Now that LeBron James has ended Cleveland’s 52-year championship drought, helping a group of animated characters battle interstellar baddies in Space Jam 2 should be a piece of cartoon cake. And while there’s no details on the plot or a release date, we fill in the gaps with things we think should be slam dunks in the sequel to the 1996 film that meshed Michael Jordan with Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and the rest of the Looney Tunes.
J.R. Smith: Kyrie Irving may be the best player on the Cleveland Cavaliers after James, but Smith’s swagger and distance sharpshooting makes him one of the most entertaining. So he’s a perfect fit to be James’ teammate in an out-of-this-world basketball brawl. Plus, he’ll fit right in with the shirtless Bugs and Daffy.
Villains: While animated versions of the Golden State Warriors’ Stephen Curry, Draymond Green and Andre Iguodala seem like the obvious miscreants, James has already beaten them. We wouldn’t mind seeing Jordan take a turn as the bad guy along with bearded Houston Rocket James Harden, unibrowed New Orleans Pelican Anthony Davis and finger-wagging Toronto Raptor Bismack Biyombo. But for good measure, let’s throw Anderson Varejao’s curly mop top in the lineup too.
Soundtrack: R. Kelly’s “I Believe I Can Fly” from the Space Jam soundtrack, which sold 6 million copies, earned the artist three Grammy Awards. But we’d like to see the sequel’s music have some local edge from rapper Machine Gun Kelly, who performed at the Cavs June 22 championship parade. And who wouldn’t want to see a hip-hop video pairing MGK and the Tasmanian Devil?
