In 1994, professional basketball was all the rage, largely thanks to the rise of Michael Jordan and the historic run of three back-to-back NBA championships across 1991, 1992, and 1993, as chronicled in “The Last Dance” documentary series.
Before his domination of the NBA, Jordan was considered a blue chip player, an athlete regarded as a hot prospect to be drafted into a professional franchise.
Jordan gained blue chip status out of high school in the early 1980s, but he’d go on to attend college at University of North Carolina before being drafted by the Chicago Bulls in 1984.
It wouldn’t be until 10 years after Jordan’s draft that “The Exorcist” and “The French Connection” director William Friedkin would direct a movie about the corrupt and complicated practice of college recruitment for sports in the perfect basketball movie, “Blue Chips.””Blue Chips,” released in 1994, follows Nick Nolte as Pete Bell, head coach of the fictional Western University Dolphins in Los Angeles.
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