This version of the ABA is less fun than the original

"Semi-Pro" is the perfect name for this movie, because it feels like a half-baked comedy made by semi-professionals.

The story is set during the final year of the American Basketball Association, a real basketball league founded in 1967 and dissolved in 1976. The ABA was the flashy cousin to the NBA that introduced to basketball the three-point line, slam-dunk contests and giant Afros, not to mention desperate publicity stunts such as bear wrestling and halter-top nights.

The more you know about the original league, the more disappointed you'll be by this tepid comedy. It takes real elements from the ABA and actually tone them down!

Will Ferrell plays Jackie Moon, a one-hit wonder who used the proceeds from his song "Love Me Sexy" to buy the (fictional) Flint, Mich., Tropics. He also plays on the team.

When he finds out that only four of the ABA's teams are going to be absorbed into the NBA at the end of 1976 and the rest of the league will disband, he proposes that it should be the best four teams. The owners of the Denver Nuggets, San Antonio Spurs, Indiana Pacers and New York Nets are not worried.

What follows is your standard "lousy team pulls together to get good" story line common to sports comedies. Jackie Moon brings in Monix (Woody Harrelson), a has-been NBA player, to help lead the team to victory.

It all could have been a nice background to a manic Will Ferrell comedy, but director Kent Alterman records Scot Armstrong's hackneyed script faithfully and without much improv, which leads to far too many "serious moments" that kill the pace of the film.

If Ferrell and the rest of the great cast had any fun making this movie, you wouldn't know by what ended up in the final cut. There are a few laughs, but nowhere near enough.