Will Ferrell may not have gotten a role on former peer Adam McKay’s Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty he wanted but his Jackie Moon from 2008’s Semi-Pro remains iconic, and he just played him again to help a real team.
SportsCenter posted the above footage of The Shrink Next Door star running out with the Golden State Warriors yesterday as his one-hit-wonder from 1976 who bought a fictional basketball team and took to the court with them. Many of the responses to the tweet so far are negative, and ESPN reported more the same evening on how this crossover came to be.
Apparently, Ferrell is a big fan of the team’s Klay Thompson and emailed coach Steve Kerr a while ago. Kerr did not believe it was him, later realized it was, and the two then crafted a plan for him to appear and motivate when the team was stuck in a five-game slump before beating the LA Clippers last night.
“He knows how much Klay loves dressing up as Jackie Moon, so it felt like a natural fit and it felt like the time to do it, too — make everyone laugh in a touch stretch in the season and he was great. He came into the locker room and made the guys laugh. Everybody loved seeing him and hearing from him. He’s hilarious. It was just something different.”
Sports fans and athletes can have a superstitious tendency, so who knows, maybe the Warriors will call Ferrell again when things are down. There is no actual scientific evidence, but anecdotally, his presence and humor improved their performance.