmer Fudd: 4 points

Stan Podalak: 2 points

Of course, there's more to a player than what translates to a stat sheet, especially when drawing comparisons between the tunes and actual NBA players (obviously, there's no need to draw comparisons for Michael Jordan -- if you have to ask why, you should probably take a break from reading this and instead watch this video). So, without further ado, here's a little breakdown of a few of the Tune Squad's other pieces:

Point Guard — Bugs Bunny

Standing at 3'3" (4 feet, if you count the ears), Bugs Bunny was the second-tallest player on the court, behind only Jordan; he was a full foot taller than Daffy Duck at the power forward position, and nearly twice the height as Taz at the center. So what we have here is more of a point forward, a position that has been perfected really by only two people: most recently LeBron James, and much more importantly, Magic Johnson, who, during the 1980 NBA Finals, famously played all five positions for the Los Angeles Lakers in a Stone Cold-level mudhole-stomping of the Philadelphia 76ers.

During that 1979-80 season, the 6'9" Johnson, who was started as the team's shooting guard, was also the second-tallest player of the five starters, falling short of only Kareem Abdul-Jabbar at 7'2". He also currently sits at fifth place for the most assists in a career with 10,141 -- we know that Bugs Bunny still has, at most, 10,139 to go to catch up to Johnson, but he's still the Tunes' leading playmaker, nonetheless.

In what we see of the game, Bugs is the only player to log more than one assist (okay, he only got two, but that's a lot for the four or five minutes we actually saw of the game). So it would be safe to assume that he led the Tune Squad in assists, probably notching upward of 8-10 for the duration of the game.

But Johnson isn't the only NBA player -- or even Laker -- the Wild Hare draws comparisons to. Jerry West, aptly nicknamed The Logo, earned his infamous moniker after becoming the silhouette that still remains on the NBA's trademark. Another comparison of the two comes off the court -- Bugs' first appearance, coming in Porky's Hare Hunt, was on April 30, 1938. Not even a month later, in a very small town called Chelyan, W.V. Jerry West was born, on May 28. Coincidence? Probably not, dudes.

 

Small Forward — Lola Bunny

Aside from Michael Jordan, Lola Bunny is the only Tune Squad player who has on-court experience, and as such is the team's second-leading scorer (and most-harassed player, because, well, sexism).

Lola enters the movie as a new character, giving the team some much-needed basketball IQ (and Bugs Bunny an apparently much-needed love interest). In the game, her only highlight is after Pound calls her "doll," which apparently awakens her inner Blake Griffin and she dunks the ball in Pounds face in the name of glorious feminism.

Here's where I run into trouble and you probably stop reading this article (Okay, you probably stopped a long time ago). I'm not as brushed up on WNBA as I should be, so it would be silly to try to draw comparisons between Lola and another female player, because I simply don't know enough about WNBA players to make any logical argument. What I can do is compare her to James Harden a la 2013, when he really broke out as on offensive star. But like that 2013 James Harden, we don't see much defense from Lola -- she can turn Pound's face into mush on the way to the basket, but she's nowhere to be found when the Monstars have the ball. Nevertheless, she does provide the Tune Squad a needed scoring option -- Michael Jordan and Bill Murray can't carry the team alone.

Power Forward — Daffy Duck

Okay, Daffy Duck didn't do nothing, but he didn't really do much. He absolutely did nothing that translated to the stat sheet, but he did provide some decent defense down the stretch, if we're counting painting Pound's derriere red so he could be gored by Toro, but his efficiency is better measured off the court -- sure, he has a propensity for being a loudmouth, and his ego clears the line from confidence to cockiness, but that isn't always a bad thing. Take Nick Young, of the Los Angeles Lakers, for instance -- I fancy myself an NBA fan (no, really), but I couldn't tell you what that dude's done on the court other than talk big and prematurely celebrate missed shots. What he did give the Lakers, though, was character for a team that had little else than an injured Kobe Bryant and Carlos Boozer (God help us). What he gave them, and what Daffy brought to the Tune Squad, was swagger.

Center — Tasmanian Devil

The Tune Squad went small in the post, planting literally their smallest player in the center position. It doesn't make much sense until you consider the brutish manner in which the 2''4" "Wonder from Down Under" carries himself -- he's quick, short-tempered, and, as Wikipedia describes him, "He is best known for his speech consisting mostly of grunts, growls and rasps, and his ability to spin like a vortex and bite through just about anything."

You want the man guarding the basket to be physically menacing. You want him to make sounds that you're afraid to get too close to, and you want someone who will follow through if an opposing player gets even remotely out of line. This is what we refer to as being Zach Randolph.

And finally...

Center - Foghorn Leghorn

Foghorn Leghorn's only time on the court (spent just before he's turned into a KFC menu item) is spent trotting down the court, drawing shades of Kendrick Perkins leading a fast break (see 00:53 here).

Note: You do not want Kendrick Perkins on your team. You never want Kendrick Perkins on your team.

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