Apparently, the turn-of-the-decade period between the 70s and 80s was the first golden age of NBA stars hitting the big screen. You had Kareem in Airplane!, Wilt in Conan the Destroyer and Sixers immortal Dr. J in The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh--the disco-era, astrology-fixated pro-ball comedy released on November 6th, 1979. It's utterly impossible to piece together what this movie is about from the title and poster alone--some sort of lucky magic fish that helps a team of ragtags and misfits to cheat their way to a championship, maybe, like The Sixth Man with a sturgeon replacing Kadeem Hardison--and after reading plot summaries from about a half-dozen sources, I still don't really have a clue. What I know is this:

1. It's based around the idea of organizing a basketball team based on having the same astrological sign (Pisces, the fish of the title), thus adding to team chemistry. One one level, this idea sounds too absurd to base even a ridiculous cameo-fest of a movie around, but on another level, it also seems oddly ahead of its time.

2. Julius Erving'