Billy Crystal and Penny Marshall are big NBA fans but have done little to advance the sport in their films. Ezra Shaw/Getty Images

With this year's All-Star Game in Los Angeles, it's no surprise the NBA is playing up the Hollywood theme.

Ever since the Lakers' arrival in Southern California back in 1960, Tinseltown has embraced the pro hoops scene. Just go to any Lakers game and check out the celluloid celebs at Staples Center: Jack. Denzel. Dyan.

Not to mention the Laker Girls.

And how about all those NBA stars over the years who have tried to cross over into acting? Shaq. Ray Allen. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Each has played prominent roles in major motion pictures. Then there's the greatest thespian of them all, Vlade Divac, who has been known to give on-court performances worthy of an Oscar.

But when it comes to sports movies, the NBA is out of its league. Every other major pro sport has at least one certified classic: Bull Durham (baseball). North Dallas Forty (football). Slap Shot (hockey).

The NBA? It's got ... well, let's see ...

The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh?

Space Jam?

Eddie?

As Pacers star and Southern California native Reggie "Hollywood" Miller says, "I guess there really hasn't been a great basketball movie. Space Jam was our best hope, and look where that got us."

On SI's recent list of top 50 sports movies (Aug. 4, 2003), there wasn't a single flick involving an NBA player or pro hoops team. There were movies about golf (Caddyshack), chess (Searching for Bobby Fischer), cycling (Breaking Away) and high school wrestling (Vision Quest).

Even skateboarding has a great film: Dogtown and Z-Boys.

Space Jam? It was voted by SI as the WORST sports movie of all time.

Granted, the sport of basketball has had some shining moments on the silver screen. Hoosiers, Hoop Dreams and He Got Game were all Hollywood hits. But those films were about high school or college hoops, not the NBA.

Miller says his favorite pro hoops flick is probably The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh. In this 1979 cult classic, Julius Erving plays the star of a struggling pro hoops team that turns around its season when its coach takes the advice of an astrologer and begins filling his roster strictly with players born under the sign of Pisces. It's so bad it's good.

Until recently, it was considered Dr. J.'s finest work on film.

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Space Jam features Michael Jordan and several other NBA players battling a team of Looney Tunes cartoon characters. It's only slightly more watchable than a typical Bulls-Magic game. Same goes for Eddie, in which Whoopi Goldberg plays a loudmouth fan who wins a contest to become coach of the Knicks.

Other forgettable NBA-related flicks of recent vintage include My Giant (Georghe Muresan), Like Mike (Lil Bow Wow) and Forget Paris (Billy Crystal).

It's not like the NBA is gaining ground on the competition, either. Miracle, the story of the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team, is currently doing boffo at the box office. Seabiscuit, a horse-racing flick, was the surprise hit of last summer. The best the NBA has come up with of late is The Perfect Score, a new film about high school kids who try to steal the SAT and which features a cameo by the Blazers' Darius Miles.

Why hasn't the NBA, a league full of recognizable faces and magnetic personalities, produced a great sports movie of its own?

Miller believes it might have something to do with the fact that the NBA didn't really catch on until the 1980s. Other sports, like baseball, football and boxing, have been part of the mainstream culture for a lot longer. "I don't know. Maybe those other sports ... people can identify with easier," he said.

The ironic thing is that NBA rosters typically feature more hams than a Beverly Hills deli. OK, so maybe Allen was as wooden as a gym floor in Spike Lee's He Got Game. Maybe Abdul-Jabbar kicked butt only literally in Game of Death and should have gotten the sky hook in his role as a co-pilot in Airplane. And maybe Shaq needed more than three wishes to make it as Kazaam. But there is definitely no shortage of NBA players seeking to hit it big in Hollywood.

We're not saying L.A. won't be a fine host for this year's All-Star Game. Staples Center surely will be rocking when Shaq, Kobe, KG, T-Mac and The Answer take the floor Sunday night. The beautiful people on celebrity row might even put away their cell phones.

But when it comes to movies, the NBA has a long way to go to catch up to the rest of America's major pro sports. The All-Star Game in Hollywood? Forget rolling out the red carpet. David Stern needs to send this script back for rewrite.

Marty Burns covers pro basketball for SI.com.