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In the 80-something days since a live professional basketball game was last played on American soil, the NBA has tried all sorts of gimmicks to keep fans entertained. As The Last Dance proved, though, digging up vintage footage is the way to go. So it's a wonder the league hasn't yet pulled the ultimate classic content out of the mothballs: MTV's annual Rock N' Jock charity games, in which active pros played while D-list celebs. It was a great Saturday afternoon time waster back in the '90s. We watched the 1993 iteration on YouTube, and here were some of the highlights:
1:25—In case you missed which year this was from, the broadcast opens with the crowd at the Bren Events Center at UC Irvine waving its hands to Naughty by Nature's "Hip-Hop Hooray." Your announcer team for the evening is Marv Albert's nonunion equivalent, his younger brother Steve Albert, and a freshly bar mitzvahed Jon Stewart.
2:43—The Bricklayers are two-time winners at this point, so the producers appear to have stacked the deck in favor of their opponents. While the reigning champs have a Big Three of Rick Mahorn, Mark Jackson and Blazers legend Cliff Robinson, the underdog Violators have Vlade Divac, Gary Payton and Dan Majerle, with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as their coach! Even the celebrity players seem out of proportion: The Violators have known baller Jeff Ament of Pearl Jam, while the Bricklayers get Black Crowes drummer Steve Gorman. "I've got nothing else to do," Gorman mumbles in his intro video. You sure don't.
14:01—The 25-point basket (later worth 50) makes its first-ever appearance, lowering from the ceiling with two minutes left in the first quarter.
23:16—Bill Bellamy goes iso against Dan Cortese, sparking a bench-clearing brawl that sees Rick Mahorn getting sent to the "penalty box," where he's interviewed by Daisy Fuentes, because this sentence just wasn't quite 1993 enough.
48:35—Phoenix Suns center Oliver Miller sinks the first-ever 25-point basket in history, perhaps his most notable contribution to the sport other than later getting kicked off the Harlem Globetrotters for being out of shape.
49:00—Tag Team performs its hit single "Whoomp! (There It Is)." Many whoomps are spotted.
1:00:39—Uncle Cliffy tosses in the game's second 25-pointer with a minute left. The Bricklayers three-peat and, somewhere, Michael Jordan is almost certainly taking it personally.
Related: Going Through Sports Withdrawal? Get Your Fix With the 2000 World's Strongest Man Competition.